Author: uclafaculty

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AAUP Reacts to Congressional Ban on Funds for Poli Sci

Byuclafaculty

AAUP statement of April 4: The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) condemns recent congressional action to defund the political science program of the National Science Foundation. We believe that efforts by politicians to restrict research support for certain disciplines is misguided, and threatens the integrity of the rigorous scientific review process used by federal agencies to fund research that advances knowledge. The provision to defund the political science program was offered as an amendment by Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma to HR 933, the Continuing Appropriations Act to fund certain government agencies for the rest of the 2013 fiscal…

Lofchie Case Dismissed

Byuclafaculty

Note: It always appeared to this non-legal observer that the Lofchie case was brought by the D.A. to pressure UCLA into some kind of settlement in another case involving a faculty member and a lab fire. At least, that explanation provides a rationale, albeit unjust.  Otherwise, it is hard to understand what rationale there was for the case. From the Daily Bruin: The (LA) district attorney case against UCLA political science professor Michael Lofchie, regarding a conflict of interest in the hiring of an employee, was dismissed last month after a judge ruled that University of California educators were exempt…

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Lawsuit on UCLA Hotel – That UCLA Could Have Avoided

Byuclafaculty

As was inevitable, once UCLA locked itself into a grand hotel-conference center plan, a lawsuit has now been filed that questions not only the grand hotel but also all the other hotel-type operations run by UCLA. Essentially, UCLA operates all of these entities – there are more of them than you might think – on a quasi-commercial basis but isn’t paying the taxes that commercial hotels do.  The local hotels were willing to tolerate this competition by a public enterprise to a limit – since activity from UCLA spills over to them.  But there are limits. The lawsuit demands that…

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NASBO

Byuclafaculty

Are you against efficiency?  Of course not!  Do you think goals should be achieved? Of course you do! Do you think higher ed could be improved if it became more efficient and achieved its goals? So far, you totally agree. The National Assn. of State Budget Officers (NASBO) has issued a report on public higher ed, a system which nationally, as well as in California, is under budgetary strain. I don’t know for sure how much circulation the report got pre-publication. I suspect, however, it reflects the general scuttlebutt among budgetary types that evolved in the aftermath of the Great…

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Meanwhile, from across town…

Byuclafaculty

From Inside Higher Ed today: The philosophy department at… the University of Southern California has hired almost a dozen new professors in the last decade. USC’s hiring has caused the program to rocket up 35 spots on the Philosophical Gourmet Report, which ranks graduate programs in philosophy based on the reputation of their faculty members. “[N]o department has improved more over the last decade than USC,” Brian Leiter, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School who edits the report, said in an e-mail. He said USC, tied at No. 11, is likely to crack the top 10 if…

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New Ideas from the State Legislature Seem to Correspond (pun intended) to Old Ones

Byuclafaculty

1916 Correspondence School Ad AB 1306, as introduced, Wilk. Public postsecondary education: Existing law establishes the California Community Colleges, under the administration of the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges, the California State University, under the administration of the Trustees of the California State University, and the University of California, under the administration of the Regents of the University of California, as the 3 segments of public postsecondary education in this state. This bill would establish The New University of California as a 4th segment of public postsecondary education in this state. The bill would establish an 11-member…

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What Happened to LA Law?

Byuclafaculty

Some readers of this blog may recall the popular TV series from the late 1980s and early 1990s: LA Law.  Folk wisdom at the time was that applications to the UCLA law school went up during the show’s run and dropped when it was cancelled.  In any case, things are not what they were according to some data – shown below – that appear today in the LA Times in connection with a story on the jobs problems of recent law school grads. Here are percentages of California law school graduates in 2011 who had found full-time, long-term jobs as…

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Dog Days at the UCLA Medical Center

Byuclafaculty

Several four-legged volunteers with the People-Animal Connection (PAC) program at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and their human counterparts will star in an upcoming episode of the PBS television show, “Shelter Me: Let’s Go Home,” premiering in April… The show followed a handful of human/dog teams with UCLA’s animal-assisted therapy PAC program as they volunteered at the hospital. All of the dogs featured were adopted from shelters and now help people by bringing comfort to patients and their families, as well as joy to the doctors and nurses. “Our animal-assisted therapy dogs truly provide a sense of healing and comfort…

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Pension Protection in Stockton Bankruptcy

Byuclafaculty

From time to time, there have been suggestions that public employers should test the idea that prior defined-benefit pension promises – such as those made by UC – cannot be undone.  So far in California, all modifications of public pensions have been prospective, i.e, affecting new hires or possibly future accumulations of current workers. In the case of the ongoing City of Stockton bankruptcy, certain insurers of Stockton bonds – who will suffer losses – challenged whether Stockton should be allowed to declare bankruptcy if it didn’t try to undo its existing CalPERS pension liabilities.  CalPERS took the standard position…