The anticipated May 12 University Senate vote to adopt a new post-tenure review (PTR) policy is the culmination of a two-year effort to revise and standardize performance evaluations of tenured faculty members. At their April 14 meeting, senators decided not to vote on the policy, but instead referred it to the Senate Executive Committee for further editing. Senate vice president Peter Gilkey, Mathematics, is coordinating the executive committee's work.

Review of the university's current policy that mandates reviews every five years began after the accreditation team that evaluated the university in 1997 issued its final report. That team had recommended improvement in the "continuing and consistent review of faculty performance, especially of tenured faculty."

The accreditation report urged changing the current UO policy to require post-tenure review every three years and revising its terms to comply with Oregon administrative rules (OAR 580-21-140).

Last spring, the Faculty Advisory Council drafted a PTR proposal and sent it to the University Senate. Because that proposal generated controversy, 1997-98 senate president Ann Tedards, Music, appointed a Senate Ad Hoc Committee on PTR, which began its work in the fall of 1998. The committee, chaired by Mike Russo, Management, delivered its report to the senate in December.

Several months of discussion by senators led current senate president Jeff Hurwit, Art History, to conclude that reconciliation of proposals by the FAC and the ad hoc committee was needed. He therefore appointed a Senate Conference Committee, also chaired by Russo, to do the job.

When the conference committee reported to Hurwit at the end of March, he believed that its report needed further revision. Hurwit made those changes and presented both the conference panel's and his versions to the senate on April 14.

The sticking point for some faculty is whether the policy can be used for punitive measures such as reducing or not increasing salaries if a faculty member is not performing adequately. Some senators also are concerned that departmental workloads will increase because of the new PTR policy.

"Some departments might experience an increase in workload, while others might not," says Hurwit. "It depends on their current review policies."

The post-tenure review process isn't new. Every five years, faculty members complete a major review of their performance, and every two years, merit pay reviews are used to award raises to faculty members based on their work and service to the campus community. The proposed policy simply seeks to put the review process in writing so the university can standardize the procedure.

The Senate Executive Committee has discussed possible revisions of the conference committee's report with Russo. Executive committee members also have prepared a revision of the existing PTR regulations.

"We will consult widely on both of these documents and we welcome input from any member of the University Assembly," Gilkey says. "We have posted a draft of both documents‹the revised conference committee report and the minimally updated current PTR regulations‹on the Web for comment and feedback."

Gilkey says final versions will be posted on the Web by May 5, with hard copies available on request. Both revised documents will be presented formally to the senate on May 12.

Early on Saturday morning, May 15, Alan Contreras, Jeff Marx and Dave Irons will pull themselves out of bed and head off for a frenzied day of hyper-birding.

They have 24 hours to count all of the birds in Lane County.

Contreras, Legislative Relations, is leading the one-day fund-raising Big Day Birdathon for the Museum of Natural History. He and Marx, a Physics adjunct, and Irons, a Eugene salesman, are asking for a pledge of support‹from two-dimes-per-species on up‹for all of the Lane County bird species they can locate in one day.

"The Lane County Big Day record is 153, set in 1983. We will try to beat it," Contreras says.

If the team finds that many species, a pledge of, say, 50 cents per species would net the museum about $75. And everyone who makes a pledge will get a free "You Are There" account of the search, and a route map (so you can do it yourself some sunny day).

"Our goal is to find as many bird species as we can within Lane County," Contreras says. "We'll cover the area from the coast inland at least to central Lane County, including Fern Ridge reservoir, the valley floor, coast range, and every microhabitat we can get to. We'll start early for owls and finish late for more owls."

He says the team probably won't get to the Cascades, as the snowpack precludes access to most areas that would harbor new species for their count. "If we are right at 152 or so, we might go up there to try for black swifts at Salt Creek Falls and maybe a nutcracker at the summit, but the birds-per-mile and -per-hour up there are very low."

The Museum of Natural History is home to the Prill and Shelton collections of pre-pesticide eggs, nests, mounted birds and study skins. These are two of the most important research collections for western Oregon birds.

The University of Oregon is the No. 1 international university in the nation.

The latest national report shows that among U.S. public research universities, the UO has the highest percentage of international students. Oregon is also No. 1 in percentage of students who participate in study-abroad programs.

In actual numbers of enrolled students, the UO ranks 28th in international students and 38th in study-abroad students in comparisons with all universities, both public and private, some of which are three and four times Oregon's size.

"Open Doors: 1997-98 Report on International Educational Exchange," issued by the New York-based Institute of International Education, ranks the UO ahead of schools such as the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Virginia and Rutgers University.

"These new rankings put the UO in the company of the most prestigious schools in the nation, including Harvard, Stanford and MIT," says Tom Mills, director of International Education and Exchange (OIEE). "Our international students tell us they chose the UO for the highly ranked curriculum, welcoming atmosphere, and safety and attractiveness of the Eugene community."

During the 1997-98 academic year, more than 1,600 international students from 90 countries were enrolled at the UO in regular academic programs and another 350 studied English or received practical training. These students comprised 11.6 percent of the university's enrollment.

The OIEE also manages 70 study-abroad programs in 52 countries in which there were 580 UO students enrolled in 1997-98. Annually, approximately 3.4 percent of UO students are enrolled in study-abroad programs.

"With study abroad, the educational experience is direct," says Vice Provost George Sheridan, International Affairs. "There is simply no substitute for living and interacting in an environment other than one's own, and learning about that other culture, one's own culture, and oneself."

Mills adds that the university's top ranking in study-abroad enrollment relative to its size "reflects the international awareness of students and the strengths the UO has in foreign languages‹more than 20 are taught here, in area study programs and in courses of study in such areas as business, journalism and architecture that offer an international focus."

President David Frohnmayer will convene a town hall meeting to discuss campus growth issues from 3­4 p.m. on Wednesday, May 5, in 180 PLC.

That session follows an April 14 presentation by Chris Ramey of University Planning to the University Senate.

The university architect told senators that as much as 1 million gross square feet could be added to campus while still retaining the open space framework as specified in the 1991 Long-Range Campus Plan.

"One of Oregon's biggest attractions has been our preservation of open spaces while still responding to campus growth," Ramey said. "Our goal is to continue along those lines."

In the spotlight

Jeanne Maasch, University Publications, won a Gold Award in the Search Piece division for schools with 10,000 or more students in the Admissions Marketing Report magazine's Admissions Advertising Award national competition. She and writer Zanne Miller, Admissions, won for "Discover Your Future: The Search is On."

Three employees‹the team of Cara Darling, Printing, and Terrie Penfold, Purchasing Support, and Mark Dixon, Printing‹received UO Environmental Citizen of the Year awards on April 20 during the Campus Environmental Symposium. Darling and Penfold saved the university more than $12,000 by purchasing recycled paper with higher pre- and post-consumer recycled content rather than more expensive virgin paper. Dixon worked with manufacturers to introduce tree-free, chlorine-free bamboo farmed paper for UO letterheads and business cards.

Deborah Carver, Knight Library, was named Oregon's Librarian of the Year during the Oregon Library Association's recent conference in Seaside. She was cited for her leadership in helping libraries secure and share affordable electronic resources for library users.

On the move

James Trubia has joined Environmental Health and Safety in a new position as fire protection manager. Environmental specialist Cyndi Jones has left the university to become Environmental Health and Safety manager at the Oregon Primate Center.

On the podium/stage

Jack Bennett, Student Retention Programs, presented "Trying on Australian Identities‹American Student Response to Australian Autobiographies" on April 15 during the American Association for Australian Literary Studies annual meeting at the University of Utah.

Cris Cullinan, Human Resources, will co-lead a faculty seminar on "The 1999 Summer Diversity Institute: Challenging Our Assumptions about Leadership, Inclusion and Learning" on May 11­13 at Miami University of Ohio.

Brian O'Neill, Tom Connolly and Carolyn Armstrong, Museum of Natural History, delivered "The Salmon Restoration Initiative Project: An Application of GIS and Predictive Modeling in Southwest Oregon" on March 27 to the Society for American Archaeology annual meeting in Chicago.

Wendy Larson, East Asian Languages and Literatures, and Charles Lachman, Art History, presented papers during an April 9­10 symposium at the University of British Columbia on "Memory, Modernity and the Millennium in Contemporary Chinese Culture."

Byron McCrae, Student Life, presented a seminar, "Losing Our Religion: Are Students Struggling in Silence?" during the March 21­24 national conference of the American College Personnel Administrators at Atlanta.