News

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    The Horror, The Horror, the State Budget

    Byadmin

    The Legislative Analyst has come out with his budget outlook. Guess what? It’s a horror story. In rough terms, last year’s budget (with all the trickery involved) was “balanced” in the sense of inflows = outflows. But it contained a legacy of past sin to the tune of about $6 billion. The budget recently enacted for this year is also roughly “balanced,” but it also carries forward the $6 billion in past sins. So if that were the extent of the problem, we would probably do what Schwarzenegger did when he took office, i.e., finance the past sins by some…

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    Do Onto Others But Not Onto You

    Byadmin

    Background: With the late Keith Richman, OC supervisor John Moorlach has been a major figure in the movement to move public employees in California from defined-benefit pension to defined contribution. (Meg Whitman had favored DC and might have put it on the ballot, had she been elected governor. That possibility – a ballot initiative – still exists.) When confronted with changing his pension to DC, Mr. Moorlach seems to be having second thoughts: Supervisors Will Study Giving Up Pensions November 9, 2010, Voice of OC Newly elected Orange County Supervisor Shawn Nelson made another baby step Tuesday toward his goal…

  • Faculty Hiring: Not Looking for Support

    Byadmin

    Inside Higher Ed carries a story today that letters of support for female faculty job candidates use words that make hiring less likely. Excerpt below: You are reading a letter of recommendation that praises a candidate for a faculty job as being “caring,” “sensitive,” “compassionate,” or a “supportive colleague.” Whom do you picture? New research suggests that to faculty search committees, such words probably conjure up a woman — and probably a candidate who doesn’t get the job. The scholars who conducted the research believe they may have pinpointed one reason for the “leaky pipeline” that frustrates so many academics,…

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    CSU Does Two-Step on Tuition

    Byadmin

    At least UC is not dancing alone on raising tuition. Excerpt from the Sacramento Bee: A panel of the California State University board of trustees voted Tuesday to raise tuition in two steps over the next year for a total increase of 15.5 percent. If the plan is approved by the full board of trustees today, tuition will go up 5 percent in the spring semester and 10 percent next fall. That would bring annual tuition for a full-time undergraduate to $4,884 in the fall. That does not include fees charged by individual campuses that are typically around $950. And…

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    Yudof Explains Tuition Increase in Public Letter: Tries to Mitigate Bad News with Good News But Comes Across as an Apology

    Byadmin

    Most of the media coverage in fact focuses on the tuition increase, not the mitigating subsidies to lower income student nor the material on the quality of UC. Whether intended or not, the letter was likely seen as an apology for the increase.———————–Open letter to California fromUC President Mark G. Yudof 2010-11-08 The University of California was conceived in the immediate aftermath of the Gold Rush, and ever since the fortunes of the state and those of the university have been entwined. One would not be the same without the other. The university is both a creation of and the…

  • Cash Coming to State, At Least in the Short Run

    Byadmin

    Given the state’s ongoing budget problems, why aren’t IOUs (Registered Warrants) on the horizon? Basically, the state has taken steps to deal with its cash needs, at least in the short run. Some of what it has done has been to delay payments. In effect, it has tried to coordinate its seasonal inflows of cash – some of which comes to funds outside the General Fund – with its spending. Once a budget was passed, albeit very late, that made it easier for the state to borrow short-term. Thus, the state is about to offer Revenue Anticipation Notes (RANs) to…

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    U of Virginia Implements Strategy of Faculty Raids

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    An article in today’s Insider Higher Ed quotes U of Va. Dean Meredith Jung En-Woo of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences: “What we wanted to do was take advantage of the very anemic environment that’s out there, [luring] very good people that would be difficult to hire in other times,” she says. At the outset of the economic crisis, many anticipated that the institutions that found resources could actually take advantage of the downturn. With extreme candor, Woo says that’s exactly what Virginia did. “The part of [the strategy] we think is wonderful is the ability…

  • U of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts Considers Cuts

    Byadmin

    Minnesota public radio reports on a new report by the College. The report it refers to is described in an executive summary (below). Scroll to the bottom to hear the broadcast. CLA 2015 Committee Final Report to Dean James A. Parente, Jr., College of Liberal Arts – University of Minnesota, Twin Cities The complete report is at http://images.cla.umn.edu/cla2015/CLA2015_Complete_FINAL.pdf Executive Summary This report is a call for renewal, collaboration, and partnership: • The College of Liberal Arts must reorganize internally and become more efficient and more focused in order to provide better education for our students and better support for our…

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    Take a Hike (in Tuition)?

    Byadmin

    From today’s LA Times: Faced with flagging state funding and a $1-billion budget hole, University of California officials on Monday proposed several actions to preserve programs and stabilize finances, including far-reaching pension reforms and an 8% student fee increase for next school year. Under the plan, undergraduate student fees for 2011-12 would rise by $822 to $11,124 annually — about $12,150 when campus-based fees are included. Some professional school fees would also rise, depending on campus and program. The fee hikes would generate about $180 million in annual revenue. The UC Board of Regents will consider the plan when it…

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    What Jerry Promised

    Byadmin

    California Watch has a summary of Jerry Brown’s “promises” concerning higher ed (and looks at the prospect for higher tuition). Below are the promises listed as summarized in the article: Jerry Brown’s higher education promises: Convene a “representative group” to create a new higher education Master Plan: “This situation calls for a major overhaul of many components of the postsecondary system. We need to convene a representative group to create a new state Master Plan.” Create an online “extended university” program: “The introduction of online learning and the use of new technologies should be explored to the fullest, as well…