Author: uclafaculty

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Mumps

Byuclafaculty

Arthur Ashe Center releases mumps health alert after outbreak at UC Berkeley By KAVITHA SUBRAMANIAN, October 6, 2011, Daily Bruin Off the Press blog UCLA Arthur Ashe Student Health and Wellness Center has released a mumps health alert following an outbreak at UC Berkeley this past week. At least 20 Berkeley students have reported potential mumps infections as of this evening, and hundreds of students have been waiting in line at UC Berkeley’s student health center for free vaccinations, according to the Daily Californian. No cases have been reported at UCLA… Full article at: http://www.dailybruin.com/index.php/blog/off_the_press/2011/10/arthur_ashe_center_releases_mumps_health_alert_after_outbreak_at_uc_berkeley ============== One suspects that the…

Bloat

Byuclafaculty

Amid Budget Crisis, UC Debates Management Bloat Bay Area Citizen 10/5/11, Excerpt: Over the past decade, the number of managers and senior staff at the University of California grew at a much faster rate than that of faculty and students, leading some professors and legislators to question the university’s priorities as it looks to close a $2.5 billion budget gap. Last spring, the number of senior professionals and managers — including chancellors and vice presidents — reached 8,821, a 76 percent increase since 2001, according to university figures. By contrast, faculty, visiting professors and lecturers accounted for 15,740 positions, a…

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Backdoor?

Byuclafaculty

Gov. Brown has until Sunday to decide to sign or veto the remaining bills on his desk. Among them is SB 185 – the bill that sparked the anti-affirmative action “bake sale” at UC-Berkeley. It is unclear what the governor will do, although the speculation yours truly has seen so far suggests he will sign it. On the other hand, recent vetoes suggest he is reluctant to fiddle with California’s direct democracy. (He vetoed legislation that would have indirectly impeded use of paid signature gatherers, for example.) And the delay in announcing what he will do suggests the governor is…

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A Political Factoid for Today

Byuclafaculty

Question: Can a UC campus foundation give money to ballot campaigns? If so, has it happened? Answer: The UCLA Foundation has twice given money to campaigns for ballot propositions in the past decade. Both propositions involved money for higher ed, including UC. In 2004, the Foundation gave $57,087 to support Prop 55 – a bond measure for education which narrowly passed. In 2006, it gave $87,550 in support of Prop 1D – also an education bond measure but which passed by a respectable 56.9%. Other UC and CSU foundations have made similar contributions. You can find the contribution information by…

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Back in the Stream

Byuclafaculty

You may recall a brief episode in which classes which used streaming video at UCLA suddenly had the service cut off – and then restored after a brief interval. The practice of making such video course assignments available over a password-protected network to students was challenged in court as a copyright violation. The university restored the service when it concluded there was not a copyright violation. (You can find earlier posts about this matter on this blog.) A court victory was announced by the university yesterday. However, questions remain about how general the victory is. See below: Court dismisses lawsuit…

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Our Daily Bread

Byuclafaculty

Readers of this blog who look at the blog’s heading will know that this blog is sponsored by the UCLA Faculty Association. If you are a current faculty or a retired faculty, you can help the Faculty Association earn its daily bread by joining. An application form is at http://www.uclafaculty.org/FASite/Join_files/FAApplication.pdf And as we have been doing quarterly, the blog is available as a pdf-book at: Open publication – Free publishing – More ucla Note that the videos embedded in the blog are not available in the pdf version. For video, you have to use the blogsite itself.

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Changing Admissions Standards?

Byuclafaculty

An earlier post on the UC-Berkeley affirmative action “bake sale” controversy noted that the issue that sparked that controversy was a bill – now on Gov. Brown’s desk – that would possibly relax the ban on affirmative action in UC student admissions enacted by voters in Prop 209. However, there are other changes in admissions standards underway that have received less attention in the news media. And another bill on the governor’s desk is involved. See below: UC turns career tech ed-friendly (excerpt) 9/30/11, John Fensterwald – Educated Guess A decade ago, 258 career technical education courses counted toward satisfying…