Author: uclafaculty

What would Judge Cunningham say?

Byuclafaculty

The LA Times picks up a story about an anti-Asian flyer – possibly from the Daily Bruin‘s earlier coverage – that has provoked student protests.  You can find the Times‘ story at:http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-ucla-police-black-judge-racial-profiling-20140203,0,4010058.story Faithful blog readers will know that we are tracking the sad tale of LA Superior Court Judge David Cunningham III who was caught driving while black in Westwood by UCLA police and has filed a $10 million complaint against the university.  The good judge is a past head of the LA Police Commission.  There was no apology from Murphy Hall.  There was just a vague statement that we…

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7 Wasn’t So Lucky

Byuclafaculty

The cash statement from the California state controller for the first seven months of fiscal year 2013-14 is out.  Revenues are up about 1% from last year at this time.  That gain is not very good.  However, it may be largely due to an aberration last fiscal year when there was a surge of personal income tax revenue in January 2013.  The surge seemed to have something to do with antics back then in Washington over fiscal cliffs, etc., which might have resulted in some tax changes (but didn’t).  The current DC crisis de jour is the debt ceiling, but…

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Chinese Dissent at UCLA

Byuclafaculty

UCLA has a variety of exchange arrangements with China as the image of the UCLA Confucius Institute on the left suggests.  While these arrangements can be mutually beneficial, the university can also find itself in a difficult position when and if things go wrong.  The NY Times carries a story dated Feb. 9 about a professor from Peking University who was a visiting professor at UCLA.  While here, he made some statements that ultimately led to his discharge at his home university and to quasi-exile in the U.S.: …Peking University allowed Professor Xia to leave China to become a visiting…

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Oversize Load?

Byuclafaculty

From the Sacramento Bee: …(T)the University of California’s academic student workers union recently filed a complaint against the UC Office of the President demanding that discussions about class size be a part of their contract negotiations. The union has been bargaining with UC since last summer, and its contract expired at the end of the year… The UC Student-Workers Union, which represents more than 12,000 teaching assistants, tutors and readers across the UC system, is seeking a regular forum to talk about class size with faculty and UC management, said Josh Brahinsky, a Ph.D. candidate in the history of consciousness…

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Networking

Byuclafaculty

Simon and Garfunkel once sang about the “Sound of Silence.”  When rain forced the weekly networking event at Anderson indoors last Thursday, silence was not what was heard: It was more like a typical deafening LA trendy restaurant.  Back in Simon and Garfunkel’s day, the occupation of choice was in “plastics.”  Soon it will be in hearing aids.

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CalPERS Long-Term Care: What Happens Tomorrow?

Byuclafaculty

Although CalPERS doesn’t run the UC retirement plan, at one point CalPERS offered long-term care insurance to UC employees.  It seemed to some folks to be a good idea at the time and they took out policies.  Long-term care policies can be bought from commercial carriers.  The problem is that you have to trust that these carriers will do right by you many years in the future when you may not be in the best condition to assert your rights.  It appeared, however, that having CalPERS – a public entity – providing the policies might be a solution.  Sadly, there…

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Contemplating Tuition, Motherhood, and Apple Pie

Byuclafaculty

Tuition is being studied up in Oakland by the UC prez, according to yesterday’s Daily Bruin: …“I want tuition to be as low as possible, and I want it to be as predictable as possible,” Napolitano said at a UC Board of Regents meeting in November.   In a recent Google Hangout with students from various UC campuses, students asked Napolitano to talk about her current work in reforming the UC’s tuition policy.  They also asked Napolitano how she plans to include student ideas in the reorganization of the tuition plan. Napolitano did not specify how student input would be…

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Travel Focus Misses the Money Train

Byuclafaculty

You may have seen the article in yesterday’s Daily Bruin about UCLA tightening up its rules on travel reimbursements.  Why the tightening up? …Public records documenting the travel expenses of the university’s top brass, obtained and published by the Center for Investigative Reporting in August, drew national scrutiny last summer for the luxurious travel accommodations of UCLA’s leadership, sometimes in violation of University policy. The accommodations and pricy travel arrangements bloated the university’s travel budget by hundreds of thousands of dollars… Full story at http://dailybruin.com/2014/02/04/months-after-controversy-ucla-clarifies-travel-guidelines/ The problem with the original story is that it focuses on budget dust compared to…