News

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Before and After

Byuclafaculty

Before the Election: Campus Program on Ballot Propositions: Nov. 1 The UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment present: Death and Taxes (and other hot topics): Debating the 2012 California Ballot Propositions  with Gray Davis, Luskin Distinguished Policy Fellow, and Cameron Smyth, Luskin Senior Fellow California voters face big decisions on the 2012 ballot initiatives. From tax policy to the death penalty to genetically modified food labeling, a lot is at stake on the ballot. Join us for an educational and informative forum to analyze the initiatives. TIME Thursday, November 1, from 12:15 – 1:45 pm (Note:…

Timely Retirement Investment Info from Wells Fargo

Byuclafaculty

For those making retirement contributions to their 403b and 457b plans – and almost every faculty member at UC should be in that category – below is a chart, courtesy of Wells Fargo, to contemplate: [click on the chart to enlarge] You can interpret it on your own.  The source is: https://www.wellsfargo.com/downloads/pdf/jump/2012_Elections_Report.pdf

Odd Photo

Byuclafaculty

LAObserved has an article about the decision at the LA City Council not to raise the City’s parking tax.  (Screenshot above.)  Nothing odd about an article dealing with that story. What is odd is the photo of a UCLA parking booth used to illustrate the article.  UCLA does not pay LA City’s parking tax. The article is at http://www.laobserved.com/biz/2012/10/now_this_is_interest.php

Two Interesting Charts

Byuclafaculty

A report from the Bay Area Council, a business group, show educational attainment by metro area. LA has not been a particularly prosperous area, even before the Great Recession.  The Bay Area and the San Diego area in California have done better.  They are notably characterized by higher educational attainments of their populations.  As the chart below indicates, the higher educational attainment correlates with per-capita income and output. The report is at:http://www.bayareaeconomy.org/media/files/pdf/BAEconAssessmentAdvance.pdf

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The Governor on Higher Ed and UC

Byuclafaculty

On Oct. 16, Gov. Brown came to UCLA to promote his tax initiative, Prop 30.  As part of that visit, he met with UC student journalists at the UCLA Daily Bruin offices.  An audio was made of the interview.  The full interview runs about three quarters of an hour.  It is available at: http://www.dailybruin.com/multimedia/51093 However, about thirteen minutes was focused on Brown’s thoughts about higher ed, particularly his long-term vision for UC as an ex officio Regent.  I think it is fair to say that while he had thoughts, it would be hard to term them a coherent, long-term vision. …

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Lawsuit filed against a CSU campus over promotion of Prop 30

Byuclafaculty

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. has filed a lawsuit claiming that an email by a campus administrator improperly used public resources (the email system) to promote Prop 30, the governor’s tax initiative which has been endorsed by the UC Regents.  The Regents live streamed their endorsement during a regular meeting using UC facilities.  So why a particular CSU campus is the target of the lawsuit is unclear. The offending email is not reproduced in its entirety in the lawsuit but is summarized as follows: The communication expresses and solicits support for Proposition 30.  The email is addressed “Dear Students,” and solicits…

Just a Reminder

Byuclafaculty

UCLA is among the many universities that subscribe to Turnitin to detect plagiarism in student reports.  We noted some time back, however, that students have access to services – such as the one above – that help them to lower their plagiarism scores.  The one above purports to help students avoid “accidental plagiarism” (whatever that is) by telling them what their score on Turnitin would be.  They can then diddle with the text of the paper to lower the score. One has a sense that plagiarizing a paper and then “fixing” it via such services would be more work than…

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Is Something Missing from UCLA’s Official Hotel Timeline?

Byuclafaculty

UCLA has an official online newsroom: http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/default.aspx On that website, you will find in a section labeled current issues – note the word “current” – a link to info on the proposed UCLA hotel-conference center: http://luskinconferencecenter.ucla.edu/ And when you visit that webpage, you will find what purports to be a timeline of events related to the hotel at: http://luskinconferencecenter.ucla.edu/ucla-coverage As this blog noted last week, a lawsuit has been filed against the hotel.  Yet as of 8 am today, there is no reference to the lawsuit on the timeline even though several days have passed, as you can see on…