Author: uclafaculty

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It’s Your Legacy Choice Governor Brown: Chinese Emperor or Dad?

Byuclafaculty

Kowtowing to the Chinese emperor This past week, Governor Jerry Brown – as he promised – came to yet another Regents meeting with a message of online education and various not-well-defined demands for more efficiency in higher education.  With a few exceptions, what the governor got was kowtowing.  The Regents sung his praise as they did at prior meetings.  Shortly after the meeting, UC President Mark Yudof quit – although he, too, did what is perceived as the requisite degree of kowtowing in announcing he was leaving office. As is well known, Chinese emperors expected those who approached them to…

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UCLA Request to Delay Japanese Garden Trial Denied

Byuclafaculty

UCLA asked the court to delay the upcoming trial on the Japanese Garden issue.  But the court denied the application and set the next hearing date at April 23.From time to time, we suggest negotiating with the concerned parties on this matter.  But our advice remains unheeded. Here is the court decision: Open publication – Free publishing – More uclaUpdate: Beverly Hills Courier article on the court decision below: Open publication – Free publishing – More ucla

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Regent Theater

Byuclafaculty

There is the Regent Theater in Westwood and there is theater at the Regents.  Yesterday, Gov. Brown continued his push for more online education from UC.  As far as I can tell from news accounts, the Regents, other than the student regent, are not resisting. We will eventually have the audio of the meeting and post it.  In the meantime, here is a TV news account. UPDATE: The Regents now are providing video and audio live and – perhaps – archived.  Is this the result of our putting the audios online and asking why the Regents don’t do it?  We’ll…

Scam to Avoid

Byuclafaculty

I received this scam message – ostensibly from a PBS reporter who I think I had some contact with years ago.  In any event, my name must have been in his email contacts.  I haven’t seen this particular fraud around for awhile.  But ignore any such messages you receive from an email account of someone you know.  It only means that the account has been stolen.  I’m writing this with tears in my eyes, I came down to London, United Kingdom for a short vacation. Unfortunately,I was mugged at the park of the hotel where i stayed,all cash and credit…

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Blogging Pause

Byuclafaculty

The 1955 UCLA medical school graduating class Yours truly normally posts on this blog daily.  However, on Monday, Jan. 14, he is having some surgery at UCLA for a non-life-threatening condition.  So blogging will halt for a period to be determined.  But there will be interesting things to watch out for this week including the Regents meetings at which Gov. Brown seems likely to participate.  We will eventually receive and post the audio of those meetings.

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Cosmetic Adjustments to the State Budget

Byuclafaculty

At the governor’s media conference last Thursday where he presented his budget proposal for 2013-14, some reporters asked about the discrepancy between the proposal – which said that at the end of this year we would have a positive reserve in the general fund – and an earlier estimate by the Legislative Analyst that there would still be a negative reserve.  Basically, the answer – from the budget director (Brown begged off on answering) – was that the governor’s budget involved different assumptions. Actually, the difference between slightly positive ($785 million) and the Leg Analyst’s negative (-$1.9 billion) isn’t all…

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No “mandate” but maybe some arm twisting

Byuclafaculty

We have been posting about Governor Brown’s interest in UC as expressed at Regents meetings lately and in the proposed state budget.  From the Sacramento Bee on what the governor wants from UC: …It is unclear how receptive UC regents will be to Brown’s involvement in their affairs. The university system is administered independently by the regents and subject to only limited legislative oversight. “You can’t, and we wouldn’t want to, impose some sort of mandates on them,” the state Department of Finance’s Nick Schweizer told reporters in a conference call after the budget’s release. “But at the same time…

Worried about the money in your UC 403b or 457b plan?

Byuclafaculty

  Yours truly was particularly impressed with the forecast carried in the Westwood-Century City Patch today: “Financial Expert Warns of Market Ups and Downs in 2013” (http://centurycity.patch.com/articles/financial-expert-warns-of-market-ups-and-downs-in-2013) J. Pierpont Morgan Actually, that advice is a bit stale.  Consider the forecast of J.P. Morgan some time ago  When asked what the stock market would do, he said, “It will fluctuate.”  (http://www.memorable-quotes.com/it+will+fluctuate+,a1192.html)

Java Warning

Byuclafaculty

Warnings are circulating in the news media about a computer security threat from Java plugins in your browsers.  I am no computer expert but here is a link to one such article:http://business-news.thestreet.com/daily-news/story/experts-urge-pc-users-disable-java-citing-security-flaw-1/1 And here is a link to an article that tells you how to disable Java in your web browsers:http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2414191,00.asp

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Push to Freeze Tuition in Legislature (That Isn’t Likely to be Enacted)

Byuclafaculty

From the Ventura County Star: Republicans in the state Legislature have proposed freezing tuition at California’s public universities and community colleges for the next seven years. The legislation, which was introduced this week before the governor announced his budget, also would increase funding to California State University, the University of California and community colleges so they don’t have to charge more to make ends meet. But it doesn’t give any specifics on how to do that… The bill originally would have penalized the UC system if it raised tuition by decreasing state funding… But (the bill’s author) said he removed…