Author: admin

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    Neon Tommy Report on UC Fundraising

    Neon Tommy is an online student news service of the USC Annenberg School.  The service features a news item dated Nov. 28 which reviews UC’s “Onward” fundraising campaign.  That’s right; USC is reviewing UC.  What is interesting about the piece is what isn’t in it.  Back in the day – say, the 1950s or 1960s – any such story would deal with the impact of a public university competing with privates in fundraising.  Private universities would complain about the competition and say UC should be getting its funding from the state.  But despite the traditional USC-UCLA rivalry, no such view…

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    Dirks’ Perks Irk

    Much of the news media coverage of the appointment of the new UC-Berkeley chancellor Nicholas Dirks involved the fact that his salary would be $50,000 more than that of his predecessor (albeit an increment paid by private funds).   You can find the salary comparison used to justify the pay level to the Regents at: http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/nov12/c1.pdf The governor, the lieutenant governor, and one regent was unhappy with the salary and the news media picked up the complaints.  See, for example: http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_22074232/uc-berkeleys-new-chancellor-under-consideration-by-regents http://www.foxandhoundsdaily.com/2012/11/cost-cutting-wont-come-easy-to-uc/ Probably, however, if there was to be controversy, it might have been over an item in the footnotes…

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    Did I say that?

    A look backwards: Lieutenant Governor (and ex officio Regent) Gavin Newsom was interviewed on KGO radio on Oct. 17 about Prop 30 and its relation to tuition.  In the course of the interview, he criticized Governor Brown for being late to get into the campaign for the proposition and, effectively, for not telling students the truth that their tuition would rise even if Prop 30 passed. At the time, polling (which proved inaccurate) was indicating that Prop 30’s chance of passage was marginal.  And Governor Brown had just made a campaign stop at UCLA to enlist student support.  As it…

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    UCLA Forecasting

    This 1966 photo from the LAPL collection shows a local effort at forest fire prevention by getting weather forecasts through a new “weather-fax” machine. The individual in the photo is identified as Bob Helfman, 28, a UCLA graduate in meteorology. [Note: Did you think the word “fax” (for facsimile) was a more recent invention?] There will be forecasting at UCLA this coming week using more modern technology.  The UCLA Anderson Forecast conference will be held on campus on Wednesday, December 5. Info on that event is at:http://www.uclaforecast.com/event/eventDisplay.asp?iEventID=69 Meanwhile, as far as the kind of forecast for the next few days…

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    More on the Stream

    The Daily Bruin today has a report that UCLA got another favorable decision regarding the use of live-streaming videos for course purposes. Live-streaming means essentially what you see on websites such as YouTube, i.e., a video (or audio) that you click on and it plays from the web.  The video is not a file that is stored on your computer.  The analogy would be that watching a TV broadcast is similar to live-streaming.  Owning a DVD and playing it on your TV is like having a stored file that you play. Background: There was a prior case in which the…

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    UCLA Tells Grad Students to Stick Around

    Today’s Daily Bruin reports that a tightening in the rules on grad students taking leaves of absence (and thus not paying tuition) is meeting protests from those students: Graduate students discussed multiple ways to take action against recent changes to UCLA’s leave of absence policy at a town hall meeting Wednesday afternoon. This quarter, UCLA stopped accepting thesis or dissertation writing as valid reasons for taking time off to help graduate students complete their degree paths on time, said April de Stefano, director of academic services in the UCLA Graduate Division… The change was applied with the intent of encouraging…

  • Our Advice: Delete

    You may have gotten the email above which suggests the website is somehow linked to UCLA or the UCLA medical enterprise.  It actually comes from a Brazilian who probably wants to sell you something or worse.  See below: I suggest you leave Luis to his own devices.  And if you need more from Brazil:[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf94Tt2cO0A?feature=player_detailpage]

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    Whatever happened to grade inflation?

    From the LA Times today: UCLA Medical Center gets failing grade on patient safety: Leapfrog, a healthcare quality rating group, gives an F to UCLA Medical Center for performing poorly on several measures. UCLA officials dispute the failing grade. A national report card on patient safety gave a failing grade to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, one of the country’s most prestigious hospitals and one of only 25 nationwide to receive such low marks. In a report issued Wednesday, the Leapfrog Group, an employer-backed nonprofit group focused on healthcare quality, gave a letter grade of F to UCLA Medical Center…