Author: uclafaculty

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Ongoing CalPERS Scandals Make It Tougher for UC

Byuclafaculty

UC’s pension plan has nothing to do with CalPERS. But CalPERS has had a series of scandals involving conflict of interest, bribery, and bad investments that tend to tar all public pensions in California including ours. CalPERS’ ongoing problems will complicate UC’s efforts to resolve its own pension unfunded liability. Continued unraveling of CalPERS scandals increases the chances that UC will be dragged into some statewide reform for all public pensions. The latest CalPERS scandal is reported today: CalPERS investment officer linked to bribery scandal resigns Thursday, Aug. 26, 2010, Sacramento Bee (Excerpt) A senior CalPERS investment officer resigned today…

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Letter from President Yudof regarding proposed changes to UC retirement benefits

Byuclafaculty

The following letter about the impending recommendations of the Post-Employment Benefits Task Force was emailed today. It is reproduced below for anyone who may not have received the email and to provide a continuing source of the text. Some parts have been put in bold in the reproduction below.=================== UCOP NewsSent: Thursday, August 26, 2010 11:23 AM To: UCOP-L@LISTSERV.UCOP.EDU Subject: A letter from President Yudof regarding proposed changes to UC retirement benefits Importance: High MEMBERS, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY Dear Colleagues: I am writing to let you know that within the next few days, the Task Force on Post-Employment Benefits…

Gubernatorial Race: Who’s Up? Who’s Down?

Byuclafaculty

An interesting item below posted on the LA Weekly website: Schwarzenegger Predicts Victory For Jerry Brown? By Gene Maddaus, Informer Blog/LA Weekly published: Wed., Aug. 25 2010 @ 12:34PM http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/politics/arnold-schwarzenegger-jerry-br/ ​So Patricia Sellers is an editor-at-large at Fortune, and as such she hangs out in L.A. restaurants where you might just happen to run into people like Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Upon bumping into Schwarzenegger on Monday at Le Pain Quotidien, Sellers asked the governor what he thought of Meg Whitman, about whom she wrote a profile last year. The governor’s answer was off the record, but it’s clear…

More on Online Higher Education

Byuclafaculty

Inside Higher Ed alert points to “iTunes University” downloading from an Apple press release: Excerpt from release: iTunes U Downloads Top 300 Million CUPERTINO, California—August 24, 2010—In just over three years, iTunes® U downloads have topped 300 million and it has become one of the world’s most popular online educational catalogs. Over 800 universities throughout the world have active iTunes U sites, and nearly half of these institutions distribute their content publicly on the iTunes Store®. New content has just been added from universities in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico and Singapore, and iTunes users now have access to over…

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Robbed Blind: Governor is Heating Up Verbal Campaign on Public Pensions

Byuclafaculty

The rhetoric around public pensions in California is heating up, as the excerpt below from a longer piece at http://blogs.kqed.org/capitalnotes/2010/08/24/budget-55-robbed-blind/#more-6347 suggests. As indicated in my previous posts on this issue, all of this rhetoric on pensions points to the need for a Regental plan for UCRS to be in place before the next governor takes over. But, of course, it matters what this plan will be. Note that the 1999 law which the governor decries below did not deal with UC’s pension. So we are potentially being pulled into a CalPERS issue. —————- Budget +55: “Robbed Blind” August 24, 2010,…

Order! Order! Another University Ranking

Byuclafaculty

The Washington Monthly has a ranking of universities which puts an emphasis on such factors as “social mobility.” The top schools in its ranking are UC-San Diego, UC-Berkeley, and UCLA in that order. Perhaps more interesting than the rankings is that you can look at such factors as the percent of students receiving Pell grants. For details, go to http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/rankings_2010/national_university_rank.php

UCLA Researcher “Firing” Questioned in Newspaper Editorial

Byuclafaculty

A case of a UCLA researcher, James E. Engstrom, who was reported soon to be “fired,” has been making the rounds of the Internet and has now penetrated print media. See below. It is not clear to me exactly the nature of the appointment involved from web sources. Dr. Engstrom’s official UCLA webpage is still active at http://www.cancer.ucla.edu/index.aspx?page=645&recordid=83 Dr. Engstrom’s work apparently is controversial because it questions ill-health effects of diesel and other pollutants and from tobacco. Googling his name pulls up various controversies surrounding his work and related personnel actions. I have no other info on this matter beyond…

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The Rent, The Rent! University Head’s Housing Raises Ire

Byuclafaculty

August 21, 2010, NY Times (Bay Area Edition) University Head’s Housing Raises Ire By STEVE FAINARU Five minutes before midnight on June 30, movers hauled the last boxes from a spectacular rented home in the Oakland Hills. The tenant’s lease was about to expire, and in his haste to get out, he left behind thousands of dollars of damage to the hardwood floors and Venetian plastered walls. The tenant was Mark G. Yudof, president of the University of California. His midnight move was the latest chapter in a two-year housing drama that has cost the university more than $600,000 and…

This Could Never Happen at UCLA Given Our Moral Minds

Byuclafaculty

August 20, 2010, NY Times (excerpt) Harvard Finds Scientist Guilty of Misconduct By NICHOLAS WADE Harvard University said Friday that it had found a prominent researcher, Marc Hauser, “solely responsible” for eight instances of scientific misconduct. Hours later, Dr. Hauser, a rising star for his explorations into cognition and morality, made his first public statement since news of the inquiry emerged last week, telling The New York Times, “I acknowledge that I made some significant mistakes” and saying he was “deeply sorry for the problems this case had caused to my students, my colleagues and my university.” Dr. Hauser is…

ASUCLA Bookstore Beware

Byuclafaculty

Excerpt picked up from Inside Higher Ed & from dailypress.com/news/newport-news/dp-nws-cnu-bookstore-20100819,0,745171.storyAugust 19, 2010 NEWPORT NEWS — Students wandering Christopher Newport University’s campus next year looking for the bookstore won’t find one. The annual college tradition of buying and selling textbooks will have to take place online for CNU students. The university announced Thursday that it’s shutting down its bookstore in the David Student Union and launching a textbook website instead. The change happens Jan. 1, 2011. The decision to close the store is based on student buying patterns and the proliferation of online competition, according to CNU. Students have begun flocking…