Author: uclafaculty

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Regent Crane Leaves an Unhelpful Message

Byuclafaculty

Departing Regent David Crane, a last-minute appointment to the Board of Regents by Governor Schwarzenegger, would have had his last Regents meeting in November, since he could not get legislative confirmation. But the Regents’ meeting was canceled due to a fear of Occupy-type demonstrations. However, Crane has left behind a missive of sorts – a press release on state budget and pension matters in which he a) endorses the pension proposals by Governor Brown and b) wants to take those proposals further. No reference to the changes already adopted by the Regents for UC is made in the release. No…

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UC-Davis Hotel Expansion Proposal: Cautionary Lessons for UCLA

Byuclafaculty

Yours truly has obtained some documents related to the proposed expansion of a campus hotel at UC-Davis. The documents are more complete than what we currently have for the revised UCLA proposal and include a consultant’s market competition study. You can access these documents by scrolling down in this blog entry. The consultant hired by UC-Davis, as might be expected, indicated that Davis-area commercial hotels would not be adversely affected by competition from the campus project. However, the City of Davis seems to disagree and worries about the loss of room tax revenue diverted from the commercial hotels and about…

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Yudof Issues Statement on Events at UC-Berkeley

Byuclafaculty

Statement on student protests (11-16-11) I am proud of UC students who are speaking out with passion and conviction in support of public higher education across the state. I was moved last night by the sight of thousands of students who peacefully demonstrated in UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza, and by those who traveled to Sacramento to protest state disinvestment in our colleges and universities. Free speech is in the DNA of the University of California, and public protest is an important part of our history. Free speech is often contentious, as is democracy. I want all of our students to…

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PPIC Poll on Public Higher Ed in California

Byuclafaculty

The charts above come from a poll taken by the Public Policy Institute of California available at: http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/survey/S_1111MBS.pdf [Click on the table above to enlarge it or go to the report itself.] You can interpret the charts as you like. As the saying goes, an optimist is someone who thinks we are in the best of all possible worlds – and a pessimist is also someone who thinks we are in the best of all possible worlds.

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LAOmission

Byuclafaculty

Our previous post deals with the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) report on the state budget. Quote from page 41 of the report: “…because the state is not required under current law to contribute additional funds to UC to address its unfunded pension and retiree health liabilities, the forecast assumes no General Fund resources to assist UC for these purposes.”

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It Sure Looks Like the Trigger Is Going to be Pulled

Byuclafaculty

There is an advance report from the Sacramento Bee that the Legislative Analyst later today will be announcing that projections of revenue will fall sufficiently short of assumptions to fire the budget trigger – which further chops the UC budget this year. By itself, just the LAO projection does not fire the trigger but it is part of the mechanism. The LAO report is not yet posted. From the Bee: California would impose $2 billion in mid-year “trigger” cuts next month, mostly through K-12 school reductions, under a new revenue forecast issued this morning by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office……

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Campus Demonstrations: Recent & Back in the Day

Byuclafaculty

Videos from the Occupy demonstrations yesterday at UC-Berkeley are available at: http://www.dailycal.org/2011/11/16/video-series-november-15-occupy-cal-strike/ Of particular interest is the talk given by Robert Reich, shown above. Click on the link above (not the image above) to see the Berkeley videos. See also http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2011/11/16/MN7V1LVH5N.DTL Old timers will remember some of the scenes below: UC-Berkeley UCLA UC-Santa Barbara

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Walking Solution for Hotel/Conference Center Traffic Problems?

Byuclafaculty

We posted the audio of the “scoping” session on UCLA revised hotel/conference center proposal that was held on Nov. 14. There were repeated concerns raised about traffic. The plan evidently calls for all traffic to enter the campus through Westwood Boulevard, southern entrance from the Village. But there is a limited turn-around space in front of the proposed hotel/conference center which must also accommodate various municipal bus lines that terminate there, hired buses that will pick up and leave off hotel/conference guests, and other drop-off vehicles, as well as the entrance to the project’s own parking. Comments from the public…

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Audio of Scoping Hearing on UCLA/Hotel/Conference Center: 11-14-11

Byuclafaculty

This evening (11-14-11), a public hearing was held on the scoping report on the proposed hotel/conference center – primarily an environmental review. See earlier posts on this blog. Most speakers were representatives of neighborhood groups and representatives of local hotels. One retired and recalled faculty member spoke. Major themes were the lack of a business plan, incompleteness of architecture and design features, parking, and traffic issues. The UCLA architect repeatedly stressed that the various designs shown on PowerPoint slides were conceptual, not final. Some of those who made comments noted that it was difficult to evaluate a project without final…