Author: uclafaculty

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Transfer Program With UCLA (or not)

Byuclafaculty

On the one hand, there is an article that says UCLA has joined a for-profit program to encourage community college transfers: The for-profit company Quad Learning announced Friday it has recruited UCLA and Occidental College to be part of a national community college transfer alliance — but the program doesn’t come cheap. For about twice the cost of regular tuition, American Honors gives community college students extra support, coaching and smaller classes to help them transfer to 27 partner universities, including Purdue University and Ohio State.Chris Romer, co-founder of American Honors, said the universities have agreed to be “transfer friendly” to American…

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Wait and See

Byuclafaculty

We posted earlier about general plans for the state budget by the legislative Democrats which promise “more” for higher ed and UC than the Legislative Analyst’s projections seemed to imply.  It is unclear if there is more than what the governor will propose in early January. Below are two slides from a presentation by the legislative Democrats.  But wait and see is probably the best advice at this moment.  Note that the projections all assume uninterrupted economic expansion which is hard to guarantee. You can find the full set of slides at http://asmdc.org/issues/budget-blueprint/images/2014-15-blueprint-for-a-responsible-budget-v7cw.pdf

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Maybe It’s Better to Get Than to Give

Byuclafaculty

We have been following the issues of online education on this blog.  $10 million has been earmarked by UC for online course development.  So what is currently on offer?  And who is doing the offering? Above is the current listing.  [Click to enlarge and clarify.]  Berkeley, Riverside, Davis, and Irvine seem to be doing the offering.  UCLA students can take these online courses (Spanish is now fully enrolled) but UCLA isn’t offering any such courses to other campuses, at least according to the UC websites below.  So, despite the holiday season, maybe it’s better to get than to give.http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/30393 http://crossenroll.universityofcalifornia.edu/about/all-courses.html…

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Community College Transfers to UCLA

Byuclafaculty

Yours truly came across a news article indicating that Santa Monica College provided more undergraduate transfers to UC than any othre community college.  You can find the article at: http://www.smmirror.com/articles/News/Santa-Monica-College-Number-One-In-Transfers-To-University-Of-California/39064 So he poked around the website for the community college system to find out which community colleges led in transfers to UCLA.  The pie chart above shows the results for all community colleges providing at least 100 transfers in academic year 2012-13.  [Click on the chart to enlarge and clarify.]  More than half of the transfers came from colleges providing under 100 students.  Santa Monica was again the leading transfer…

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We Got a Mention

Byuclafaculty

Maybe not so fast An earlier post on this blog described the recent Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) report that projected that, with a combination of continued economic growth and Prop 30 revenues while they are in effect, California’s “structural” deficit had ended.  We also noted that included in the LAO projections was what me termed an ungenerous assumption about spending on UC.  We have also been posting excerpts from Regents meetings in which the governor and Speaker Pérez have also made ungenerous remarks.  [Pérez, however, is now in the race for state controller and indicated that a transition to a…

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The Brand

Byuclafaculty

We’re still fascinated by that page on the UC website that provides “brand guidelines” so that we can all “speak UC.” You can find it at http://brand.universityofcalifornia.edu/. Clicking around and you will learn that “University of California” is actually a “wordmark.” And you probably thought it was just the name of the UC system!  In fact, the “University of California” wordmark serves as the primary graphic identifier of the university for systemwide communications. However, the visual identity is more than just the wordmark. Photography, other graphics, typography, color palettes—all these elements help form the “visual ecosystem” for the name of the…

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A Berkeley Admissions Dossier Reader Tells All

Byuclafaculty

Yours truly confesses he missed an August 1 article in the NY Times concerning the UC-Berkeley admissions process (which undoubtedly applies to UCLA as well).  The article gets into the sensitive area of admissions in the post-Prop 209 era.  [Prop 209 bans affirmative action in admissions.]  Since you may also have missed it, here is an excerpt below with a link to the full article: A HIGHLY qualified student, with a 3.95 unweighted grade point average and 2300 on the SAT, was not among the top-ranked engineering applicants to the University of California, Berkeley. He had perfect 800s on his…

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Cash News (Or Really Non-News)

Byuclafaculty

The state controller has issued his cash statement for the first 5 months of the fiscal year (July-November).  Revenues for the general fund are about what was projected in the state budget passed last June.  Personal income tax receipts are running ahead of forecast (which probably means the rich are getting richer).  Sales tax receipts are a bit behind (not so good retail performance).  But really there is no news. Receipts are highly seasonal due to dates when estimated taxes are due.  At the moment, the reserve in the general fund is negative to the tune of almost $20 billion…

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Wait a Minute!

Byuclafaculty

In case you were wondering what your students are doing during exam week, the Daily Bruin provides a clue on its website in the form of a “radio” interview at the link below:  http://dailybruin.com/2013/12/09/ucla-students-find-many-ways-to-procrastinate-during-finals-week/ The audio didn’t play on Firefox but it did work on Chrome.  [Maybe someone just didn’t have the time to make it compatible with Firebox.]

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Lab Retirees Want Back In on UC Health Plan

Byuclafaculty

There has always been a question about exactly what is the legal obligation of UC to pay for retiree health care.  The position of the university has been that unlike the pension, there is no obligation.  Nothing was really promised for sure.  It’s just a nice thing UC does. Employees of one of the former nuclear labs, once operated exclusively by UC but now administered under a consortium including UC, have been litigating over being cut off from UC retiree health as a result of the administrative transition.  See below: T Two years ago… the California Supreme Court confirmed that…