LAObserved has a piece on 4 proposed subway stop locations for UCLA at: http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2010/07/placing_a_subway_station.phpDon’t expect the subway to arrive anytime soon. If anyone wants to compose “Someday, My Train Will Come,” here is the music for it: [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm9zFJsEDHk&fs=1&hl=en_US]
Gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown released a plan for education. Most of it deals with K-12. However, there is a section on higher ed reproduced below. It picks up on the prisons vs. higher ed theme that the current governor sounded back in January – although there is no promise of an initiative that the governor outlined at that time. From:http://www.jerrybrown.org/sites/default/files/Education%20Plan.pdf Higher EducationThe California Master Plan was created in 1960. When I was Governor in the 1970s, the Master Plan was working far better to provide college access and success. In recent years, however, the master plan has been undermined, and…
Prof. Shane White of UCFW forwarded the op ed below to me from the NY Times. It indicates something like the “Michigan Model” is at the center of a state budget debate in New York.——————– Stop Raiding the Ivory Tower By PETER D. SALINS Published: July 27, 2010 Stony Brook, N.Y. IT is not a disagreement about expenditures or taxes that is preventing the New York State Legislature from passing a 2011 budget. No, it is a piece of legislation called the Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act, which has the enthusiastic backing of Gov. David Paterson and grudging…
College Students Hide Hunger, Homelessness by Gloria Hillard July 27, 2010 (excerpt below) For many college students and their families, rising tuition costs and a tough economy are presenting new challenges as college bills come in. This has led to a little-known but growing population of financially stressed students, who are facing hunger and sometimes even homelessness. UCLA has created an Economic Crisis Response Team to try to identify financially strapped students and help keep them in school. The complete story (audio or print) is at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128778321&ft=1&f=1001
There isn’t one. There are occasional reports of the governor meeting with legislative leaders but no sign of an accord in the legislature – where a 2/3 vote is required – or with the governor. At a meeting with the LA Chamber of Commerce yesterday, the governor sometimes seemed to say there would be a budget in a few weeks and sometimes that there might not be one until a new governor takes office. About a week ago, a reporter sent me an emailed question about the accuracy of the governor’s deficit clock posted outside his office: I wondered… about…
An “Accountability Subreport on Academic and Professional Degree Students” presentation to the Regents on graduate education at UC is available at: http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regmeet/jul10/j2attach.pdf The presentation contains data on enrollments, time to completion, etc. Conclusions (last slide) are: UC Leads Nationally* Attracting high-quality graduate students, an essential condition to recruit & retain the best faculty* Training high percentage of URM (Underrepresented Minority) students* Training a high percentage of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) doctorates* Training a high percentage of the nation’s Ph.D.s UC continues to strive for improved student qualityUC has not yet met its aspirational goals for:* Diversity* Student Support*…
A web article from NPR on “jailbreaking” cellphones includes the following info of interest to those using videos in class presentations: From: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128773367&ft=1&f=1001 “…According to new government rules announced Monday, (there will be)… new exemptions from a 1998 federal law that prohibits people from bypassing technical measures that companies put on their products to prevent unauthorized uses. The Library of Congress, which oversees the Copyright Office, reviews and authorizes exemptions every three years to ensure that the law does not prevent certain non-infringing use of copyright-protected material. (Among the exemptions is one to)… allow college professors, film students and documentary…
Online degrees in a real world 7/24/2010 San Gabriel Valley Tribune TWO words best describe the downside of a recent decision by the University of California Board of Regents to develop an Internet-based undergraduate degree program: slippery slope.No matter how you feel about the undoubtedly rapidly expanding role of technology in higher education, the regents’ eventual decision after some fairly in-depth discussion was an odd one at best. That’s because everyone backing the exploration of what would be a tremendous increase in the scale of online learning at the nation’s greatest public university acknowledges how fraught with educational dangers such…
I have been posting material related to the two gubernatorial candidates’ positions on public pensions. As noted, Brown mentions UC explicitly in his pension program – although he does not say anything in particular about it. Whitman does not explicitly reference UC. The key points to keep in mind are: 1) Unlike other public pensions, UC has the $2-for-$1 problem. In essence, 2 out of 3 dollars of employee contributions to UC’s pension fund come from non-state sources such as research grants and hospital patient revenues. If the inflow of pension money is too low, the $2 cannot be recouped…
Earlier today, I posted the Jerry Brown proposal for state pensions, noting that it explicitly mentioned UC. Below are the Meg Whitman proposals from her campaign website. UC is not explicitly mentioned. However, whoever becomes governor also becomes an ex officio Regent. From the Meg Whitman campaign website Page 26 of http://www.megwhitman.com/userfiles/pdfs/policy_agenda.pdf Solve California’s Pension CrisisCalifornia currently has between $60 billion and $100 billion of unfunded state employee retirement liabilities that are owed by the taxpayers. This crisis has to be addressed to protect the retirement security of state workers and to make it possible to fix the budget mess…
