Year: 2013

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    Shying Away from Retiring

    Byuclafaculty

    Inside Higher Ed today carries an article about surveys of faculty who say they don’t plan to retire at the “normal” age or maybe ever.  The work-til-you-drop response is attributed to such motivations as wanting to be intellectually active but also importantly to concerns about having sufficient funds and health insurance to retire.  When UC was considering changing its retirement plan – it created a two-tier program – it retained the defined benefit approach rather than switch to a defined contribution approach.  Many faculty in the U.S. are under TIAA-CREF or some similar defined contribution program which means that they…

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    On Fathers’ Day, Blame it on Dad

    Byuclafaculty

    Hiram Johnson It’s a bit of an historical stretch to blame California’s dysfunctions on Dad. And it may seem funny to do it after the legislature passed a budget on time as per our earlier post.  However, commentator Joe Mathews does blame Gov. Hiram Johnson’s father for the dysfunctions of the state’s initiative system. Hiram Johnson was the reform governor elected in 1910 who brought in “direct democracy,” the initiative, referendum, and recall (along with women’s suffrage and workers’ compensation insurance). From Mathews (excerpt): Why is California so hard to govern? One reason is that we’re suffering from daddy issues,…

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    Budget Enacted – Details & Vetoes to Come

    Byuclafaculty

    The legislature has passed a state budget which now goes to the governor for signature (he will) and line-item vetoes (some will likely be made).  Thereafter, there should be formal releases of the details by the Dept. of Finance and the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO). In the meantime, the Sacramento Bee has a summary of highlights.  It includes for higher ed: Proposes an average 5 percent general fund increase to California State University, the University of California and community colleges. No fee increases are envisioned through 2016-17. Authorizes scholarships, beginning in the 2014-15 academic year, for UC and CSU students…

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    Not Coming to a Campus Near You

    Byuclafaculty

    Not only are we unlikely to see snow on campus, according to a recent UCLA report, snow in the mountains around LA in winter will be diminishing: …The projected snow loss, a result of climate change, could get even worse by the end of the 21st century, depending on how the world reacts. Sustained action to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions could keep annual average snowfall levels steady after mid-century, but if emissions continue unabated, the study predicts that snowfall in Southern California mountains will be two-thirds less by the year 2100 than it was in the years leading up…

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    Cost of Living

    Byuclafaculty

    We often make faculty salary comparisons based on nominal dollars.  However, price levels (the “costs of living”) vary from location to location; a dollar may buy more or less depending on where you are. There have been private surveys that purport to tell you the relative price level in various locations but they typically have unknown methodology.  Now the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis has released estimates of relative price levels by state and selected metro areas.  Aboveyou can see the results by state for 2011.  With the U.S. average = 100, some metro areas in California are San Francisco…

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    Middle-class scholarships to UC, CSU likely

    Byuclafaculty

    But not this year! So says the headline in the San Francisco Chronicle: [excerpt] The “Middle-Class Scholarship” proposed by Assembly Speaker John Pérez, D-Los Angeles, would offer tuition discounts for students from families earning $80,000 to $150,000 a year. The program would start in the 2014-15 school year, with partial scholarships costing the state $107 million from its general fund. The state would increase spending on the program each year until it was fully implemented in 2017-18, at a cost of $305 million – assuming 75 percent of eligible students apply. Tuition discounts would decrease as family income rises… Full story at…

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    Gov. Jerry Brown’s university plan is left unfinished in budget

    Byuclafaculty

    That’s what the headline in the LA Times says.  It goes on to say: [excerpt] The final spending plan does not include the governor’s proposal to tie new money for public universities to specific requirements like improving graduation rates and increasing the number of transfer students from community colleges. Nor will the plan automatically cut funding if tuition is increased. The changes emerged after negotiations with lawmakers and officials at the University of California and California State University, who resisted much of Brown’s proposal. For now, universities will simply be required to track nine different benchmarks… Full story at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/political/la-me-pc-jerry-brown-california-universities-20130612,0,6175034.story…

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    It might not be yours

    Byuclafaculty

    Both the Chronicle of Higher Ed and Inside Higher Ed are running stories about an AAUP warning that faculty who give MOOC-type courses may not end up owning the content.  According to the Chronicle, the AAUP will be starting a campaign to clarify ownership of faculty intellectual property. The Chronicle story is at http://chronicle.com/article/AAUP-Sees-MOOCs-as-Spawning/139743 The Inside Higher Ed version is at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/06/13/aaup-session-centers-intellectual-property-and-academic-freedom-online-education-age You may think it’s yours but…

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    Just another sign of the times; they’re coming to build the grand hotel

    Byuclafaculty

    Just another reminder that UCLA is marching ahead with its plans to build the grand hotel where parking structure #6 and the Ackerman-area bus turnaround now stand.  There are two lawsuits pending but the build-and-bond folks are anxious to put “facts on the ground.”   Bus riders will be displaced starting July 8 and during the construction period, as the sign indicates.Of course, we don’t know what direction they will be coming from to build the grand hotel on July 8.  But there are rumors it will be down the Janss Steps: [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqQazd6jjRw?feature=player_detailpage]

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    Wrong Irk; Right Irk

    Byuclafaculty

    Op Ed: Yours truly will concede that everyone is entitled to his or her own pet irk.  There is a headline in the Capitol Alert blog of the Sacramento Bee entitled “Cap-and-Trade Loan in Budget Deal Irks Environmentalists.”*  Actually, there is nothing unusual about borrowing by the general fund from other earmarked funds of the state.  The controller routinely does such borrowing when the general fund is short of cash – which was the situation much of the time during the last few years.  What is the real irk here is that as part of the budget that looks likely…