Remember, isn't this the same guy who thinks that UO would be better off on it's own, like OHSU?

Sure...sure...Give 'em $800 million dollars and let 'em out on their own.

I see a tram up Skinner Butte in our future.

He needs the money to help pay his new Athletic Director some big bucks...a base salary of $450k plus incentives:

http://blog.oregonlive.com/behindducksbeat/2010/10/oregon_athletic_director_rob_m.html

Oh, and forgot to mention the U of O football coach got a six-year, $20.5 million contract extension this week, too!

http://blog.oregonlive.com/behindducksbeat/2010/09/oregon_coach_chip_kelly_signs.html#incart_mce

Let me guess ...

As soon as the money hits UO's bank account, someone's going to suggest we spend it on yet another sustainability center headed by someone who looks like they jumped off a Kraftwerk album cover. The building will have toilets that don't flush and researchers that tell us how sustainable it is to bike to our jobs repairing windmills.

It's a good thing Ted Wheeler took the scissors to the State's credit cards!

My reaction echoed yours, Rich. When I saw the headline this morning, I flashed back to the recent article about the Chipster's massive salary, the last athletic director who (even though he had no written contract) got a sweetheart severance deal and the new athletic shrine (er, center) that cost more per square foot than most other comparable structures.

There are two worlds at the U of Sports and one guess as to which one gets more attention and money.

My neighbor joked that players at Oregon would feel let down by the lesser perks when they begin their pro careers.

"It's a good thing Ted Wheeler took the scissors to the State's credit cards!"
===

Are you confusing 'words' with 'actions'?

It is easy to get confused, especially in election season.

Think about all the 'PERS reform' words over the last 15 years (see Saxton, Kulongowski, et al), and then compare them to the 'PERS reform' actions.

Nice timing UofO.

I'd would really like a discussion in Oregon (and the nation) about WHY tuition has outpaced inflation (by a lot) for the past twenty or more years.

The UofO prez says that tuition will have to go up by 7.5% per year like it's a force of nature or something.

Anyone wondering what the next bubble is, higher education is a really strong candidate.

What a novel idea! Borrow at 3% and invest at 8%. Freee Moneee.

They should be billing the well to do who go there at a higher rate for tuition. After all it has been well documented that the private schools in Oregon do better job of educating low income students.

Secondly close the law school. Oregon has a couple of fine private law schools.

Fact is cut the damn school off and let them go private.

I got another idea. Sell the naming rights to the highest bidder and call it Nike U.

Maybe Eugene could do the same and become the real Nike Town. Nike U at Nike Town.

Money won't be free forever, you know.

Gardiner, please don't insult Kraftwerk. It helped me get my (now, ahem, young adult) kid out of bed every morning for several years. That's a LOT more than can be said about Mr Fedora.

What does LaRiviere care? He gets $800 to blow now. Someone 10 years down the road can worry about the debt.

If quasi-public/private OHSU is a good example of what U of O wants, then we are in trouble.

In the past 5 years OHSU, after becoming "private", have taken $250 Million of Oregon taxpayer money for a Pill Hill new building; $5 Million in UR money for their SoWhat Health Club; over $20 Million in fed grants for SoWhat road and site improvements; requested that the $60 Million for the off-ramp into SoWhat, that they lobbied to be abandoned, be spent in their Schnitzer SoWhat property; they took over $3 Million in Portland taxpayer monies for a parking garage in SoWhat they haven't built;....the list goes on.

If this is what a U of O "private", "self-providing" institution means, then Oregon's taxpayers are still left holding the bag.