Subject: Re: Financial transparency motion
To: Frances Dyke
From: Peter B Gilkey
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2009 07:10:31 -0700

Dear Frances.

I confess that I was not part of the "concensus" concerning the financial transparancy motion brought before the Senate Executive Committee yesterday by the Senior Senator from Natural Sciences Nathan Tublitz of which the Senate President wrote previously. But in fairness let me note that mine was probably one of at most two disenting voices in this regard. But for that reason, I am writing to you to express my reservations. The motion (at least the version I have at present) states:

"The University Senate directs the University of Oregon Administration to establish an on-line budget reporting system at the University of Oregon by 1 January 2010 that will allow users to track individual university expenditures as is currently done at our sister institution Oregon State University on their budget reporting website (https://bfpsystems.oregonstate.edu/webreporting/)."

My reservations concerning this motion are twofold.

a) I do not believe it is within the pervue of the Senate to "direct" the UO Administration in this regard. Under our system of shared governance, certain things clearly fall under the jurisdiction of the Senate -- the curriculum and the student conduct code being two such exemplars. But I believe certain matters really do not fall under the pervue of the Senate and that this motion is an illustration of this sort of thing. So I would prefer the motion to be "recommends" rather than "directs".

b) Even if the motion were to say "recommends" rather than "directs" I would question the wisdom of the motion. I would vastly prefer that a major change of this nature be first vetted by a joint senate administration committee to look carefully at the implications of the action proposed. Our system of governance is committee based -- many people look at proposed actions and think carefully about the policy implications and usually come to a concensus. There is, regretfully, the law of unintended consequences at work in human affairs -- broad sweeping policies (even if well intended) often can create disaster -- the devil is always in the detail.

As you know, one of the pecularities of our system of governance is that in fact I am NOT a member of the Senate this year. Still, I have the right to the floor and intend to express reservations as noted above during the debate on the motion in question.

There. I feel much better knowing matters are in more capable hands than mine. And I will now turn my attention to more pleasant matters as it is a splendid Spring morning here in the Wilamette valley. Thank you for your attention. I am copying this to the Senate Webmaster and respectfully requesting him to put this on the letters and documents page along with other communications in this regard.

Respectfully expressing reservations

Peter B Gilkey