Author: admin

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    Listen to the Regents Meeting of Jan. 15, 2013

    Byadmin

    Why are we going back in time to last January?  The Regents had been live-streaming audio of their meetings prior to January 2013 but not archiving the audio files.  So we would request the files and – once they were received on CDs sent by postal mail – archive them.  Of course, this process took some time to accomplish so the files were not immediately available after the meetings.  Unless you listened live, you had to wait, even with our eventual archiving. Finally, the Regents – who keep pushing for high techy online ed – were embarrassed by their own…

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    UCLA History: Knudsen in the News Today

    Byadmin

    Vern O. Knudsen Today’s LA Times has an article about the shuttering of the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.  Included in that article is this brief note (below) about Vern Knudson who was chancellor of UCLA in 1959-60 and after whom a building on campus is named: …The main hall also featured metal acoustical panels and wall sconces, attributed to Vern O. Knudsen, an authority on architectural acoustics who also served, briefly, as chancellor of UCLA… Full article at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-santa-monica-civic-20130630,0,7440128.story Note: As I recall, the Auditorium’s problems stem from one of the byproducts of the state budget crisis of recent years:…

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    Gone

    Byadmin

    According to LAObserved, Jerry’s Deli in Westwood just south of UCLA closed yesterday as the result of a rent dispute. Story at http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2013/06/another_deli_down_jerrys.php Rent is always a problem:[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwJ-mpoR0lo?feature=player_detailpage]

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    No Mandate for Online Ed at UC: Let’s Pretend!

    Byadmin

    Our post last night that the governor line-item vetoed his own $10 million mandate in the new state budget for online courses at UC is correct in a literal sense. But what appears to have happened is that UC – which doesn’t like overt mandates which challenge its constitutional autonomy – agreed that it would spend $10 million on online ed anyway if the governor would just remove the mandate language. From Inside Higher Ed today: …“We’ve made a commitment to provide the $10 million, so it’s not going to affect our plans,” said Steve Montiel, a spokesman for the UC…

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    More Night Closures in the Sepulveda Pass

    Byadmin

    Tough to get in. It will be hard to get into segments of Sepulveda Blvd. at night during the first half of July. From the Brentwood Patch: Kiewit is scheduled to resume work involving the night time full closure of Sepulveda Blvd. between the Skirball Bridge and Mountaingate starting Monday, July 1 for approximately two weeks between the hours of 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.   The anticipated dates of the full closure of Sepulveda are July 1-2 and July 8-13 between the hours of 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Full story at http://brentwood.patch.com/groups/announcements/p/sepulveda-blvd-to-get-widened-at-skirball-bridge So it will be tough to get…

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    Online Ed Earmarked Money Line-Item Vetoed

    Byadmin

    Michael Meranze, in commenting on the previous post, noted that among the items vetoed by the governor was language that earmarked $10 million at UC for online ed courses.  As readers will know, that earmark was in the budget bill at the request of the governor.  Other quasi-earmarks were also vetoed.  The actual language doesn’t delete dollars from the UC budget – which is why I missed it in the prior post.  It just deletes specifications for how dollars are to be used.  The veto language reads: Item 6440-001-0001 — For support of University of California. I revise this item…

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    Budget Signed: Smile But Then Scroll Down

    Byadmin

    It was generally all smiles and laughter at the state budget signing this morning as the photo above shows.  Contrast that photo with the one below at the 2011 budget signing when the governor had to sign a budget – after getting no GOP support for putting a tax measure on the ballot – that assumed a phantom $4 billion in revenue to make things seem in “balance.”  No smiles there. In any case, there appear to be no surprises for UC in the budget. [But see the updated post above on the governor’s veto of his own online education…

  • Getting More Moody(‘s)

    Byadmin

    Yesterday, we noted how a lawsuit by a former UCLA basketball player had led Moody’s to lower the credit outlook for the NCAA.  More generally, Moody’s seems to be all over higher ed and now getting into the MOOC business.  According to Moody’s, big-name universities should be happy with MOOCs and lesser ones should be sad.  From the Chronicle of Higher Education: The spread of massive open online courses, or MOOCs, is “credit positive” for universities that offer them but “credit negative” for a majority of lesser-known institutions that lack a prominent brand name, according to a report published on…