Media Resources
United Academics of the University of Oregon is the exclusive union representative of faculty at the University of Oregon. As faculty representatives, stewards, and leaders, we work every day to improve our university and the state of higher education in Oregon. More information can be found at uauoregon.org.
More Information
- Include new UO faculty in salary increases
The UO administration is currently proposing that new faculty not receive any raises in year one of the new contract.
Our potential exclusion from this raise would exacerbate ongoing pay equity issues at the University and send the message to new faculty that we are on our own in dealing with the consequences of historic inflation rates. While starting salaries for faculty may appear, in real numbers, to have increased over time, they do not reflect the realities of inflation and increased cost of living. New faculty absorb the costs of wage compression while we, like our senior colleagues, also confront inflation and increased cost of living.
Please sign on to the letter and support new UO faculty.
- What Happens If Faculty Strike?
If faculty strike, all work done by professors, instructors, librarians, and researchers will stop. Emails will not be responded to, and classes will not run (though the administration may try to put strike-breaking “scab” instructors into classes as supposed “replacements” for your real professors). But no matter what, we want you to know that faculty are fighting for a better university—one that values the people who teach, research, and support your education every day.
Faculty care deeply about our students, their education, their future, and the challenges a potential strike could pose. We understand the worries, the uncertainties, and the weight of the “what if” questions that come with the possibility of a faculty strike. You’ve worked hard to get here, and the thought of disruptions to your education is frustrating and concerning. We have those same worries.
You may have a lot of questions right now. We do, too.
- How will this affect your education and time to degree?
- Will UO rebate your tuition for any days of lost instruction?
- Should you register for Spring classes early, or wait to see if faculty will be on strike before enrolling?
- How might financial aid be affected if classes are cancelled?
These are valid concerns, and we encourage you to pose these questions directly to UO President Scholz at [email protected]. His office should be responsive to your queries—you are paying a lot of money to UO, and he is sensitive around budgetary issues.
When we find ourselves overwhelmed by the “what ifs,” we remind ourselves to ask a different question: What can we do?
- What can we do now to prevent these worries from becoming reality?
- What actions can we take to make a strike less likely and push for a resolution that benefits everyone—faculty, students, and the entire university community?
One of the most powerful things students can do is show that they support fair treatment for faculty. By signing the community support letter, sharing concerns with university leadership, and staying informed, you can help push for a resolution that keeps your education on track while ensuring faculty are treated with dignity and fairness.
We didn’t get into this profession to strike. We got into it to teach, to support students, and to help you achieve your goals. A strike would only happen as a last resort. The best way to avoid it is to take action now.
We stand with you, and we appreciate your support in standing with us.
- How Administrators Manipulate Budgets to Create Fake Deficits
Much of this information is from an article in the student newspaper, the Daily Emerald.
The administration is claiming a deficit because out-of-state enrollment did not meet targets. Let’s look at those targets.
In 2023 UO admitted 2,491 out-of-state students, presumably after doing everything they could to maximize this number. In 2024 UO admitted 2,536 out-of-state students, a significant increase with a commensurate increase in the educational budget of the university.
This is great news for UO, so why are they claiming poverty after record-breaking out-of-state enrollments? Well, their target for out-of-state students was 2,984. This target was 18% higher than the actual out-of-state enrollments from the year before.
How to evaluate this disconnect between reality and projections?
- Unrealistic expectations
- Poor management of enrollment
- The need to appear poor to the state in order to get more money
The first and third seem the most likely. You see, one of the main jobs of the VP of Finance and Administration is to make the institution appear poor to the state legislature and, to a lesser extent, donors. There is an incentive to obfuscate the true budgetary situation because the state is unlikely to pour more resources into a university whose revenue is growing faster than the economy.
At the end of the day, you cannot count on budget information provided by the administration, and any claim of deficits must be met with a healthy dose of skepticism. If you look at the real numbers and put in place reasonable enrollment targets, you will see that the administration created their budget based on a pipe-dream, and want faculty, staff, students, parents and the state legislature to pay for their purposefully unrealistic planning.
- A Choice to Move Resources from the Mission
The Education and General, or simply E&G budget, is the “bucket” of money which goes to the core mission of the university. This is funded by tuition and state funding. And, while tuition and state appropriations have increased faster than inflation, the percentage of the E&G budget going to faculty salaries has fallen.
This is a choice.
This decrease is reflected in higher work loads and lower salaries for faculty. This translates to larger classes, less faculty time per student, and lower metrics in both student and faculty flourishing.
- Eroding Competitiveness
The University of Oregon is a member of the American Association of Universities (AAU), a consortium of highly ranked research universities. These are our peers, the institutions with which we compete for faculty, students and research dollars. We compare ourselves only to the public institutions in the AAU, and even still the faculty salaries at the University of Oregon are the very lowest.
In the last 10 years our faculty salary competitiveness in the AAU has eroded, and the administration intends to erode it even further. This is not sustainable if Oregon wants to maintain its preeminent position as a prestigious, comprehensive, public research university.