News

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    Pension/Retiree Health Initiative that Includes UC Just Keeps Advancing

    Byadmin

    Readers of this blog will know that an initiative has been filed – which appears to have some serious money behind it for a campaign – that would cover UC’s pension and retiree health care programs.  In principle, it would be up to the Regents to make any plan revisions the initiative would allow.  However, they would be compelled to produce an analysis of what such revisions would be and it might be politically difficult to resist implementing such plans, particularly if other state and local entities are doing it. The Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) has now prepared its analysis…

  • UC-SD Chancellor’s Statement on American Studies Association Israel Boycott

    Byadmin

    Khosla From Inside Higher Ed today: The chancellor of the University of California at San Diego has issued a statement in opposition to the American Studies Association’s resolution which backed the boycott of Israeli higher education institutions.  “We affirm the right of the faculty to advance their scholarship and research through open dialogue with academic colleagues in all countries,” Pradeep K. Khosla said. “UC San Diego faculty collaborations draw on richly diverse ideas and views around the globe, including in the Middle East. Excluding scholars limits discussion and conflicts with the University of California’s highest aspirations.” Source: http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2013/12/20/chancellor-reacts-american-studies-boycott The official…

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    UC Prevails in Public Disclosure Case

    Byadmin

    UC invests in pension and other funds in a broad array of assets including investments in private equity firms.  Such firms are exempt from most forms of public disclosure since investments with them are not publicly available.  However, there have been attempts to get at their records through UC by demanding the reports that UC receives from the firms as an investor.  The firms reportedly will refuse to allow future UC investments if their records are subject to disclosure. Finance types generally view having a broad array of assets in a portfolio as a Good Thing and therefore exclusion by…

  • Word from the White House: Go Easy on MOOCs

    Byadmin

    That’s the headline for an article in today’s Inside Higher Ed.  According to the article, “President Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology has a message for the federal government and regional accreditors: Go easy on the MOOCs.”  You can read the article at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/12/19/white-house-science-council-recommends-us-accreditors-support-moocs It’s probably OK, however, to sing to them as they are guided along: [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2cFji4CmHE?feature=player_detailpage]

  • Receive a Dubious Email: Don’t Click! Delete!

    Byadmin

    Yours truly received the email below today, ostensibly from UCLA.  Did you get it?  If so, you might have noticed that it doesn’t come from a UCLA address.  Best advice: Don’t click!  Instead, delete.=========================== important Notice For UCLA Faculty and staff of our email database(University of California, Los Angeles UCLA)We currently updated our UCLA email database.IT Help Desk requires all our faculty and staff (University of California, Los Angeles), to confirm their email account or sending and receiving emails will be difficult. For full access of your email account, follow the reference link bellow to confirm your email account.UCLA FACULTY AND STAFF…

  • Research Funding

    Byadmin

    Edison: R&D was cheaper back then Thirty institutions reporting the largest FY 2012 R&D expenditures in all fields: NSF Data (Millions of dollars) All institutions $61,257 Leading 30 institutions $24,458 1 Johns Hopkins U. a 2,004 2 U. MI Ann Arbor 1,184 3 U. WI Madison 1,029 4 U. WA Seattle 1,023 5 U. CA San Diego 943 6 U. CA San Francisco 936 7 Duke U. 983 8 U. CA Los Angeles 937 9 Stanford U. 840 10 Columbia U. in the City of New York 807 11 U. NC Chapel Hill 755 12 U. Pittsburgh Pittsburgh 822 13…

  • Napolitano’s Mission to Russia

    Byadmin

    Here are your orders. From the CapitalAlert blog of the Sacramento Bee: President Barack Obama has decided not to attend the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, in February, so he’s sending a delegation of athletes and diplomats in his place. Leading the group, the White House announced yesterday, is Janet Napolitano, president of the University of California system, who also led a delegation to the closing ceremonies of the Vancouver Olympics in 2010. She will be joined by former tennis champion Billie Jean King and figure skating gold medalist Brian Boitano, among others. “I look forward to being in Sochi…

  • Radio Program on MOOCs

    Byadmin

    Warren Olney You can hear a program on MOOCs on Warren Olney’s KCRW program, “To the Point,” at the link below.  The program segment on MOOCs starts at minute 8:06 and ends at 42:14.  It aired yesterday.  From the segment description: Massive open online courses — MOOC’s — held the promise of higher education for millions who can’t now afford it. But, despite big investment from Stanford, Harvard, MIT and Silicon Valley, MOOC’s have not lived up to their billing. We hear about new ways of using the Internet to meet the worldwide demand for focused learning. Click on the…

  • UC Berkeley prof says its future is as a ‘finishing school for the superrich of Asia’

    Byadmin

    The headline for this posting is a direct quote from a headline to an article in the San Francisco Business Times which you can find at www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2013/12/16/uc-berkeley-finishing-school-asia-rich.html The (economics) professor in question is Brad DeLong.  For your information, below is the portion of his post on the Berkeley Blog that deals with the subject of that headline: …(Partially) a Finishing School for the Superrich of Asia The first priority of the chancellor is to successfully execute a strategy to keep Berkeley great–to reinforce the reasons that it is worthwhile keeping a university like Berkeley around at all.The days of Clark Kerr…