Author: admin

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    No Comment

    Byadmin

    Readers of this blog will recall that at the last Regents meeting in July, there was a controversy over the appointment of a new student regent-delegate due to her support of a campaign to divest UC funds from Israel.  Several regents spoke on the issue.  One abstained from voting for her.During the debate, outgoing President Yudof didn’t have much to say about the issue.  That might not be surprising except for his remarks at a conference about a month before the meeting: [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoyXqoJH7Ak?feature=player_detailpage]

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    Well traveled

    Byadmin

    The San Diego Union-Tribune is running a story researched by the Center for Investigative Reporting on UCLA travel expenses for administrators: Excerpt: Thirteen years ago, the University of California changed its ban on flying business or first class on the university’s dime, adding a special exception for employees with a medical need. What followed at UCLA was an acute outbreak of medical need. Over the past several years, six of 17 academic deans at the Westwood campus routinely have submitted doctors’ notes stating they have a medical need to fly in a class other than economy, costing the university $234,000…

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    UC Payroll Data Online

    Byadmin

    You can find the data for calendar year 2012, including the chart above, at http://compensation.universityofcalifornia.edu/payroll2012/.  [Click on the chart to enlarge it.]  Among the interesting figures is that about one eighth of payroll goes to ladder faculty, another eighth to other instructors, and about 6% to TAs.  By the way, if you don’t want to be in the database, apparently you need to become a student for part of the year: Pursuant to federal student privacy laws, the names of all employees who were UC students (including medical residents) at any point during a given calendar year have been redacted…

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    Business of College Sports Not What It Was

    Byadmin

    The Sacramento Bee ran a story June 4 that mysteriously reappeared for a time on its website today and that reminds us that the business of college sports is not what it was back in the early 1940s when Jackie Robinson played football for UCLA (photo). Excerpt: Ending weeks of speculation, Eddie Vanderdoes made it official Tuesday: He will not attend Notre Dame on a football scholarship and will instead play at UCLA.Vanderdoes, the 6-foot-4, 305-pound All-America defensive end from Placer High School, expressed gratitude to Notre Dame in a text sent to The Bee for being “gracious” in the…

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    I know it’s unpleasant to hear but…

    Byadmin

    When you listen to Regents’ comments at their meetings on the state budget, you have the impression at times that they think that the state and governor have reversed course and now acknowledge responsibility for the UC pension plan.  So, for the record, here is the Legislative Analyst’s summary of the latest state budget and the UC pension: Contains Intent Language Regarding UC Retirement Costs. The budget plan does not designate any funding for UC employer retirement costs, though the university expects these costs to increase by $67 million in 2013-14. Budget trailer bill language states, however, that the absence of…

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    Where the money is

    Byadmin

    Willie Sutton was supposed to have explained that he robbed banks “because that’s where the money is.”  As this blog has pointed out on numerous occasions, while the regents and the governor worry about finding efficiencies and about saving some money via online education, big bucks capital projects – such as UCLA’s Grand Hotel – get little scrutiny.  And even when questions are asked – as occurred with the Grand Hotel – the requests are ultimately approved.  The San Francisco Chronicle has an article about a nonprofit entity that works on tallying and “visualizing” publicly available data.  You can find the…

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    Does everything have to be seen?

    Byadmin

    From time to time on this blog, we have pointed to the issue of privacy and potential ID theft posed by the practice of certain newspapers posting public employee and pensions by name.  While courts have seemed to see the handing over of raw payroll data as a required public disclosure, we have noted that whatever purposes such posting has – ostensibly “good government” – could be accomplished using job titles without names, statistical distributions, etc. It may seem at this point that nothing more could be said or done about the impact on UC.  Note that private universities face…

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    So it continues at Harvard

    Byadmin

    Back in April, we noted that it was becoming evident that the way to show erudition was to begin answers to questions with the word “so.”  See our earlier post for references at http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2013/04/how-to-answer-any-question-with.html On Harry Shearer’s Le Show radio program, he began to provide a “So’s of the Week” feature.  For those blog readers who might have thought that the so-thing was a passing fad, we – through Shearer – provide evidence from no less than Harvard that it continues. So click on the link below:

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    Almost Secret Garden

    Byadmin

    In the past when we have written about UCLA and gardens, it has been about the Japanese Garden that the university has been blocked from selling.  The university would prefer that the less said about the Japanese Garden, the better.  (If you are unfamiliar with the saga of that garden, use the search engine for this blog for past postings.)  But there is another garden on campus which is not intended to be secret but at least was a discovery for yours truly.  On the south side of the Anderson School, you will find the Nix Garden – which according…