News

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    Academic Bloat?

    Byadmin

    From today’s San Francisco Chronicle: It sounds like an obesity epidemic in higher education: program bloat.  …The phrase refers to the hundreds of degree programs at California’s public universities with fewer than 10 graduates in a given year … A new study out Sunday from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni calls on the universities to eliminate low-enrollment programs or offer them jointly across campuses or online for efficiency…   Last year, the University of California had 792 programs with fewer than 10 students receiving a bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degree, according to the report… For example, five of…

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    Slipping support for governor’s tax initiative in latest poll

    Byadmin

    Support for the Brown tax initiative to be on the ballot in November seems to be slipping.  Folk wisdom among California politicos is that a controversial ballot proposition should start with at least 60% support before the campaign gets underway.  Brown’s support among voters is 52% according to the latest Field Poll.  Under Brown’s budget plan (yet to be enacted), there are trigger cuts if the initiative doesn’t pass including $250 million for UC. See below for an excerpt: * Small sample The full poll is at http://www.field.com/fieldpollonline/subscribers/Rls2413.pdf. The November ballot is becoming crowded and is likely to have three…

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    Is it unanimous? Are all the Regents in favor of saving the Japanese Garden?

    Byadmin

    There is an online petition opposing UCLA’s ongoing effort to sell the Hannah Carter Japanese Garden.  As you can see from the three screenshots below, the Regents seem to have signed on! Well, to be fair, they did seem to want to “test” the idea first before signing on.  Anyway, I am sure the petition sponsors will count them all in: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vsdtjdvt1ko&w=320&h=195] PS: What most likely happened was that someone in the Regents office wanted to track what was happening on the Garden issue and thought, incorrectly, that you had to sign the petition to get the information.

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    Questioning of Redistribution of Tuition to Student Aid

    Byadmin

    Inside Higher Ed has been reporting on complaints and political reaction at the University of Iowa about redistribution of tuition toward student aid.  The complaint is basically that middle class families are being taxed to provide such aid. The University of California has been engaged in such redistribution for years and in fact often cites its aid policy when tuition has been raised. But there could be spillover from Iowa and other locations where the practice has been questioned as tuition here rises.  If redistribution were not used at the U of California, and if state support continues to drop,…

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    Update: Anderson MBA Self Sufficiency Proposal Passes Legislative Assembly

    Byadmin

    An earlier post today noted the interest of the LA Times in the Legislative Assembly’s vote on whether to override the Graduate Council’s decision rejecting the proposed MBA self sufficiency funding model.Probably, the vote will be reported in the LA Times and the Bruin tomorrow.  But below is a message from the Anderson School dean announcing that the Legislative Assembly did override the Graduate Council 53-46: To the UCLA Anderson community: Today, the Legislative Assembly of the UCLA Academic Senate approved our proposal to convert the UCLA Anderson School of Management Full Time MBA program from state-supported to self-supporting. The vote…

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    Glad That’s Clear

    Byadmin

    Voters created a non-partisan, top-2 primary system which went into full effect on Tuesday. The purpose of the non-partisan primary, as seen by proponents, was to create more “centrists” (compromise-prone representatives) in the legislature and Congress. Centrists would then form a bridge between the polarized parties. As far as the state budget (and UC’s stake in it) goes, the theory was that impasses, particularly over taxes, would be less likely to occur. There is a lot of analysis in the news media post-Tuesday on whether the new system had the effect expected by proponents. In more detail, the theory is…

  • Report on Berkeley Protests Issued

    Byadmin

    Back in November, UC-Berkeley had its own version of the Davis pepper-spray affair but the Berkeley version received less attention due to the widespread Internet pictures and videos from Davis.  Berkeley has now issued a report on its incident.  Below is the media release from the campus with links to the report and related documents. The photo at the left was part of the media release. Police board calls for tighter oversight on use of force in student protests By Public Affairs, UC Berkeley | June 6, 2012 A review of clashes between Occupy Cal protesters and police on Nov. 9, 2011, says…

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    Headline News?

    Byadmin

    Meetings of the Legislative Assembly of the UCLA Academic Senate rarely get such front-page attention.  (Well, the front page of the LATEXTRA section, anyway.)  It shows there is public interest in the trend toward privatization at UC more generally, although we insist on euphemisms such as self sufficiency.  The last time I posted anything about this matter, there were grumbles from readers.  So you can just read the LA Times story at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ucla-20120607,0,6289989.story At least we made the headlines:

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    C is for Reagan? Really? Info is Being Sought

    Byadmin

    The LA Times business section is carrying a story about a website sponsored by employers that provide health insurance which rates hospitals on safety.  The article indicates that the California Hospital Association endorses release of the ratings. It is reported in the article that UCLA-Reagan is rated only C, although UCLA-Santa Monica is rated A.  At one point in the article, it seems to say that the grade for Reagan was below C. {Note: See below for update and clarification.} When I went on the website listed in the article, however, although Santa Monica is indeed given an A, the…