We posted yesterday about the news from UC-Berkeley that many earthquake-prone buildings are located in southern California – including in Westwood. The Westwood-Century City Patch, in picking up the story from the LA Times, blamed USC instead of UC-B, at least in the headline. See above. Probably just as well. Who wants to be the bearer of bad tidings?.
Moreno UC President Napolitano issued a response to the (former California Supreme Court Justice Carlos) “Moreno Report” of Oct. 2013, formally titled “Independent Investigative Report on Acts of Bias and Discrimination Involving Faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles.” It includes directives to all campus chancellors: 1) Every campus should designate an official to serve as its lead discrimination officer. This official is responsible for ensuring that an appropriate response is made to all reports of perceived acts of discrimination, bias, and harassment involving faculty, students, and staff from all parts of the campus. * The discrimination officer will…
We have followed the LA Times‘ story of the concern about certain concrete buildings in the southern California area which might be at risk in a major earthquake. The Times identified some buildings in an earlier story but noted that UC-Berkeley had a survey list of buildings. Berkeley was reluctant to provide the list because its intent was to get an estimate of the number of such buildings based on public records rather than evaluate each building directly. It has now provided the Times with the list, along with a legal disclaimer. The Times now has an interactive map on…
I’m just a sign… …of the times. The open door policy at Anderson.
As promised in previous posts, yours truly is slowly working through the Regents meetings audio. Below is a link to the audio for the morning session of Wednesday, Jan. 22. The Regents, for unacceptable reasons in an age where public meetings are archived indefinitely, archives them only for one year. Moreover, it appears to be policy not to make the audio files available directly. Hence, they can only be preserved by recording them from the temporary archive in real time. That is, to preserve one hour of Regents time requires recording from the archive for one hour. To hear the…
[More in our Regents coverage. See earlier posts.] The Regents spent some time on the old Master Plan for Higher Ed. There was discussion, according to news reports, among representatives of UC, CSU, and the community colleges on better coordination. …“This report shines an important light on the need to have a central body whose sole focus is guiding the Legislature, governor and our three higher education segments as we plan and build for the future,” (Assembly speaker John Pérez) said. Full story at http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-college-reports-20140123,0,5215408.story Um, does no one remember CPEC, which still exists in ghostly form as a website…
We continue our indirect coverage of the Regents. Eventually – as promised – we will post the audio for posterity. [The latest explanation I got for why the Regents post for only one year is that CSU does it that way. Hard to see putting a QED after that. As I have noted in past posts, my home city of Santa Monica posts indefinitely, so why not can’t the Regents do it that way? Oh well!] Anyway, from today’s LA Times: The UC regents on Thursday hired an executive of a Canadian investment fund to be the chief manager of…
We noted in yesterday’s posting (in the update portion) on the Regents public comment session that there were spokespeople complaining about anti-Israel activities on UC campuses including course credit on one campus, pushes for divestment, etc. Earlier postings noted statements by the UC prez and several chancellors (including Block) opposing an academic boycott of Israel by several academic societies. Today, the LA Times reports: A group of lawmakers has formed the California Legislative Jewish Caucus to weigh in on issues of priority to members, including immigration, civil rights and Israel, according to its chairman, state Sen. Marty Block (D-San Diego)… …
In his first iteration as governor, back in the 1970s and early 1980s, Gov. Brown emphasized the “era of limits.” Yesterday at the Regents, however, he apparently wanted to push those limits when it came to online education: Jerry Brown pushes UC to find “outer limits” of online education …Sitting in on part of Wednesday’s meeting, Brown challenged regents to develop classes that require no “human intervention” and might expand the system’s reach beyond its student body. “If this university can probe into” black holes, he said, “can’t somebody create a course — Spanish, calculus, whatever — totally online? That…
Snow at UCLA in 1932 The governor is due to give his State of the State address today. What, if anything, he will say that might have a connection to UC and higher ed is unknown. The Regents are also meeting today (and tomorrow). Inside Higher Ed today is running a list of average annual snowfalls (in inches) at selected universities. So whatever happens at the State of the State or the Regents meeting (or if you have followed weather reports for other parts of the country today), remember that things could be worse: 1. Michigan Technological University: 2002. Syracuse…
