News

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    Some Time – But Not Too Much – Can Go By on Pensions

    Byadmin

    As has been stressed ad nauseum on this blog, UC could be swept into some statewide pension changes which would override the Regents’ action of December 2010. The legislature seems to be giving UC a bit of time to have some influence. See below: Lawmakers essentially threw in the towel Thursday on comprehensive public pension reform – at least for now. With this year’s legislative session scheduled to end at midnight today, the Assembly voted 51-21 to approve a last-minute bill declaring its commitment to pension reform but conceding that more time is needed. …The measure reads: “This bill would…

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    Settlement of Amazon War Could Lead to Budget Trigger

    Byadmin

    You may have heard of the Amazon War regarding the state budget. Technically, when you buy on line, you owe sales tax to the state. But websites such as Amazon leave it to you to pay. And you don’t. As part of the recent state budget, an attempt was made to force Amazon and other sites to collect the tax due to the state. Amazon dumped a lot of money into an initiative campaign to reverse the budget deal on the sales tax. (There are some legal questions about such an initiative and in any case the legislature then tried…

  • Turnitin or Turncoat?

    Byadmin

    My son sent me a web reference on the Turnitin system UCLA and many other universities use to check student papers for plagiarism. Much of the article complains about shortcomings of the system, i.e., things it does not find for various reasons. But toward the bottom, the article reveals that Turnitin has a service for students that tells them what their plagiarism rating is. That is contrary to the impression given instructors – and presumably to university officials who are paying for the service – that student paper ratings are known only to the instructor. The student gets only a…

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    Zen Vetoes

    Byadmin

    Governor Brown has been vetoing and signing. Among the vetoes were two that would have made commercial initiative signature gathering more difficult. One was a ban on paying signature gatherers by the signature. They would have then been paid by the hour which would have changed the incentive structure in a way that would have undermined name gathering. In theory, they would have sat in front of supermarkets and watched the clock tick rather than annoy people into signing. And he vetoed another bill that would have required signature gatherers to wear large badges saying they were being paid. Presumably,…

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    UCLA History: Normal

    Byadmin

    Lithograph of the State Normal School in downtown LA in the late 1800s. The School moved from this location – where the LA main library now stands – to Vermont Avenue (where LA City College is now located). It became the first campus of UCLA before the move to Westwood in the late 1920s. Note: Yours will be in transit for about a week. Blogging may be slow.

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    More on the state budget “trigger”

    Byadmin

    As readers of this blog will know, the state budget for the current fiscal year contains a “trigger” for additional cuts – including UC – if revenue falls short of forecast levels. – – – September 6, 2011, Capitol Alert California Democrats getting nervous about trigger cuts Lagging tax revenues are making California officials nervous about “trigger” budget cuts to schools and services that appear likely unless more money flows into state coffers or the economic outlook improves. A newly amended Democratic bill would require the Department of Finance to give at least 10 days notice if it determines the…

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    UCLA-area ban on “apron” parking spreads to other neighborhoods

    Byadmin

    As previous entries on this blog have noted, the practice of “apron” parking around UCLA is now banned. Prof. Donald Shoup of Urban Planning – a national expert in parking issues – long campaigned for enforcement of the ban. Apron parking – parking in the driveway of a building so as to block the sidewalk – has always been illegal but cars so-parked were not ticketed in the past. A lawsuit noting that access for disabled persons to the sidewalks was obstructed was part of the reason for the new enforcement policy. It appears that the Westwood-area ban on apron…

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    What’s in a name?

    Byadmin

    We earlier posted the elaborate video from the Housing Empire on dorm-related construction said to be needed to turn UCLA from a commuter school to a residence school. See http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2011/08/construction-and-demolition.html Some folks, after seeing the video, wondered where that goal came from and why it exists. But the answer is obvious. We wouldn’t want students to live in off-campus apartment buildings such as the one in Palms shown above – would we? For more on all of this, check out http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-luxury-student-housing-20110904,0,737126.story

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    CPEC Says Goodbye

    Byadmin

    CPEC – the California Postsecondary Education Commission – is in the process of going out of business, since it was zeroed out in the most recent state budget. As the webshot immediately above indicates, the CPEC website will go dark sometime this month. In the meantime, however, you can still find data on higher ed, such as the chart at the top comparing UC and U of Texas tuition. (You could probably have guessed – without the chart – which has become more expensive in recent years.) Since the website is soon to be toast, some info on CPEC’s closure…