The Regents are Coming! The Regents are Coming! (Next week to UC-SF)
The Regents are meeting next week: Sept. 17-19. The basic agenda is below. The major capital project this time from UCLA is a $70 million “Phase 2” engineering building opposite the now-under-construction Grand Hotel. It appears that one thing leads to another. From the online documentation for Sept. 17, we learn that “Phase 1 is already under construction; without Phase 2, the site would be underutilized.” Source: http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/sept13/gb5.pdf. As we have noted many times before, the Regents never, in the end, turn down a campus capital project. And the Regents have no independent capacity to examine the case for the buildings proposed or their costs or their design. So, if the campuses ultimately do what they want, why do these projects come to the Regents? Alternatively, if the Regents are going to evaluate capital projects, why don’t they have independent capacity to provide professional evaluation?
In a closed session of the Committee on Finance on Sept. 18, the Regents will be discussing various legal cases. One related to UCLA is PEOPLE v. LOFCHIE – Appeal of Dismissal – Felony ; Criminal Charges for Violation of Government Code Section 1090 – Los Angeles. This was a ridiculous case filed against a faculty member at one time by the local DA who is no longer in office. It appeared to be done with last spring but apparently the new DA can’t let go of this and another case against a faculty member from the old regime. See our last post on this matter: http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2013/04/lofchie-case-dismissed.html. The Regents are also discussing a case in which UC shared patent rights with a firm that many in the high-tech world viewed as a patent troll. A patent claim by the firm against big name companies such as Google was invalidated by a court decision. See http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9240968/Patent_firm_Eolas_loses_appeal_in_Web_patents_lawsuit.
The Committee on Educational Policy seems to be considering some kind of crowdsourcing way of raising funds for scholarships: Finding new and creative ways to grow private support for student scholarships has taken on increasing importance in recent years. With Regental support and working collaboratively across UC’s campuses, UC Office of the President External Relations has led the development of Promise for Education, an innovative, new crowdfunding effort designed to provide additional scholarship funds for need-based undergraduate scholarships for California students across the system. Senior Vice President Dooley will provide an update on the program’s launch and anticipated participation. Source: http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/sept13/e1.pdf.
In an open session of the Committee on Finance, there will be consideration of a proposal to integrate employees of Children’s Hospital-Oakland with the UC pension due to a merger of that hospital and UC-SF. The impact is reported to be “small” on the pension. One is reminded, however, of the merger and then un-merger with Stanford hospital. The complications of merging and unmerging were not small. According to the document, the merger in this case is not final and not due until the end of February. Not clear, therefore, why this has to be on the September agenda. See http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/sept13/f8.pdf.
The Sept. 19 meeting appears to be a tour of Lawrence Livermore Lab, not a regular discussion session.
Note that we seem to be in an interim period between UC presidents. At least on the agenda, neither Yudof nor Napolitano is listed as a participant.
The Agenda:
Tuesday, September 17
1:00 pm Committee on Health Services (Regents only session)
1:20 pm Committee of the Whole (public comment session)
1:40 pm Committee on Health Services (open session)
3:15 pm Committee on Grounds and Buildings (Regents only session)
3:30 pm Committee on Grounds and Buildings (open session)
Wednesday, September 18
8:30 am Committee on Finance (Regents only session)
9:15 am Committee on Compensation (Regents only session)
9:30 am Board (Regents only session)
9:35 am Committee on Compensation (closed session)
9:50 am Committee of the Whole (open session – includes public comment session)
10:30 am Committee on Educational Policy (open session)
11:50 am Committee on Compensation (open session)
12:15 Lunch
1:15 pm Committee on Finance (open session)
3:00 pm Committee on Compliance and Audit (open session)
3:20 pm Committee on Governance (open session)
3:45 pm Board (open session)
Thursday, September 19
9:30 am Committee on Oversight of the DOE Laboratories (open session – includes public comment)