Year: 2012

  • A Real Downer

    Byuclafaculty

    Inside Higher Ed today has a feature story on falling SAT scores.  There has been a long-term decline over the past 20 years since the test was change, the report indicates:…College Board officials have long cautioned against reading too much into a one-point gain or one-point drop in a given year, but over the years since the new SAT was introduced, the average total score has fallen by 20 points, and scores have fallen in all three categories…A chart from the article is below.  The full article – which also has data by race.ethnicity – is at:http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/09/25/sat-scores-are-down-and-racial-gaps-remain Watch where you…

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    Rival Initiative Campaign

    Byuclafaculty

    As readers of this blog will know, although there are three tax propositions on the ballot, two are essentially rivals.  The governor put Prop 30 on the ballot, a combination of income and sales taxes, which has been endorsed by the Regents.  Prop 38, which is an income tax increase earmarked more directly for local schools, is supported by a wealthy backer, Molly Munger.  Prop 38 hasn’t polled well but Munger is putting money into its campaign. Prop 30 has been showing a marginal majority in recent polls.  The concern among Prop 30 supporters is that the campaign for 38…

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    From Metro on “Closure II” This Coming Weekend

    Byuclafaculty

    Excerpt from the Metro website: The demolition of the north side of Mulholland Dr Bridge has been scheduled for Saturday, September 29 and Sunday, September 30, 2012. As with the demolition of the south side of the 608-foot-long bridge, the I-405 through the Sepulveda Pass will be closed in both directions that weekend to allow for demolition.  As with the south side demolition, Metro and Caltrans are concerned that closing the freeway will result in severe congestion on the I-405 and adjoining freeways, perhaps effecting [sic] freeways throughout the region. Motorists throughout the State of California are asked to “Plan…

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    UCOP’s Equalization Plan Will Likely Have the Opposite Effect in the Long Run

    Byuclafaculty

    …and the folks at UCOP probably know it. The Daily Bruin is running a story about UCOP’s “rebenching” plan designed to equalize the payment per undergraduate each campus receives.  Rebenching is to be phased in over time. Ostensibly, nothing is being taken away.  UCLA currently gets more than the average.  So in the future it will get lower increments.  Of course, that is a take-away. So what will be the likely outcome?  Despite the fact that the Regents and UCOP are officially against campus-set tuition differentials, differential tuition is what is more likely to happen under the plan.  UCLA is…

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    UCLA History and Follow Up: Selection and Adverse Selection

    Byuclafaculty

    The caption of this 1951 photo from the LA Public Library collection reads “Edward A. Dickson, chairman of the University of California Regents, signs contracts for UCLA’s $20,000,000 Medical Center, while architect Carl C. McElvy looks on.”  The selection of the design for the original UCLA med center suggests a follow-up observation on our prior post about Anthem/Blue Cross dropping UCLA (and Cedars-Sinai) from its plan for LA City workers.  Not surprisingly, there were some angry letters about that decision in the LA Times today.  See http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/letters/la-le-0923-sunday-cedars-ucla-anthem-20120923-4,0,5880599.story.  Our prior post is athttp://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2012/09/there-will-be-repercussions.htmlOne of the letters to the editor asks why Anthem/Blue Cross did…

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    More Terrible Night Traffic

    Byuclafaculty

    The Sunset bridge area will be closed tonight 10 PM until 6 AM tomorrow.  The folks in charge of the project actually did the same thing last night.  And I can tell you from personal experience last night that they thought it was OK to direct lots of traffic to a dead end and then let drivers figure out how to turn around.  So stay away.[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYdr-MslXkw?feature=player_detailpage]

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    UCLA Is Well Endowed But Seems to Have Problems of Performance

    Byuclafaculty

    The Regents’ Investment Committee is meeting on September 25 and one of the items on the agenda is a look at what the various campus foundations are doing with their endowment investments.  Above is a chart showing the asset mix of the different campuses as of March.  [Click on the chart to enlarge and make clearer.]  UCLA seems to be lower than the typical for the campuses in what might be viewed as conventional investments, i.e., equities and fixed income (and cash).  It seems higher in such categories such as real estate, private equity, commodities, and absolute return (which a…

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    Note: Not everyone loves us

    Byuclafaculty

    The conservative/libertarian City Journal complains about a UC-San Diego diversity executive appointment in its latest issue (and about the Regents’ endorsement of Prop 30). Excerpts: The University of California, San Diego has done it again. Last year, it announced the creation of a new diversity sinecure: a vice chancellor for equity, diversity, and inclusion. Campus leaders established this post even as state budget cuts resulted in the loss of star scientists to competing universities, as humanities classes and degree programs were eliminated to save money, and as tuition continued its nearly 75 percent, five-year rise. The new vice chancellorship was wildly…

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    There will be repercussions

    Byuclafaculty

    If you woke up to see the front-page healthcare headline in the LA Times, you know there will be more about this story in the future.  The article refers specifically to LA City employees not being covered for care at UCLA.  However, the report is indicative of the ongoing turmoil in the U.S. healthcare system.  Although it has been a commonplace to say that uncompensated or under-compensated healthcare costs are passed along to those who do pay, in fact that kind of cost shifting is becoming more difficult to do. We don’t have a single-payer system but the insurance coverage…

  • More Online Course Takers

    Byuclafaculty

    An earlier post on this blog featured a story about a web service that would take online courses for students.  Inside Higher Ed seems to have picked up the story and noted that other services are jumping into the online market.  Some of these sites, such as the one above, appear to have branched out from their earlier term paper writing services.  The story is at:http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/09/21/sites-offering-take-courses-fee-pose-risk-online-ed Now we know much about these services:[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF6JMotbHYM?feature=player_detailpage]