March 6: Rob Mullens and Eric Roedl tell Board why Ducks can’t support UO 03/05/2015

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March 6: Rob Mullens and Eric Roedl tell Board why Ducks can’t support UO

  03/05/2015

FRIDAY, MARCH 6, 2015 PUBLIC MEETING, FORD ALUMNI CENTER, GIUSTINA BALLROOM

8:00 – Board members meet with faculty. Faculty Trustee Susan Gary (Law) gives her talking points and etiquette tips here.

10:00 am (other times approximate) – Reconvene Public Meeting – Verification of quorum
Invited Presentations

8. University of Oregon Diversity Framework – Dr. Yvette Alex‐Assensoh, Vice President for Equity and Inclusion

9. Innovation, Tech Transfer and Economic Development – Dr. Brad Shelton, Interim Vice
President for Research and Innovation; Dr. Chuck Williams, Associate Vice President for Research

10. Department of Intercollegiate Athletics – Rob Mullens, Director of Intercollegiate Athletics; Eric Roedl, Executive Senior Associate Athletic Director for Finance and Administration

Last week UO undergrad Andrew Lubash – the Truman Scholar that Andrew Marcus highlighted in his remarks to the board on Thursday – led UO’s student government in two votes to reject the Mullens and Roedl attempt to take 10% more in student fees for athletics:

Dear Students,

On Saturday, February 21st, the ASUO Senate will be allocating over $15 million of your student fee dollars to pay for programs, departments, contracted services, the EMU, and of course, football and basketball tickets from the Athletic Department.

Out of the $15 million ASUO budget, students spend $1,695,348 paying for the football and men’s basketball ticket lottery. This comes down to about $71 per year that students pay through their mandatory fees for the chance to go to our athletic events. We, the undersigned, think this is too high. …

And on Wednesday, the UO Senate voted unanimously to make the Duck Athletic Department make long overdue payments to UO’s academic side: 

Payments by Athletic Department for General Academic Purposes

Section I

1.1 WHEREAS in 2004, the UO Athletics Task Force, which included President Dave Frohnmayer, Athletic Director Bill Moos, NCAA Faculty Athletics Representative Jim O’Fallon, the Senate President, and many Senate and faculty representatives, concluded a three-year study of UO athletics with a report that stated as recommendation #1,

“The Task Force and the Athletic Department recommend a voluntary financial contribution by
athletics to the Presidential Scholarship fund.”[1]; and …

1.10 WHEREAS during that time the athletic department has not made any such contributions and in fact has received increasing subsidies from the academic budget; and ….

Section II

2.1 BE IT HEREBY MOVED that the President shall provide the Senate with a budget and a schedule for implementation for payments from the Athletic Department budget for the support of general academic purposes no later than the first Senate meeting of May 2015, and that this schedule shall include a payment of no less than 0.5% of total Athletic Department revenue for the 2015-16 FY, and increasing to no less than 1% for the 2016-17 FY, and increasing in subsequent years by no less than 0.5 percentage points, until it reaches 3%.

Some might say that Rob Mullens, Eric Roedl, and Dana Altman are leeches, feasting on the blood of UO students:

 But I prefer to think that they are just  humans, who face some really unfortunate incentives. Take Rob Mullens, for example:

The UO Board of Trustees could have written incentives into his contract to reward him for reducing the athletic departments costs, or for making payments for academic scholarships.

Instead they wrote him a contract that rewards him for winning games, no matter what it costs. So is it any wonder that he’s bleeding UO dry to to do what he’s paid to do?

A rational contract – the contract Chuck Lillis, or any other CEO on the UO board would have written if their own money was at stake – would reward Mullens for delivering profits that would help further UO’s academic mission.

But it’s not the board’s money at stake. It’s the student’s money. So the board wrote him a contract that rewards him for sucking more money out of UO and spending on sports. And he’s delivering.

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