Author: admin

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    Quick Summary & Reaction to the Governor’s Budget

    Byadmin

    Here is some preliminary analysis of the governor’s budget proposal.  Note that it is a proposal and not an enacted budget.  Typically, the proposal is revised in May and not passed until close to the June 30 deadline. At the state level, the general fund is said to have had a negative balance of $1.615 billion as of last June 30.  The governor is proposing and forecasting that at the end of this fiscal year (2012-13), there will instead be a positive reserve of $0.785 billion.  That swing tells you that he is projecting a surplus this current year (inflow…

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    A Shake for Higher Ed in the Forthcoming State Budget?

    Byadmin

    According to the LA Times (and consistent with prior posts on this blog regarding the governor’s attitude toward higher ed costs and online education), Brown plans a less pleasant shake for public higher ed than depicted in the photo: …Brown is expected to use his spending plan to shake up California’s public university systems, according to administration officials. The governor has long complained that they are bloated and inefficient, and he wants to attach strings to some of their funding… Full story at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-state-budget-20130110,0,746142.story We will know more later today when the budget is presented. Until then, a little music:[youtube…

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    UCLA to Host LA Mayoral Debate Jan. 28

    Byadmin

    Parade for Opening of LA City Hall in 1928 LA’s City Hall and UCLA’s Westwood campus were under construction at about the same time.  This coming January 28, UCLA will host a mayoral debate at Royce Hall:UCLA and the Los Angeles Coalition for the Economy & Jobs have joined together to co-host a jobs-focused mayoral debate on Monday, Jan. 28, at UCLA’s Royce Hall. The debate will be broadcast live, commercial free, on NBC4 from 7 to 8 p.m. and will continue as a live webcast from 8 to 8:30 p.m. at www.nbcla.com. The debate, moderated by NBC4 chief political reporter…

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    Listen to Gov. Brown Say He is President of UC at Nov. 27, 2012 Special Regents Meeting

    Byadmin

    The Regents held a special meeting to approve the new UC-Berkeley Chancellor and the interim UC-Riverside Chancellor on Nov. 27, 2012.  You can hear that meeting at the link below.  Governor Brown , Lt. Governor Newsom, and one Regent (Zettel) voted against the pay package for the new Berkeley chancellor Nicholas Dirks which paid $50,000 in sslary more than the previous chancellor.  (The increment was from private funds.)  All three voted for the appointment but against the pay. Brown’s comments are particularly interesting and occur roughly between minute 5:50 and 10:50 on the recording.  He says that the state funding…

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    Timing is Everything

    Byadmin

    The state controller’s monthly cash report through December is out today and on the face of it there is less revenue than anticipated and more expenditure than anticipated for the first half of the year.  However, the controller in footnotes and in a supplementary statement attributes these results to timing rather than some fundamental departure from budgetary expectations.  Certain sales tax receipts that would normally have gotten into the general fund in December were not transferred there until January.  And certain local expenditures were paid out earlier than had been expected. In any event, these figures are too recent to…

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    Things are heating up – particularly with regard to state politicos – concerning online ed at UC

    Byadmin

    From the L.A. NOW blog of LA Times:Conference about online education attracts major players to UCLA January 8, 2013, Larry Gordon A national conference at UCLA on the future of online college education attracted some of the biggest names in the industry Tuesday, as well as politicians and faculty leaders from state universities. …Speakers at the event included Daphne Koller, the Stanford professor who is one of the founders of Coursera, a MOOC that offers courses from prestigious universities for free but usually without college credit, and Sebastian Thrun, a Stanford faculty member who co-founded Udacity, another MOOC that has…

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    Crime Issues at UCLA

    Byadmin

    UCLA Police Dept. building Winter quarter seems to have opened with some crime issues according to the Westwood-Century City Patch:  UCLA students were being warned Tuesday to be on alert after reports of two students being the victims of separate crimes about 90 minutes apart early Monday on or near the campus. About 12:05 a.m. Monday, a male student was walking north on Veteran Avenue from Gayley Avenue—adjacent to the west side of the campus—when a man approached him from behind, “placed a handgun in his back, and demanded his property,” according to UCLA police…The second crime occurred between 1:15…

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    A whisper about higher ed in the forthcoming state budget

    Byadmin

    In earlier posts, we have noted the practice of hints about the state budget proposal coming out before the official unveiling.  Up to now, the education hints have focused on K-12.  Today, the headlines were mainly about the governor’s complaints about the federal court jurisdiction over the state prison system.  However, he paired that complaint with a whisper about higher ed by saying it would be better to spend prison money on education.  And he did mention higher ed in that context. “We’re proposing increases in education at the higher level and in K through 12,” Brown said at a…

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    Apparently, UC’s Online Courses Didn’t Knock Their Socks Off

    Byadmin

    As earlier posts have noted, the governor at a recent Regents meeting pushed for a presentation on the progress being made by UC in pitching online courses.  Such a presentation will be made at the next Regents meeting.  But it appears there will be some explaining to do: The University of California is spending millions to market an ambitious array of online classes created to “knock people’s socks off” and attract tuition from students around the world. But since classes began a year ago, enrollment outside of UC is not what you’d call robust. One person took a class. “It’s taking longer…

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    Seven

    Byadmin

    There are seven years in a sabbatical.  Snow White had seven dwarfs.  There are seven deadly sins.  And Prop 30 – the governor’s now-enacted tax initiative – raised taxes for seven years. So legislative Republicans are pushing for a seven-year freeze on public university tuitions.  Now it is true that the Republicans are in a diminished situation with Democrats holding a supermajority in the state legislature.  But the idea of a tuition freeze will have an appeal beyond Republican ranks. The PolitiCal blog of the LA Times has the story (excerpt): Legislative Republicans on Monday proposed a seven-year freeze on…