Year: 2012

new hotel-conference center | UCLA

PowerPoint Presentation for Emeriti Board on Hotel/Conference Center
Byuclafaculty May 3, 2012

Yours truly made a PowerPoint presentation earlier today (May 2, 2012) to the UCLA Emeriti Board concerning the proposed UCLA hotel/conference center project. It runs about 43 minutes. You can see the slides and hear the audio of the complete presentation at: Because the above link may be slow to load and play, here are alternatives with the presentation divided into three parts that may work faster: Part 1: Part 2: Part 3: The full 43-minute presentation can be downloaded in various formats at http://archive.org/details/PresentationOfDanielJ.b.MitchellOnUclaHotelconferenceCenterProjectTo

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controller | State Budget

Not Up to Forecast
Byuclafaculty May 2, 2012

Readers of this blog will know that tax aficionados track the April state income tax receipts since April is the big month for those receipts. As it turned out, and despite some initial optimism in the early part of the month, income tax revenue came in a little under last year’s total and about $2 billion below what the governor had forecast. The daily tracker is athttp://www.sco.ca.gov/april_2012_personal_income_tax_tracker.html Maybe the best things in life are free but…[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_DJhEXmOmY&w=320&h=195]

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community colleges | UC budget crisis | UC-San Diego

UC-San Diego Community College Transfer Guarantee to End
Byuclafaculty May 2, 2012

The UC San Diego program that guarantees transfer admission to community college students who meet certain requirements will come to an end in 2014, campus officials have decided. They said explosive growth in the number applications under the program, coupled with sharp cuts in state funding for the University of California, have threatened to swamp the campus. Administrators and students at area community colleges said the decision will disproportionately harm disadvantaged students…UC San Diego’s Transfer Admissions Guarantee, or TAG, program began in the early 1980s. Students from the six regional districts who took specific required courses and earned a 3.0…

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new hotel-conference center | UC Regents | UCLA

Building Blocks: No Lessons Learned?
Byuclafaculty May 1, 2012

As part of his upcoming 5-year review, Chancellor Block has written a self-statement. In a 9-page document (not counting the cover letter) about his vision for the campus and accomplishments, the hotel/conference center is mentioned on four of them. (First full paragraph of pages 4 and 5; last paragraph of pages 7 and 9.) As readers of this blog will know, the Regents had major doubts about the feasibility of this project and the priority it represents. The self-statement is dated April 12, i.e., two weeks after the embarrassment for UCLA at the March Regents meeting concerning the hotel. You…

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miscellaneous | UC | UC Berkeley | Yudof

UC History: April 30, July 2, whatever, whenever
Byuclafaculty May 1, 2012

“Today” in the tweet on the right was actually yesterday. The Morrill Act of 1862 was also known as the Land Grant College Act. It was a major boost to higher education in America. The grant was originally set up to establish institutions in each state that would educate people in agriculture, home economics, mechanical arts, and other professions that were practical at the time. The land-grant act was introduced by a congressman from Vermont named Justin Smith Morrill. He envisioned the financing of agricultural and mechanical education. He wanted to assure that education would be available to those in…

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diversity | UCLA

Can’t we all get along?
Byuclafaculty April 30, 2012

From today’s Inside Higher Ed (excerpt): UCLA wants to revamp general education requirement Kaustuv Basu, April 30, 2012 Critics of a proposal by the University of California Los Angeles to add a compulsory course on community and conflict to its general education requirements for the College of Letters and Science say that the idea say is akin to peddling old wine in a new bottle, and not much different from a diversity requirement that was voted down by faculty in 2004. Next month, faculty members are expected to vote on the measure, variations of which have been decades in the…

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miscellaneous | UCLA

UCLA History: Rodney King Verdict
Byuclafaculty April 29, 2012

UCLA rally shortly after the Rodney King police officers verdict in 1992. Source: http://hammeringsparksfromtheanvil.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html

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Faculty Association at UCLA

Sales Pitch: Join the Faculty Association at UCLA
Byuclafaculty April 29, 2012

The Faculty Association at UCLA is the sponsor of this blog. UCLA Academic Senate members are invited to join the Association. For information on the Association, go to http://www.uclafaculty.org/FASite/Home.html To become a member, go to http://www.uclafaculty.org/FASite/Join.html for an application.

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new hotel-conference center | UC-Davis | UCLA

Wider Lessons to Be Learned (Even at UCLA!) from UC-Davis’s Pepper Spray Report
Byuclafaculty April 29, 2012

Yours truly does a “Mitchell’s Musings” weekly blog for the Employment Policy Research Network (http://www.employmentpolicy.org/) of which he is senior academic editor. Normally, this blog and that one don’t cover similar topics. But in this case they do so I cross-post below. Could there be some lessons for UCLA that emerge from the UC-Davis pepper-spray incident? Could there even be some linkage to UCLA’s proposed hotel/conference center? Might be! Fair and balanced; you decide! ===== Mitchell’s Musings 4-30-12: The Real Pepper-Flavored Lessons of Hindsight Daniel J.B. Mitchell By now, the world has become aware of the University of California-Davis’ “pepper-spray cop,”…

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ballot propositions | governor | pension | pensions | politics | ucrp

No Way (for UC), San Jose
Byuclafaculty April 29, 2012

As previous blog posts have noted, Governor Brown has proposed a statewide pension plan that would override the Regents’ changes to the UC pension and would require a “hybrid” plan with defined benefit and defined contribution components, a 75% cap, etc. UC’s official position is that it shouldn’t be included. However, the governor has not acquiesced. The legislature’s majority Democrats have been reluctant to consider the governor’s plan and have been considering alternatives. Brown has warned public sector unions that local governments will be putting plans on the ballot and adopting pension plans that are more stringent than his proposal…

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