A bill was vetoed yesterday that would have required CSU and “requested” UC to consider community service for tenure and other academic personnel decisions. The veto message is at:
http://gov.ca.gov/docs/AB_2132_Veto_Message.pdf
The message notes that such service is already part of the academic review process and that such matters are best left to campus-level decision making.
Fire (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) has just released its yearly summary of the state of free speech at 481 public and private colleges and universities in the United States. FIRE defines free speech as “the overwhelming majority of speech protected by the First Amendment.” Few exceptions exist. The survey addresses a wide variety of issues with relevance to free speech, including: Free Speech Zone PoliciesPrior RestraintsSecurity Fee PoliciesPolicies Governing Speakers, Demonstrations, and RalliesPolicies on Bias and Hate SpeechInternet Usage PoliciesPolicies on Tolerance, Respect, and CivilityBullying PoliciesThreats and IntimidationHarassmentPolicies on Bias and Hate SpeechObscenityIncitement The report is both disappointing…
At the Regents meeting of January 22, 2014, Gov. Brown seems to be searching for an online course that requires no human interaction. Such a course, he reasons, could have unlimited enrollment because it is completely self-contained. He gets some pushback from UC Provost Dorr, who thinks courses should have such interaction. You can hear this excerpt at the link below. The entire meeting of the Committee on Educational Policy of the Regents was posted yesterday.[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tYFLJvrE3g?feature=player_detailpage]
Our previous post covered the Jan. 22 meeting of the Regents’ Committee on Educational Policy. As noted, there was discussion of the 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education, considered a major accomplishment of Brown’s father when he was governor. Below is a link to Brown’s comments in which he suggested the Plan was now dated. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RmjI4gVync?feature=player_detailpage]
As we have noted in numerous prior posts, the Regents refuse to archive their meetings beyond one year. So we dutifully record the sessions in real time. Below is a link to part of the afternoon session of Jan. 22. This segment is mainly the Committee on Educational Policy. Gov. Brown was in attendance. We will separately (later) provide links just to certain Brown segments. But for now, we provide a continuous recording. There was discussion of designating certain areas of UC-Merced as nature reserves, followed by discussion of a new telescope. The discussion then turned to online ed and…
The Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) has issued a report on UC and CSU funding. LAO is usually viewed as a neutral agency. But it is a component of the legislature. So it tends to favor approaches that add to legislative control as opposed to, say, gubernatorial control. This report is no exception. LAO seems to want to return to what it terms the “traditional” approach to funding, but with bells and whistles added to monitor legislative goals. The traditional approach seems to be one focused on undergraduate enrollment. But in fact the tradition – such as it is – has…
From the Sacramento Bee: …(T)the University of California’s academic student workers union recently filed a complaint against the UC Office of the President demanding that discussions about class size be a part of their contract negotiations. The union has been bargaining with UC since last summer, and its contract expired at the end of the year… The UC Student-Workers Union, which represents more than 12,000 teaching assistants, tutors and readers across the UC system, is seeking a regular forum to talk about class size with faculty and UC management, said Josh Brahinsky, a Ph.D. candidate in the history of consciousness…
