Author: uclafaculty

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(May) Revise and Resubmit

Byuclafaculty

In normal times, the state budget is first submitted by the governor in January, per the California constitution. But there is a second stage, a tradition, of the “May Revise.” In mid-to-early May, the governor submits a second budget proposal which reflects updated economic forecasts plus a gathering of political intelligence concerning what will fly and what will not. There was a deviation from this tradition in 2009. In February 2009, the legislature both revised the current year’s budget and enacted a budget for the following year – which contained the now-expiring temporary tax increases. Things did not go smoothly…

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Did He Mention the Pension?

Byuclafaculty

A previous post noted that President Yudof would be meeting with the governor today. The video below is his statement, apparently made before the visit. Members of the UC community would not disagree with anything he said. Reports of the subsequent visit to the governor suggest that what occurred with Brown was more the governor looking for support in his efforts to get his tax program before the voters, one way or another, than the university making its needs known. (See http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2011/04/gov-brown-talks-tax-extensions.html.) Not clear is whether UC (UCOP) had a specific agenda for the governor’s consideration. As noted in prior…

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An Opportunity to Go Beyond Meet and Greet

Byuclafaculty

Yesterday, this blog noted that President Yudof “hoped” to meet with Governor Brown. Today’s news is that a meeting will occur this morning. From Capital Alert: Higher education brings out big guns today in the budget wars, with University of California President Mark Yudof, California State University Chancellor Charles Reed and Community Colleges Chancellor Jack Scott pleading their case for sparing colleges and universities from more cuts. They kick off Higher Education Advocacy Day at 9 a.m. on the Capitol’s west steps. Gov. Jerry Brown is set to meet with them privately later this morning. Full article: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/#ixzz1IenLHu6n Of course,…

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Hotel/Conference Center Train Halts; Mishap Averted

Byuclafaculty

As readers of this blog will know, a public forum on the proposed hotel/conference center to replace the current Faculty Center structure is scheduled for April 6 (7 pm, Faculty Center). This forum was shaping up to be an unpleasant confrontation. However, it appears that the train has been halted before unfortunate consequences ensued. The Council on Planning and Budget’s (CPB’s) negative evaluation of the project described in an earlier post – combined with other communications from faculty and senate committees – seems now to have led to a re-evaluation by the administration. After the CPB report was received by…

Student Interns: Must They Be Paid?

Byuclafaculty

Yours truly is involved in a conversation on another website in which the following question arose. It has been increasingly common for college students to undertake unpaid internships with private organizations (including businesses) for course credit. In fact, to they have to be paid? Can someone decide to work for free despite the existence of minimum wage and overtime laws? As it turns out, the answer seems to be that such activities have to be paid – at least the minimum wage – except under a narrow set of circumstances. Below are the guidelines from the U.S. Department of Labor,…

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Let’s Hope It’s More Than Hope

Byuclafaculty

We have been noting the need for UCOP to engage the governor concerning his pension proposals which – as has been reported – include UC and could override the Regents’ actions taken last December. From a San Jose Mercury-News article about higher ed lobbying activities planned for tomorrow: …University officials hope that “Advocacy Day” in Sacramento will help stave off further reductions to public colleges and universities, as some in the Legislature threaten to adopt an “all-cuts” budget to close the state’s budget gap without additional revenues… …On Tuesday, UC President Mark Yudof, Cal State Chancellor Charles Reed and California…

The U of Wisconsin Email Case

Byuclafaculty

Inside Higher Ed today carries a story on the request in Wisconsin for emails of a history professor by the state’s GOP in relation to the passage of anti-union legislation in that state. Wisconsin has a state equivalent of the federal Freedom of Information Act – as does California. One take-away from this episode is that faculty should not assume emails are private communications. Even if you use an outside service such as gmail, your communications can be forwarded around and wind up on services which are subject to outside scrutiny. Undoubtedly, UCLA would take a position similar to the…

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UCLA History: Nuclear Reactor

Byuclafaculty

The Daily Bruin last week ran a history of a small nuclear reactor that operated at UCLA from 1959 to 1984. The caption to the photo above read “Thomas E. Hicks (right), engineering professor and then-chief supervisor of the UCLA reactor, and Ronald MacLain, his chief assistant, stand on top of the newly built reactor in December 1960. The nuclear reactor, which had the power of 100 toasters, was small and used mostly for research purposes.” Full story at http://www.dailybruin.com/index.php/article/2011/03/small_ucla_reactor_used_by_students_shut_down_in_1984_because_of_potential_safety_hazards_declining_

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CPB Report Nixes Hotel/Conference Center Project

Byuclafaculty

The Council on Planning and Budget (CPB) of the Academic Senate yesterday sent the letter below to the chair of the Academic Senate. I have reproduced the text below. Yours truly broke the letter down into more paragraphs than the original for readability on this blog and marked some sections with bold printing for emphasis. In simple terms, the CPB thinks the hotel/conference center project is likely to fail and doesn’t think failure is a good option for UCLA. Here is the CPB letter: Professor Ann KaragozianChair, UCLA Academic Senate Re: Residential Conference Center Proposal Dear Professor Karagozian, On The…

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Letter by Farseeing Astronomers and Physicists to the Chancellor Concerning Faculty Center Demolition for a Hotel/Conference Center

Byuclafaculty

Yours truly was given a letter sent yesterday to the chancellor concerning the Faculty Center affair. The text is below since direct reproduction of the letter (as you can see at right) is difficult to do legibly on this blog: Dear Chancellor Block: Due to the unusual amount of discussion regarding building the proposed residential conference center on the site of the Faculty Center, the faculty within the Department of Physics and Astronomy encouraged a departmental faculty vote to ascertain if there was strong feeling within our department concerning this issue. A ballot was sent out asking whether to urge…