The past year was a roller coaster of triumphs and tribulations for the University of Oregon, but with the firing and hiring of a new president, widening state disinvestment in higher education and Governor John Kitzhaber’s plan to overhaul Oregon’s public education system, the announcement of UO Provost James Bean’s resignation effective July 1 brings the state’s flagship institution to yet another crossroads.
The announcement came this past Wednesday in a letter from UO President Michael Gottfredson. Bean has served as the UO’s chief academic officer for the past four years with a one-year sabbatical from which he returned at the beginning of this academic year. His return was perfectly timed with Gottfredson’s campus debut to help transition the UO’s new leader into the role.
“His efforts to develop a transparent budget system for the University and to place the campus on a better financial footing have been especially noteworthy,” Gottfredson wrote. “I am also personally very grateful for his guidance, counsel and leadership during my first months here.”
Bean says that he is excited to get back to teaching but will continue to work with the administration in an advisory role even after he steps aside. He believes his previous experience of working at the University of Michigan’s engineering and business schools can translate to success here at the UO.
“I’ve been honored to be able to serve in this position, but I want to return to help develop the next opportunities for the University to improve its AAU ratings and applying my experience from my time at Michigan,” Bean said.
Former UO president and current law professor Dave Frohnmayer expressed his gratitude toward Bean’s tenure as provost. Frohnmayer said that without Bean’s Big Ideas project — a campaign to elicit ideas for academic and research improvement in an open forum style — the UO would have missed major opportunities for programs that may not have surfaced otherwise.
“I think Jim Bean has done an outstanding job in one of the toughest assignments in American higher education,” Frohnmayer said. “He carried on effective dialogue with faculty leadership in the Big Ideas effort, which helped discover the interests of the faculty across colleges and disciplines.”
Over the coming weeks, President Gottfredson will take input on an interim replacement while the UO prepares for yet another national search. This time the main theme of the search will be improving the UO’s academic stature.
Despite the UO showing preference to close national searches run by consulting firms, some faculty members want to keep the search in the hands of faculty and faculty administrators.
Biology professor and former faculty senate president Nathan Tublitz has put forth a motion for the search to be headed by a joint faculty-administration committee comprised of tenure and non-tenure faculty, a dean and an administrator.
Tublitz said that he wants to see the faculty hire a new provost who will work more closely with students and faculty to improve issues like the number of students, class sizes and updating facilities as well as fostering a better research environment to maintain the UO’s relationship with the Association of American Universities.
“The outgoing provost didn’t spend enough time working on issues directly relating to students,” Tublitz said. “I hope the next provost will work to positively impact students.”
With talk of change, some professors have expressed a hankering for more energetic leadership, possibly someone on the younger side. Tublitz expressed that age isn’t a factor in his mind.
“Younger is not important; energetic is essential,” he said.