Author: uclafaculty

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Another Campus Climate Incident Reported

Byuclafaculty

The story above can be found in more detail at http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2013/04/26/uc-irvine-fraternity-issues-apology-after-blackface-video-sparks-outrage/.  So far, yours truly found no official response on the UC-Irvine website. Blog readers may recall a somewhat-related video that became known as “Asians in the Library” at UCLA and which sparked an official reaction from Chancellor Block. Possibly, this matter will be discussed at the upcoming May Regents meeting, possibly in conjunction with results – are there any yet? – from the campus climate survey taken this past winter.  

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Yesterday’s State Senate Hearing on Online Higher Ed Bill

Byuclafaculty

A California State Senate committee held a hearing yesterday on SB 520, a bill that in its original form mandated 50 online courses at UC, CSU, and the community colleges.  The bill is being pushed by Senate President Steinberg. At the hearing, he offered amendments setting 50 as a goal rather than a mandate and allowing “public-public” partnerships as opposed to public-private.  The latter refers to deals with private MOOC companies.  Public-public would include, for example, cross-campus courses.  He also offered an amendment that no public monies would be used for the private side of any public-private partnerships. (It’s not…

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And the good news is…?

Byuclafaculty

Actually, buried within the article is the info that although the entire project is now scheduled to be completed June 2014, part of the segment near UCLA will – so it says – be done next fall: …Officials now aim to complete the bulk of the project by June 2014, with work on the problematic middle segment between Montana Avenue and Sunset Boulevard lasting perhaps until next fall, according to Michael Barbour, the veteran engineer overseeing the project for the L.A. County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Kiewit has said “it could go as far as September,” Barbour said, “but we think…

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As of yesterday, all of UCLA went no-smoking

Byuclafaculty

Up to now, the no-smoking zone has just encompassed the medical center area.  It now extends to north campus as well. …The Westwood campus is the first UC to implement the (smoking) ban, following a call from President Mark Yudof to go smoke-free across the 10-campus system by 2014. “We’re very proud we’re the first,” UCLA Chancellor Gene D. Block said. The campus and its students “are setting an example.”… Full story at http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-ucla-stops-smoking-on-earth-day-20130422,0,7326172.story Not everyone agrees:[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-20zdelhi3I?feature=player_detailpage]

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And if you are done celebrating “more” in the state budget as on the previous posting…

Byuclafaculty

The drawing board According to the LA Times, UC is not likely to like important elements of the forthcoming May revise budget to be issued by the governor: …”We’d like to go back to the drawing board,” said Patrick Lenz, a top UC budget official. The university was not consulted in advance about the details of Brown’s proposal, he said… And what are those elements? Gov. Jerry Brown wants to tie some state funding for California’s public universities to a host of new requirements, including 10% increases in the number of transfer students from community colleges and the percentage of…

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It looks like we have more (despite some drop in expected April revenue)

Byuclafaculty

As we have noted in prior blog posts, California received what seemed to be a windfall in income tax revenue around the end of the calendar year.  It may have been related to high-income folks taking capital gains in anticipation of some kind of fiscal cliff related tax hike at the federal level.  No one really knows.  There was some concern that the windfall would be erased in later receipts but April is a big month for income taxes and, while there was some erosion, the state still appears to be ahead.  Under Prop 98, a good bit of the…

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Strike Vote to Be Taken at UC Med Centers

Byuclafaculty

Strike at UCLA hospital in 2008 With contract negotiations stalled, union workers at University of California hospitals… say they will vote next week on whether to strike. The strike talk started Friday with a statement from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, which represents about 13,000 employees at university medical facilities across the state… The university attributes the current strike talk to a refusal by the union “to agree to UC’s pension reforms,” which require employees to pay a larger percentage of their incomes toward pensions starting July 1… But the union says just the…

Another user review of MOOCs

Byuclafaculty

The NY Times today carries (yet another) review by a journalist user of MOOC courses: …When it comes to Massive Open Online Courses… you can forget about the Socratic method. The professor is, in most cases, out of students’ reach, only slightly more accessible than the pope or Thomas Pynchon. Several of my Coursera courses begin by warning students not to e-mail the professor. We are told not to “friend” the professor on Facebook. If you happen to see the professor on the street, avoid all eye contact (well, that last one is more implied than stated). There are, after all, often tens…