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The Crack in Forever and the Japanese Garden Sale

Byuclafaculty

A column in the Huffington Post LA discusses the Japanese Garden issue, emphasizing the “in perpetuity” promise that was part of the history of the garden donation.  It cautions future donors that since perpetuity seems to have ended with the ongoing sale of the garden, they may want to be cautious about future gifts.   It may well be that UCLA and the Regents should not have pledged to do something forever.  But that is what happened and this matter might have been better handled as a result.  As prior posts have noted, it appears that the sale is not…

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Moving Toward Michigan

Byuclafaculty

This blog previously noted the rise in non-California students at UC and UCLA (who pay full tuition) that has occurred as a response to the ongoing budget crisis.  See http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2012/04/it-doesnt-seem-to-add-up.html.  Today, the Sacramento Bee features the story and notes the “Michigan Model” as analogous to UC’s approach.  Although UCLA has said it just adds non-state students (as opposed to displacing in-state students), it appears from the numbers as reported in the previous post that there is some displacement. Excerpts from the Bee: …UC officials are aggressively courting non-resident students through college fairs and high school counselors… System officials say the push beyond…

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PowerPoint Presentation for Emeriti Board on Hotel/Conference Center

Byuclafaculty

Yours truly made a PowerPoint presentation earlier today (May 2, 2012) to the UCLA Emeriti Board concerning the proposed UCLA hotel/conference center project.  It runs about 43 minutes.  You can see the slides and hear the audio of the complete presentation at: Because the above link may be slow to load and play, here are alternatives with the presentation divided into three parts that may work faster: Part 1: Part 2: Part 3: The full 43-minute presentation can be downloaded in various formats at http://archive.org/details/PresentationOfDanielJ.b.MitchellOnUclaHotelconferenceCenterProjectTo

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Not Up to Forecast

Byuclafaculty

Readers of this blog will know that tax aficionados track the April state income tax receipts since April is the big month for those receipts.  As it turned out, and despite some initial optimism in the early part of the month, income tax revenue came in a little under last year’s total and about $2 billion below what the governor had forecast. The daily tracker is athttp://www.sco.ca.gov/april_2012_personal_income_tax_tracker.html Maybe the best things in life are free but…[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_DJhEXmOmY&w=320&h=195]

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UC-San Diego Community College Transfer Guarantee to End

Byuclafaculty

The UC San Diego program that guarantees transfer admission to community college students who meet certain requirements will come to an end in 2014, campus officials have decided.  They said explosive growth in the number applications under the program, coupled with sharp cuts in state funding for the University of California, have threatened to swamp the campus. Administrators and students at area community colleges said the decision will disproportionately harm disadvantaged students…UC San Diego’s Transfer Admissions Guarantee, or TAG, program began in the early 1980s. Students from the six regional districts who took specific required courses and earned a 3.0…

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Building Blocks: No Lessons Learned?

Byuclafaculty

As part of his upcoming 5-year review, Chancellor Block has written a self-statement. In a 9-page document (not counting the cover letter) about his vision for the campus and accomplishments, the hotel/conference center is mentioned on four of them.  (First full paragraph of pages 4 and 5; last paragraph of pages 7 and 9.)  As readers of this blog will know, the Regents had major doubts about the feasibility of this project and the priority it represents. The self-statement is dated April 12, i.e., two weeks after the embarrassment for UCLA at the March Regents meeting concerning the hotel.  You…

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UC History: April 30, July 2, whatever, whenever

Byuclafaculty

“Today” in the tweet on the right was actually yesterday. The Morrill Act of 1862 was also known as the Land Grant College Act. It was a major boost to higher education in America. The grant was originally set up to establish institutions in each state that would educate people in agriculture, home economics, mechanical arts, and other professions that were practical at the time. The land-grant act was introduced by a congressman from Vermont named Justin Smith Morrill. He envisioned the financing of agricultural and mechanical education. He wanted to assure that education would be available to those in…

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Can’t we all get along?

Byuclafaculty

From today’s Inside Higher Ed (excerpt): UCLA wants to revamp general education requirement Kaustuv Basu, April 30, 2012 Critics of a proposal by the University of California Los Angeles to add a compulsory course on community and conflict to its general education requirements for the College of Letters and Science say that the idea say is akin to peddling old wine in a new bottle, and not much different from a diversity requirement that was voted down by faculty in 2004. Next month, faculty members are expected to vote on the measure, variations of which have been decades in the…