Author: uclafaculty

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Yours Truly and Others Comment on Student-Regents Communications

Byuclafaculty

The Regents are a less-staid group than they were in the 1950s when the photo on the left was taken.  (They are discussing the loyalty oath controversy of that era in the picture.) Thanks to the UC-Davis pepper spray incident, Regent Chair Lansing has been seeking alternative avenues of communication with students.In any event, the Daily Bruin asked yours truly and two others to write little op eds on such communications. You can read about it at http://www.dailybruin.com/index.php/article/2012/01/_on_the_record_

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New Plan Could Affect Transfers to UCLA

Byuclafaculty

You may have seen an article in the LA Times about a possible change in direction at California community colleges.  UCLA says about 40% of its graduates (undergrads) are transfer students.  Not all of these transfers come from California community colleges, however.  But poking around on the web suggests that around 90% of them are from the state’s community college system. The original Master Plan viewed community colleges as colleges of last resort.  Anyone with a high school degree could enroll.  (Indeed, some enrollees may not have high school degrees.)  If an enrollee got on an academic track (some courses…

New Conflict of Interest Rules Adopted by the American Economic Assn.

Byuclafaculty

The American Economic Association – at its annual meeting in Chicago this past weekend – adopted conflict of interest disclosure guidelines for the various journals it publishes. Debate on this issue developed in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and complaints that views expressed by economists might be influenced, or perceived to be influenced, by sources of support. The guidelines require authors to disclose financial support, not only for the research presented in the article, but also more generally over the prior three years. Inside Higher Ed has a brief story with links at http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2012/01/09/economists-adopt-conflict-interest-guidelines

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Crane Dropped the Ball and Now Sees Himself as Galileo

Byuclafaculty

Our favorite ex-Regent, David Crane, is now comparing himself to Galileo for his unhelpful stand on the Regents regarding pensions. Readers of this blog will know that Crane was appointed in the fleeting minutes of former Governor Schwarzenegger’s term to the Regents. But he was never confirmed by the state senate and his term thus ended in late 2011. While on the Board, Crane – who evidently wanted to make government pensions generally his issue – was not helpful in differentiating the steps the Regents had taken in modifying UCRP from other state pensions such as CalPERS.  UC is in…

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LAO seems to really miss CPEC now that it’s gone

Byuclafaculty

As readers of earlier blog posts will know, Governor Brown line-item vetoed CPEC (California Postsecondary Education Commission) out of existence by eliminating its funding in the current year state budget.  CPEC was created to coordinate and evaluate the provision of higher ed in California under the Master Plan – public and private. Now the LAO (Legislative Analyst’s Office) thinks that some kind of replacement for CPEC is needed to monitor higher ed.  LAO seems to want performance standards, much of which deals with flows into and out of higher ed institutions. It is interesting that the state generally, not just…

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Someone let the cat out of the bag on the state budget

Byuclafaculty

Normally, the governor’s budget proposal (reminder – it is a proposal, not an enacted budget) would be made public January 10.  Someone in the governor’s entourage apparently goofed and posted it on the web today.  So there was a hasty unveiling without the usual leaking of bits and pieces for days before January 10. As it happens, yours truly is about to go to Chicago for three days so only a rough perusal of the budget was possible.  But here are some highlights.  First, take a look at the chart on the left.  The dark part of the bars are…

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UCLA History Book

Byuclafaculty

There was a nice review in yesterday’s LA Times of the new history of UCLA that recently was published. Lots of old photos are included in the book.  You can learn such things as while Berkeley may have been the main connection to the World War II Manhattan Project, UCLA handled the payroll! The book can be ordered at http://www.uclahistoryproject.ucla.edu/Book/default.asp I’d like to give you the web address of the LA Times review but the Times’ website is so clunky that all you will find if you try to locate the book review – and if you are very lucky –…

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Washington Dysfunction to be Reflected in Your Paycheck

Byuclafaculty

Excerpt from an email circulated at Anderson – in case you did not get one similar: This notice is in regards to the Social Security (OASDI) tax deducted from the January 3, 2012 paychecks. In 2010, President Obama signed into law the Tax Relief Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010.  Included in the Act was a provision that reduced the Social Security withholding rate from 6.2% to 4.2% for 2011.  This change was effective with wages paid on or after January 1, 2011 and included an expiration date of December 31, 2011.   In order to comply with…