Skip to main content
The board of directors at Oregon Health & Science University is risking the future of the state’s largest healthcare system by rushing to appoint a new president at a meeting today, Gov. Tina Kotek said.
The OHSU board plans to meet at 12:30 pm today to vote on making medical school dean Dr. Nate Selden president for a three-year term following yesterday’s resignation by Dr. Danny Jacobs after a fraught six-year tenure.
“The Governor believes the timeline put forward to appoint a new president compromises the future of the institution and that it would be a mistake to push through a decision of this magnitude without appropriate due diligence,” Kotek’s press office said in a statement.
Kotek’s opinion matters. OHSU, once owned and operated by the state of Oregon, has been a “public corporation” since 1995. It’s independent, but it still has close ties to the state. It got $129 million from the taxpayer-supported general fund in the 2021-23 biennium, and many of its workers are part of the Oregon Public Employee Retirement System. Most importantly, Oregon’s governor appoints members to OHSU’s board, who, in turn, choose a board chair and president.
Selden, 60, is a pediatric neurosurgeon. A native Oregonian, he has a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University, an M.D. from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. from Cambridge University. He completed a residency in neurosurgery at the University of Michigan and a fellowship in pediatric neurological surgery at Northwestern University. He joined the faculty at OHSU in 2000 and was named chair of the neurosurgery department in 2016, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Selden became interim dean of OHSU’s medical school in February after Jacobs ousted his predecessor, Dr. David Jacoby, for sending an email to selected staff detailing the events that led to the departure of Dr. Daniel Marks, who was accused of taking upskirt photos of a female student during class.
Jacoby’s account of the incident differed from that given by Jacobs and his head of human resources, Qiana Williams, who had sought to blame Jacoby alone for granting Marks a $46,000 “President’s Recognition Award” just before Marks was ousted for the alleged misconduct. Jacoby yesterday sued OHSU and Williams yesterday for defamation, retaliation and intentional infliction of emotional distress, seeking $6.2 million.
OHSU said it couldn’t comment on pending litigation. Williams didn’t return a message sent on LinkedIn.
Rather than conduct a national search for Jacobs’ replacement, or appoint an interim president, OHSU board chair Chad Paulson said yesterday that the board will “contemplate a resolution” at today’s regular board meeting to appoint Selden to a three-year term, even though he has served as permanent dean of the medical school for just four months.
Two senior professors at OHSU yesterday expressed concern about the plan to WW, saying that OHSU is making the same mistake it did in April 2023, when the board gave Monfries sole authority to negotiate a new contract with Jacobs. Monfries extended Jacobs’ contract by two years and gave him an extra $700,000 in retirement pay just before OHSU started laying off workers to cut costs. Neither would be named because they fear retribution from OHSU leaders, a common concern at OHSU.
Dr. Jeff Jensen, a vice chair in the School of Medicine and one of the only OHSU critics willing to risk reprisal by being named, said appointing Selden quickly is the right move because Jacobs, in an email to staff yesterday, vowed to “stay engaged in an advisory role during the transition.”
“I am glad the board acting quickly to name a successor so we can move forward to repair the damage caused by Jacobs’ administration,” Jensen said in an email to WW. “While it is temping to think a national search is the right thing to do, we only have to look at Jacob’s recruitment to show that you never know what you’re going to get.”
Jensen pointed to the tenure of former OHSU president Joe Robertson, who served from 2006 to 2017, for evidence that Selden could succeed. Like Selden, Robertson was a department chair at OHSU before becoming president.
“Nate knows OHSU and understands the needs of the institution,” Jensen said. “And a search would have left Danny in power. He said he would stay until a replacement was named. Was that’s threat or a promise? It took only 20 minutes for the board to name someone. That speaks volumes.”
Many members and leaders of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 328, which represents more than 8,000 workers at OHSU, have been sharply critical of OHSU’s management this year. They packed a board meeting in June to protest hundreds of layoffs made soon after Jacobs collected his extra retirement pay.
Members plan to play bingo while watching today’s board meeting, with squares for buzzwords including “mission critical,” “difficult choices,” and “strategic alignment.” There will be prizes, the union said. Here’s the union’s bingo card:
