Officers of Administration
at the University of Oregon

Elections

For the first time, the 2003 OA Council elections were held as part of the faculty election process. The election was 100% electronic, which ensured a genuine secret ballot, and which saved considerable time for Council members.
Loose ends: Participation in the election needs to increase, both in number of candidates as well as in number of voters.
A voter information web site (linked to the ballot site) would be helpful.

Name and Image

We changed the name of the organization from Officers of Administration Association/OAA Council, to Officers of Administration/OA Council. Dropping "Association" is intended to support our larger goal of being a representative body within the mainstream of University governance.

Attendance Policy

We created an attendance policy which allows the Council to remove members who consistently fail to attend meetings.
Loose end: We still need a policy for filling Council vacancies.

Coordination with Other Elected OAs

We have put OA Senators and OA representatives to the Faculty Advisory Council on our e-mail list to provide notification of our agendas and activities.
Loose end: Cross-membership among these three groups (Senate, FAC, OA Council) has many advantages but is not currently occurring. Perhaps scheduling periodic meetings of these elected OAs would be a viable alternative.

We reviewed all recent surveys and meeting minutes to create a FAQ list .
Loose end: Some items remain confusing, in particular contract types/colors. The time may have come for a systematic review of the FAQ to generate items that need attention.

Performance Appraisal

Working with Human Resources, we developed sample forms for OA annual evaluations. Feedback indicates that these have improved the quality and frequency of evaluations in some departments. http://hr.uoregon.edu/oa/oa-pa-intro.html
Loose ends: Explore creating a framework for in-depth long-period written evaluations, such as five year reviews that could be related to merit increases, using outside referees and identifying specific long-term goals.
Investigate the inconsistency between UO Policy mandating annual evaluations and current practice in many departments: how can we encourage more consistent use of evaluations?
Would it be useful to have units report that they completed evaluations, so a department consistently not reporting would be noticed?
Create or find a succinct, compelling position paper on the importance of evaluations for employer and employee to distribute and post on the OA and HR web sites.

OA Introduction Program

The Council implemented a program to welcome new OAs and give them a stronger start in their new positions. The program has three major components:
Welcome letter: HR sends a letter from the Council welcoming each new OA and providing information on Council activities.
Orientation: The Council sponsors a part of the fall Faculty Orientation specifically oriented to OAs.
Mentorship: The Council re-instituted a modest mentorship program which matches mentors and mentorees as requested.
Loose end: Ideally, the orientation program would be offered twice per year for OAs.

Grievance Process

We initiated discussions with Human Resources on this subject, and passed it on to the OA Project Task Force.
Loose ends: We perceive a need to change the structure of the Faculty Grievance Committee to ensure adequate OA representation on panels hearing OA grievances.
We also note that few OAs are aware of the grievance process and how it works.

Contracts

We have worked with Human Resources and Academic Affairs to clarify contract issues and communicate them to OAs through the FAQ, meetings, and our web site.
Loose ends: Should we ask whether annual contracts are worth the time and effort?

Through the assistance of many OAs who participated in a brown bag discussion, we created a Jargon and Acronym Guide on the OA Web Site .

Vacations Concepts

As a result of an OA Council brown bag discussion, Human Resources and Academic Affairs distributed a letter reiterating the need to encourage and support vacations. It appears to have been effective in a number of cases.
Loose ends: More work in this area might be helpful, in particular a survey to determine whether there are significant problems.

Although no new surveys have been conducted since spring 2001, we have used the annual meetings and brown bags to solicit input and direction, and have mined the older surveys to identify issues of importance to OAs.

Annual Meetings

The Council has conducted annual meetings, in each case using the forum to provide means to communicate directly with central administration as well as ways for OAs to interact directly.

Brown Bags

The Council continues to sponsor informal brown bag meetings on specific issues. We have found that these are reasonably well attended and very useful if they have a specific subject and if they are offered about once per term.

This continues to be an important tool for providing assistance and information for OAs, with new information being added on a regular basis. It is cross-linked with the Human Resources OA pages.

OA News E-Mail List

We have used this primarily to announce meetings. OAs have suggested that more messages would be welcome, perhaps one per month. This might be an effective way to increase visibility.

Annie Bentz
Todd Lundgren
Magid Shirzadegan (2000-2002)
Rachele Raia (1999-2003)
Fred Tepfer (chair 2001-03, member 1999-2003)
Mick Westrick (2001-2003)
Donna Winitzky

Annie Bentz (vice chair 2003-04, member since 2002)
Kathy Cannon (2003-present)
Chris Loschiavo (2003-present)
Todd Lundgren (chair 2003-04, member since 2002)
Marilyn Reid (2003-present)
Donna Winitzky (2000-present)

Shirien Chappell
John Crosiar