Author: admin

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    Chinese Dissent at UCLA

    Byadmin

    UCLA has a variety of exchange arrangements with China as the image of the UCLA Confucius Institute on the left suggests.  While these arrangements can be mutually beneficial, the university can also find itself in a difficult position when and if things go wrong.  The NY Times carries a story dated Feb. 9 about a professor from Peking University who was a visiting professor at UCLA.  While here, he made some statements that ultimately led to his discharge at his home university and to quasi-exile in the U.S.: …Peking University allowed Professor Xia to leave China to become a visiting…

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    Oversize Load?

    Byadmin

    From the Sacramento Bee: …(T)the University of California’s academic student workers union recently filed a complaint against the UC Office of the President demanding that discussions about class size be a part of their contract negotiations. The union has been bargaining with UC since last summer, and its contract expired at the end of the year… The UC Student-Workers Union, which represents more than 12,000 teaching assistants, tutors and readers across the UC system, is seeking a regular forum to talk about class size with faculty and UC management, said Josh Brahinsky, a Ph.D. candidate in the history of consciousness…

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    Networking

    Byadmin

    Simon and Garfunkel once sang about the “Sound of Silence.”  When rain forced the weekly networking event at Anderson indoors last Thursday, silence was not what was heard: It was more like a typical deafening LA trendy restaurant.  Back in Simon and Garfunkel’s day, the occupation of choice was in “plastics.”  Soon it will be in hearing aids.

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    CalPERS Long-Term Care: What Happens Tomorrow?

    Byadmin

    Although CalPERS doesn’t run the UC retirement plan, at one point CalPERS offered long-term care insurance to UC employees.  It seemed to some folks to be a good idea at the time and they took out policies.  Long-term care policies can be bought from commercial carriers.  The problem is that you have to trust that these carriers will do right by you many years in the future when you may not be in the best condition to assert your rights.  It appeared, however, that having CalPERS – a public entity – providing the policies might be a solution.  Sadly, there…

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    Contemplating Tuition, Motherhood, and Apple Pie

    Byadmin

    Tuition is being studied up in Oakland by the UC prez, according to yesterday’s Daily Bruin: …“I want tuition to be as low as possible, and I want it to be as predictable as possible,” Napolitano said at a UC Board of Regents meeting in November.   In a recent Google Hangout with students from various UC campuses, students asked Napolitano to talk about her current work in reforming the UC’s tuition policy.  They also asked Napolitano how she plans to include student ideas in the reorganization of the tuition plan. Napolitano did not specify how student input would be…

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    Travel Focus Misses the Money Train

    Byadmin

    You may have seen the article in yesterday’s Daily Bruin about UCLA tightening up its rules on travel reimbursements.  Why the tightening up? …Public records documenting the travel expenses of the university’s top brass, obtained and published by the Center for Investigative Reporting in August, drew national scrutiny last summer for the luxurious travel accommodations of UCLA’s leadership, sometimes in violation of University policy. The accommodations and pricy travel arrangements bloated the university’s travel budget by hundreds of thousands of dollars… Full story at http://dailybruin.com/2014/02/04/months-after-controversy-ucla-clarifies-travel-guidelines/ The problem with the original story is that it focuses on budget dust compared to…

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    Actually, battleships can turn around but it depends on the captain giving the order

    Byadmin

    We’ve all heard the expression about how hard it is to turn a battleship around.  Giant ships moving forward have momentum to keep going in a straight line.  But they can be turned around. Yesterday we posted about the Judge Cunningham case.  It is symptomatic of a larger problem in Murphy Hall.  What should have occurred in that case is a prompt apology by the chancellor and appropriate internal action.  If you were reading this blog at the time of the event, you would have found that suggestion.  Instead, what occurred was defensive legalism which is still going on.  So…