News

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Please Sir, Can I Have My Med School?

Byuclafaculty

From the Riverside Press-Enterprise: Only hours into the 2013-2014 session, a pair of new lawmakers from Riverside introduced a pair of virtually identical measures to annually appropriate $15 million to UC Riverside’s School of Medicine.  The bills are the first of their kind so early in a legislative year. Their authors, state Sen. Richard Roth, D-Riverside, and Assemblyman Jose Medina, D-Riverside, pledged to secure money for the medical school during their campaigns this year. …University officials have tried since 2008 to secure ongoing state money for the school amid massive budget shortfalls. In 2011, officials postponed the school’s first freshman…

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PPIC Poll Covers Higher Ed Concerns

Byuclafaculty

The latest opinion poll from the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) covers a variety of issues including higher education.  It suggests parents are worried about whether their kids will get into a public higher ed institution and what it will cost if they do.  As the table below shows, half want their kids to go to grad school. [Click on the table to enlarge and get a clearer image.] You can find the poll at: http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/survey/S_1212MBS.pdf

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More on UCLA Study’s Request for a Mayoral Pledge

Byuclafaculty

This post is a follow up on yesterday’s blog piece on a UCLA study which asks LA City mayoral candidates to sign a pledge to implement various elements in the study, including creation of a new city agency.  We noted the idea of a UCLA study – posted on the university’s “newsroom” website – which asks political candidates for mayor to sign a pledge raises some issues.  Normally, to the extent that the university has endorsed political positions, there has been a direct university interest in those positions.  For example, the Regents endorsed the governor’s Prop 30 in the last…

Reminder of What Not to Do

Byuclafaculty

When you get emails with messages such as this one:Your mailbox has exceeded the limit of 20 GB, which is set by your manager You are currently 20.9GB, you will not be able to create new e-mail to send or receive again until you re-validate your mailbox.To validate your mailbox, you can click University of California, Los Angeles/update Thank you, University of California, Los Angeles system administrator  Don’t click.  Note the odd grammar and sentences that don’t end in periods.  And, if you look closely, the message often does not come from a UCLA email address.  The one above purports…

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Conference Held at UCLA

Byuclafaculty

The headline may seem odd.  Conferences are held on campus all the time.  Maybe the headline should instead be “Quarterly UCLA Anderson Forecast Conference held at UCLA without construction of a new campus hotel.”  Despite the notion that without building a hotel-conference center, UCLA won’t be able to disseminate its research, such dissemination happens on campus regularly as the photo shows. As for the Forecast, here is a summary: In its fourth and final quarterly report of 2012, the UCLA Anderson Forecast’s outlook for the United States says that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will grow at less than a 2%…

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Mayoral campaign pledges?

Byuclafaculty

A new report by various UCLA environmental research centers presents a variety of “green” options for the City of LA including energy, transit, etc.  Nothing unusual about that.  What is unusual is the connection of the report to the upcoming 2013 city mayoral campaign. Specifically, the report (on page 4) suggests that all mayoral candidates be asked whether they will pledge to undertake some specific actions: A CALL TO ACTION VISION2021 LA seeks answers to the following questions from each of Los Angeles’ 2013 mayoral and city council candidates. *Do you share the VISION2021 LA goals for our City?   *Will…

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Neon Tommy Report on UC Fundraising

Byuclafaculty

Neon Tommy is an online student news service of the USC Annenberg School.  The service features a news item dated Nov. 28 which reviews UC’s “Onward” fundraising campaign.  That’s right; USC is reviewing UC.  What is interesting about the piece is what isn’t in it.  Back in the day – say, the 1950s or 1960s – any such story would deal with the impact of a public university competing with privates in fundraising.  Private universities would complain about the competition and say UC should be getting its funding from the state.  But despite the traditional USC-UCLA rivalry, no such view…

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Dirks’ Perks Irk

Byuclafaculty

Much of the news media coverage of the appointment of the new UC-Berkeley chancellor Nicholas Dirks involved the fact that his salary would be $50,000 more than that of his predecessor (albeit an increment paid by private funds).   You can find the salary comparison used to justify the pay level to the Regents at: http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/nov12/c1.pdf The governor, the lieutenant governor, and one regent was unhappy with the salary and the news media picked up the complaints.  See, for example: http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_22074232/uc-berkeleys-new-chancellor-under-consideration-by-regents http://www.foxandhoundsdaily.com/2012/11/cost-cutting-wont-come-easy-to-uc/ Probably, however, if there was to be controversy, it might have been over an item in the footnotes…