Author: uclafaculty

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50th Anniversary

Byuclafaculty

Martin Luther King at UCLA, April 27, 1965 Last Martin Luther King Day, I posted a personal remembrance of the March on Washington at http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2013/01/missing-king.html. There was a Facebook audio link to New York City radio commentator Jean Shepherd’s report on the March, broadcast a day after the event, in that posting.  Here, for the 50th anniversary today of the March, is the same broadcast in three segments (total duration around 40 minutes) in easier-to-access YouTube links: Part 1: [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeeDIbqkU0A?feature=player_detailpage] Part 2: [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kX6x0pbjNio?feature=player_detailpage] Part 3: [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1irKDIzXgGw?feature=player_detailpage]

Judge Refuses to Dismiss Charges in UCLA Chem Lab Accident Case

Byuclafaculty

A judge today denied a motion to dismiss criminal charges against a UCLA chemistry professor stemming from a laboratory fire that killed a 23-year-old research assistant. Professor Patrick Harran, 44, is charged with three counts of willful violation of an occupational safety and health standard causing the death of Sheharbano “Sheri” Sangji. Prosecutors say he was responsible for training Sangji and making sure that she wore protective gear. Defense attorneys argued that their client could not be held criminally liable because he wasn’t Sangji’s employer… Judge George G. Lomeli disagreed… Full Story at http://centurycity.patch.com/groups/around-town/p/judge-denies-motion-to-dismiss-charges-in-death-of-ucla-lab-assistant  As has been noted in the…

AAUP takes tough line on Obama Higher Ed Proposal

Byuclafaculty

In an official statement, the AAUP has taken a tough position in criticizing the Obama proposal to condition federal aid for higher ed on performance standards: “In an attempt to rein in rising tuition and skyrocketing debt President Obama has announced a plan for performance based funding for higher education. Under his plan colleges would be rated on affordability, graduation rates and earnings of graduates. While we applaud the President for raising concerns over rising tuition and student debt, concerns that we share, we also believe that the President’s proposal will do little to solve the problem and will likely…

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Alternative Rankings

Byuclafaculty

The Washington Monthly publishes a “social” ranking of universities on the basis of affordability, access by lower-income students, “service” to the society, as well as research.  UC comes in very well in that ranking with UC-San Diego on top and Riverside is second.  Berkeley is fifth and UCLA is tenth.  The introductory article to the ranking concludes with the following statement: …State lawmakers, meanwhile, must be told that the free ride of college budget cutting is over. The U.S. Department of Education should establish new standards of state support for higher learning, and set deadlines for states that don’t meet them….

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Is the UC Pension Fund Other People’s Money?

Byuclafaculty

The LA Times today is running a story about a group that wants the UC Regents to divest their funds from “fossil fuels.”  [If you listen to the recordings of past Regents meetings on this blog, you can hear the group’s representatives speak at recent public comment sessions.]  We have a student regent-elect who has pushed in the past to divest from Israel.  When a school shooting incident occurred in Connecticut not so long ago, UC divested from gun companies.  Court decisions regarding public disclosure of info from UC investments in private equity funds have made it difficult for UC…

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Night Owl Alert

Byuclafaculty

For those night owls who work late at UCLA or are in the area, yet another 405 alert: A portion of the northbound 405 Freeway in the Sepulveda Pass will be closed Saturday night for work on the Mulholland Bridge, authorities said. Beginning at 11 p.m., all northbound lanes will close from Getty Center Drive to Greenleaf Street/Ventura Boulevard. The connector ramp from the 101 Freeway to the northbound 405 will also close as will three lanes of the southbound 405 to provide a work buffer. All lanes of the roadway are expected to reopen at 9 a.m. Sunday… Full…

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Public-Private Pay

Byuclafaculty

From time to time, news sources such as the Sacramento Bee and the San Francisco Chronicle update their databases of pay of state employees including UC. Yours truly from time to time has posted objections on privacy and ID theft grounds to such posting and has challenged the news sources to post their own payroll data.  Not surprisingly, they have yet to agree – and for good reason. It’s not that there cannot be salary abuses – either in the public or the private sector.  But there are ways to deal with that problem, mainly by posting pay by occupation…

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A little bit of action on the UCLA Grand Hotel

Byuclafaculty

I took my weekly perambulation to the “work” site of the Grand Hotel on campus this past Wednesday morning, about 9:30 am.  As noted in prior posts, although the area was fenced off July 8, the “groundbreaking” is not scheduled until Sept. 10.  So not much seems to be happening other than some digging up of landscaping. Anyway, I did see a few construction vehicles on the site. (If you click on the two bottom photos and look closely, you might be able to make a couple of the vehicles out.) The only person I saw in the site wasn’t…