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Teaching & Learning in the Digital Age: Feb. 27
Byadmin February 23, 2014

While the Revolutionary Year of the MOOC has crashed and burned in a flaming heap of venture capital, actually existing online instruction has continued to develop in a more deliberate way at UCLA. Out of the limelight, and mostly outside the much-maligned UC-Online system, departments and individual professors have been piloting online courses in many different flavors. On Thursday, February 27, the campus community will have a chance to take stock in these developments at the second “Online Summit” sponsored by the Academic Senate, the Library, and other campus units. With the theme Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age–Making…

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Faculty Strike at University of Illinois Chicago
Byadmin February 19, 2014

Faculty at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) launched a two-day strike today citing stalled negotiations with university administrators. Several hundred people rallied on the Chicago campus this morning, and picketed classrooms throughout the day. Faculty decided to unionize in 2012 citing lack of pay raises and temporary pay cuts during the recent financial crisis, among other issues. Adjunct faculty, who are coordinating bargaining with tenure-system faculty, are seeking multi-year contracts as well as better pay and benefits. As evidence that the university can afford their demands, faculty cite a 25% increase in tuition since 2007, rising enrollments, and a…

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Uncategorized

Fewer Posts for the Near Future
Byadmin February 17, 2014

A note to all our faithful readers: Dan Mitchell is taking a break from posting here, so we will not have our regular daily updates. We’ continue posting but at a slower pace until Dan is back in the saddle. Toby HigbieUCLA FA Chair

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miscellaneous | UCLA

On Valentine’s Day, We Repeat an Earlier Post Entitled “A Modest Proposal”
Byadmin February 14, 2014

Click on the link below:[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0dGRDvmO54?feature=player_detailpage]For those who take a more clinical approach to such matters, see:http://wamc.org/post/dr-robert-levenson-university-california-berkeley-genetics-marital-bliss

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audio | governor | online education | UC Regents

Jerry Brown Looks for an Online Course that Requires No Human Interaction
Byadmin February 14, 2014

At the Regents meeting of January 22, 2014, Gov. Brown seems to be searching for an online course that requires no human interaction. Such a course, he reasons, could have unlimited enrollment because it is completely self-contained. He gets some pushback from UC Provost Dorr, who thinks courses should have such interaction. You can hear this excerpt at the link below. The entire meeting of the Committee on Educational Policy of the Regents was posted yesterday.[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tYFLJvrE3g?feature=player_detailpage]

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governor | Master Plan | State Budget

Jerry Brown Suggests Master Plan is Dated
Byadmin February 14, 2014

Our previous post covered the Jan. 22 meeting of the Regents’ Committee on Educational Policy. As noted, there was discussion of the 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education, considered a major accomplishment of Brown’s father when he was governor. Below is a link to Brown’s comments in which he suggested the Plan was now dated. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RmjI4gVync?feature=player_detailpage]

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audio | community colleges | CSU | governor | Master Plan | online education | UC | UC Regents

Listen to Part of the Regents Afternoon Session of 1-22-2014
Byadmin February 13, 2014

As we have noted in numerous prior posts, the Regents refuse to archive their meetings beyond one year. So we dutifully record the sessions in real time. Below is a link to part of the afternoon session of Jan. 22. This segment is mainly the Committee on Educational Policy. Gov. Brown was in attendance. We will separately (later) provide links just to certain Brown segments. But for now, we provide a continuous recording. There was discussion of designating certain areas of UC-Merced as nature reserves, followed by discussion of a new telescope. The discussion then turned to online ed and…

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pension | pensions | ucrp

PBS’ Hot Potato May Not Be on California Stations
Byadmin February 13, 2014

As far as yours truly can tell, the major PBS affiliates in California have so far taken a pass on the hot potato program described below. That decision could have been because the threatened pension initiative that would have swept in UC was originally aimed at the November 2014 ballot. With it apparently off the ballot for now (see earlier posts), some stations might air the program. On verra. The Wolf of Sesame Street: Revealing the secret corruption inside PBS’s news division On December 18th, the Public Broadcasting Service’s flagship station WNET issued a press release announcing the launch of…

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Japanese Garden | new hotel-conference center | UCLA

Dig a Deeper Hole?
Byadmin February 12, 2014

The plaintiffs in the case against the UCLA Grand Hotel have filed an amended brief. You can read it at the link below. There are actually two cases, one involving environmental and other matters and another regarding the tax issue. The environmental case will be heard in September. And there is legal skirmishing around the tax case. The tax issue is basically that if the hotel is a commercial operation, it has to pay taxes just as would any other hotel. There is also an issue of whether the Regents can run a commercial enterprise and, if that’s what they…

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Cornell | online education | U of Texas

MOOCs in the Muck
Byadmin February 12, 2014

Good question! Inside Higher Ed today runs an article on MOOC offerings at the U of Texas and Cornell. At the former, there are the usual extremely low completion rates. At the latter, resident students are asking the question in the photo at the right: …”A year after UT began rolling out nine Massive Online Open Courses, the results are in,” The Daily Texan wrote in a Jan. 29 editorial… Among the “results” are completion rates ranging from 1 to 13 percent, the lack of credit granting courses and the $150,000 to $300,000 production costs… (S)tudents at Cornell voiced similar concerns,…

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