Month: August 2011

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    Construction and Demolition

    Byuclafaculty

    The narration on the video below says that UCLA has a plan to convert from a “commuter campus” to a “residential campus.” Hence, there must be a lot of new construction and demolition of old buildings. In addition, there is a large building going up near the old hospital. The Daily Bruin recently carried an article discussing and illustrating the demolition and replacement of an engineering building: http://www.dailybruin.com/index.php/article/2011/08/engineering_1a_building_demolished_to_be_replaced_by_modernized_facility Other construction is going on in mid-campus. Might the empire have enough to do with these various projects without demolishing the Faculty Center and replacing it with a 280-room hotel? Just asking.

  • A Zenger Zinger from Yours Truly

    Byuclafaculty

    The Sacramento Bee has published an updated listing of state salaries including UC. You can find it at http://www.sacbee.com/statepay/ In the past, yours truly has corresponded with officials of newspapers who publish such lists asking them to publish their own payroll – by name/salary – down to the lowest paid worker. I won’t bother with such correspondence this time, although the danger of ID theft remains. However, if you feel motivated, here are the contacts of the two senior executives of the Bee: Cheryl Dell, Publisher & President: 916-321-1885 cdell@sacbee.com Joyce Terhaar, Editor and Senior Vice President: 916-321-1004 jterhaar@sacbee.com You…

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    UCLA History: 1950s Westwood

    Byuclafaculty

    The third in our sequence of aerial photos of Westwood. This one probably taken in the 1950s. The Occidental building on Wilshire appears to be under construction. There is now much development at UCLA beyond Westwood. Earlier photos from the 1930s and 1920s are at http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2011/08/ucla-history-1930s-westwood.html and http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2011/08/ucla-history-1920s-westwood.html

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    Doing Good

    Byuclafaculty

    The Washington Monthly has a ranking of national universities by “their contribution to the public good.” It looks at such things as students on Pell Grants. UC-San Diego comes in as #1, UCLA as #2, UC-Berkeley #3, UC-Riverside #5, UC-Davis #8, UC-Santa Barbara #13, UC-Irvine #60. The full listing is at http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/rankings_2011/national_university_rank.php

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    More on Looking at the Law School’s Gift Horse

    Byuclafaculty

    An earlier blog post noted the controversy over the Milken gift to the UCLA Law School to set up an institute on business law and policy. The controversy seems to have triggered a message from the Law School Dean now posted on the School’s website and a job description that is being circulated for the executive director of the new Institute. Below is 1) the message from the dean on the controversy, 2) the job description in italics, and 3) the original announcement of the gift. Our earlier post is at: http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2011/08/ucla-law-schools-gift-horse.html ——– An Important Message from Dean Rachel F….

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    Outlawing Holidays

    Byuclafaculty

    There is a bill pending in the legislature (passed the Assembly; now in the Senate) – applying to CalPERS, not UC – that would effectively ban pension “contribution holidays.” As is well known, UC had the mother of all contribution holidays to its pension fund, one lasting two decades. Had that holiday not occurred, we would not have the underfunding problem we have today. Of course, given the circumstances under which the UC pension holiday developed – overfunding in the face of a state budget crisis at the time – it could be argued that the holiday was unavoidable. But…

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    No More Books for Them at UC-San Diego?

    Byuclafaculty

    More Cheery Budget News: August 26, 2011 | Erica Perez | California Watch Driven by dramatic budget cuts that will shutter four campus libraries, staffers at UC San Diego are removing roughly 150,000 books and journals from their collections by summer’s end – selling volumes to the highest bidder or donating them. If UCSD students or researchers want to check out the selected writings of Benjamin Rush, they might have to request it through an interlibrary loan… Full story at: http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/ucsd-library-cuts-mean-150000-books-must-go-12293 No more books for them?

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    Bad PR for UC

    Byuclafaculty

    Velma Montoya passed the story below to me. Not the best PR for UC at this point in the budget cycle. Are Professors Picking the Public’s Pockets? Rex Dalton, 8/25/11, Miller-McCune From his arrival in the U.S. some 25 years ago, Tatsuya Suda deftly cut a path to the upper echelons of academic computer research. Fresh from prestigious Kyoto University, he steadily rose to become a tenured professor at the University of California, Irvine, earning a reputation for dynamic theories in computer networking at the dawn of the cell-phone age. He even wed Grammy-winning singer Rita Coolidge. But along this…