UO to push 2010 commencement forward to accomodate track & field finals
The UO administration is going to push 2010 graduations forward a week, meaning during finals week, so as not to conflict with the NCAA Track and Field Finals. From an email sent out to the deans and directors listserv on behalf of Senior Vice President and Provost Jim Bean:
We are planning ahead to accommodate a scheduling issue for June 2010. UO has been awarded the NCAA Track & Field Finals June 9-12, 2010. This coincides with UO commencement ceremonies currently scheduled for June 10-12, 2010. After careful consultation with many groups, we are moving commencement back to June 3, 4, 5, 2010 (not this year) but not changing any class or exam schedules. This means that commencement ceremonies will be held June 3, 4, 5, 2010 and final exams will take place June 7 -11, 2010. Thus, seniors graduating spring term 2010 will march in commencement before they take their final exams. This is not ideal, but the preponderance of feeling was that it was the better solution.
It’s completely asinine to make seniors complete their finals and deal with graduation all in the same week. I usually have trouble taking the “athletics have completely supplanted education in American universities” argument too seriously, but this is just ridiculous. The email, by the way, was sent our way by everyone’s favorite gadfly Professor Bill Harbaugh, who had this to say:
I suppose the next step is to appoint our Athletic Director – a booster who doesn’t have a college degree and got the job after donating $2 million to buy out his predecessor – UO’s next President.
I’m guessing this is somehow related to the hundreds of thousands Phil Knight has given to UO to supplement Frohnmayer’s salary, and to the millions he (with some from AD Kilkenny as well) has given to the Frohnmayer’s Fanconi Foundation.
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Nike arena ticket prices to be announced in Portland at a U.O.A.D. press conference. Seems like they are scared of angry Eugene ducks reactions. See Bob Clarks Register Guard blog for the details.
Send the fascist Nike trials to the fascist Nike World Campus/ cult headquarters near Beaverton. Phil can loan out his private jets to ferry track loving ducks there to scream and cheer and make Phil feel good and we can get a new ASUO approved fee to pay for it all.
Last summer when the Olympic Trials and graduation more or less coincided, every hotel within 60 miles was packed and people were renting rooms in their houses in Eugene for some pretty heady prices.
Graduating friends, families and friends, then add in all the athletes and spectators… where are they all going to stay ?
To be fair, it’s not so much about athletics v. academics; it’s “Gee, two weekends of an influx of money-wielding ‘tourists’. Sign us up!” Also, in all the UO graduations I’ve attended (way too many), convocation (the all-college one) is very under-attended, and my guess is the decision-makers here don’t give two shits about the department festivities.
It’s been patently obvious for years that Das Frohn and his acolytes don’t give two shits about the students who enable them to have cushy, PR jobs. The WRC thing back in 1998 proved what a gullible idiot of an administrator Frohymeyer is. His continued reliance on Melida Greir for legal opinions about student matters – Saferide (anyone else remember that?), various OC defunding attempts, our preemptive parody of the Voice’s Purim issue — not to mention the diversity plan — demonstrates his lack of management skills.
Smart guy, brilliant lawyer, usually a good sense of humor about things (like when we said he was dead), but an utterly clueless administrator and not a very good University President. There are reasons the only thing I’ll give money to at UO, when I have money to give, is the Economics summer camp.
I don’t know…it just seems wacky.
Maybe if they cleared the Friday of finals week of any tests somehow and made it then instead it would make more sense? It just seems to me that if people come here and pay 15-50K for their education (or more depending) they should be able to have one day free of crap to celebrate their expenses ($, time, and so on). I know it’s chintzy or cliche to make that point, but how many people are going to have to choose between a final exam and having lunch with their family before/after graduation? It seems like it will be a lot of people…
What about a mass graduation in Autzen? Something cool done up there would even be better than what this sounds like.
The decision seems very thought-less.
Chris, I know they spoke with the Intercollegiate Athletic Committee spoke about this maybe a month or more ago, and there were several people against moving 2010 Commencement to the weekend before Finals–including Sen. Weintraub. Unfortunately, the IAC is charged to “Advise the administration, the senate, and the athletics director on any athletics department policy or program, including the athletics department budget,” but has no decision making privileges.
That is amazing….and totally not surprising. If they’re going to do that, they should just move it all back to the first week of Spring or something like that. At least it wouldn’t mess with students’ heads as their families are coming to town WHILE they are trying to take their finals….WHILE people are still going to be showing up the week prior to the track event.
LOL
I wonder who they consulted (if anyone) when they decided that this was the better solution?
Hahaha.
Wow.
I try not to use cuss words when I write on-line but
Fuck.
That’s when I graduate (or at least that’s my plan).
Good lord. This is appalling.