Author: admin

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    The Story of UC and the “Troll”

    Byadmin

    Bloomberg and other sources are reporting that UC and a firm described in the news media – particularly news media sympathetic to the high-tech sector – as a patent troll have lost an appeal concerning an internet patent.  On the other side of the appeal were Amazon and Google.  In an earlier trial in a lower court, the patent was invalidated.  Yahoo and J.C. Penney were also involved in the lower court case. [“Patent trolls” are companies that acquire patents – particularly patents that seem to involve a broad range of activities – and then sue firms that use the…

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    Straw into Gold? More Positive Spinning on the New UC Prez

    Byadmin

    An earlier post noted that there seemed to be some effort at positive spinning on the Regents selection of the new UC president.  The latest example appears in the LA Times as the headline below suggests: As Arizona governor, Napolitano put higher education on agenda http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-napolitano-gov-20130722,0,5155679,full.story Of course, there are some dangers in such spinning efforts:[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apZuO1nwSvQ?feature=player_detailpage]

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    The Appeal of the Japanese Garden

    Byadmin

    The Facebook page of the group trying to save the UCLA Hannah Carter Japanese Garden from sale and possible destruction is carrying this notice:EXCELLENT NEWS! The Court of Appeals has scheduled Oral Arguments for the Appeal on August 28th. This means that they recognize the urgency and importance of the Garden and do not wish to keep us in limbo any longer! We may get their decision (and opinion) later in the fall. Source: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Save-the-Hannah-Carter-Japanese-Garden/189816991118293

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    No Wonder the Regents Wanted the New UC Prez to Have Washington Connections!

    Byadmin

    Inside Higher Ed alerted me today to this chart from the National Journal showing the university degrees of the top 250 Obama administration officials.  UC is not – shall we say? – prominent.  See: http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2013/07/22/obama-administrations-private-university-background andhttp://www.nationaljournal.com/decision-makers/more-top-obama-officials-have-graduate-degrees-from-oxford-than-any-public-university-in-the-united-states-20130719  [Includes link to methodology] But don’t worry about the apparent lack of a link between California and DC.  With the telegraph replacing the Pony Express, coast-to-coast communication will soon be easier.  Right, Janet?

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    Pro and Con

    Byadmin

    In a TV interview airing today, Assembly Speaker John Pérez managed to be both pro and con the appointment of Janet Napolitano as the new president of UC.  He was against the search process which he said was not open enough.  On the other hand, due to what he said was luck despite the bad process, UC has ended up with an “incredibly talented” executive.  The fact that she has a political background, Pérez said, didn’t have anything to do with regental concerns about interventions by the governor and legislature in UC affairs.  He said he had had concerns about…

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    The Medium is the Message at the Site of the UCLA Grand Hotel

    Byadmin

    We noted in an earlier post that after blocking off the Ackerman bus turnaround and parking structure 6 – the site of the planned UCLA Grand Hotel – not much had been done other than messing up some landscaping in the area.  It appeared that the intent was really to mark the territory in the face of pending litigation.In any case, yours truly went by the site late last Thursday to see if anything visible had been accomplished on the site.  As the photos below indicate, it’s still much as it was earlier.  Messed up landscaping at some locations but…

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    Timing is Everything

    Byadmin

    The official UC announcement of the Napolitano appointment as president this coming September makes the following point:…By virtue of her appointment beginning after July 1, 2013, she will be included under the new tier of the UC Retirement Program.  Full release at http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/29782. What is there to say?  Timing is everything and she’s too late:

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    Listen to the Afternoon Regents Meeting of July 18, 2013 [UC prez appointment]

    Byadmin

    We continue to provide alternative audio archiving of Regents meetings due to the regental policy of maintaining archives for only one year.  As noted in the earlier post of the morning session, you can find this policy at http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/videos.html.  The statement there reads: Video Archives of Regents Meetings: 2013Video files for past open session meetings of The University of California Regents and its Committees are available for one year after the dates of the meetings. Below is the official agenda for the afternoon session: Agenda, Thursday afternoon, July 18 [Approval of Janet Napolitano as new UC president] 1:00 pm Special…

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    Listen to the Morning Regents Session of July 18, 2013

    Byadmin

    We continue to provide alternative archiving of Regents meetings due to the regental policy of maintaining archives for only one year.  For the record, you can find this policy at http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/videos.html.  The statement there currently reads: Video Archives of Regents Meetings: 2013Video files for past open session meetings of The University of California Regents and its Committees are available for one year after the dates of the meetings. Below is the official agenda for the morning session: 8:30 am Committee of the Whole – Public Comment (open session) 8:50 am Committee on Compensation (open session) 9:00 am Committee on Educational…

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    Pay for the New UC Prez: Mellowing Newsom Likes It

    Byadmin

    Gov. Brown is out of the country and missed yesterday’s Regents meeting and won’t be at the meeting today.  At the meeting scheduled for later today, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom might well attend.  In the past, he has been against high pay for UC executives.  But now he seems to have mellowed in the case of Janet Napolitano, the nominee for UC president.  The Sacramento Bee Capitol Alert blog indicates that Newsom thinks the pay in store for Napolitano is OK: …UC has not yet revealed how much Napolitano will be paid. That information will be made public tomorrow after…