News

Why No State IOUs? There Is Cash On Hand

Byuclafaculty

You may be wondering why last summer at this time the state was issuing IOUs and this summer it isn’t – despite a budget crisis. Note first that last summer a budget was in place. One had been enacted in February 2009 and, despite voter rejection of various budget-related propositions in May 2009, there was authorization to spend. This time we have no budget so some payments are not being made – which saves cash. The state controller has just issued his report for July 2010. The state has on hand roughly $6 billion in “unused borrowable resources” compared to…

He/She Said What?

Byuclafaculty

An interesting essay appeared today in Inside Higher Ed on the consequences of a student posting a brief YouTube clip of a professor’s lecture with an apparently false interpretation of what was said. See http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2010/08/10/walling Apart from the details of that particular case, anyone can easily make an audio or video of a lecture nowadays – especially the former – without asking permission and can then post excerpts online. The essay above suggests that if something like this were to occur at UCLA, campus administrators need to take a deep breath before taking action. A more delicate issue involves anonymous…

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Do Student “Fees” Support Financial Aid? Depends on How You Divide the Pie Says LAO

Byuclafaculty

The Legislative Analyst’s Office put out a “policy brief” on that question Aug. 6. You can find it at http://www.lao.ca.gov/sections/higher_ed/FAQs/Higher_Education_Issue_19.pdf Essentially, LAO says that since student costs are partly paid by the state’s general fund and partly from student fees, when you divert some of the total (state support + student fees) into aid, it is impossible to say from which part the aid comes. In short, LAO seems to say that you can divide the pie any way you like to get any answer you like. However, there is a potential problem with that approach. UC in particular has…

No Faculty Center for 3 Years? Food Trucks Instead?

Byuclafaculty

In June, Lawrence Kruger, Chair of the University Emeriti & Pre-retirement Relations Committee, got wind of a grand plan to tear down the Faculty Center and replace it with a “Residential Learning Center” which would contain space for a new Faculty Center. However, the project would take 3 years to complete and in the interim the only suggestions for operating the Center involved some kind of bubble building and food trucks. He sent a letter to Academic Senate chair Robin Garrell expressing concern, both about how the Center could be viable during such an interruption and the lack of faculty…

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More on Posting of All UC Salaries

Byuclafaculty

In an August 8th op ed entitled “Our Next Governor Must Weigh in on State’s Right to Shield Personal Data” in the Sacramento Bee, senior editor Dan Morain reports on attempts to protect Internet privacy. Basically, the piece notes that high-tech firms take the position that the state should not get into the business of providing regulatory protection. Instead it should be left to the federal government so that there will not be 50 different regulatory schemes. You can read the op ed at http://www.sacbee.com/2010/08/08/2943054/dan-morain-our-next-governor-must.html Morain takes a sympathetic view of the need for privacy and notes that the California…

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History of Royce Hall: August 11

Byuclafaculty

Announcement reproduced below: THE UCLA EMERITI/RETIREES RELATIONS CENTER PROUDLY PRESENTS JIM KLAIN ON THE HISTORY OF ROYCE HALL Completed in 1929, Royce Hall has become to be known as the defining symbol for the UCLA campus. As one of the four original buildings, its unique Romanesque architecture prompted the State Historic Preservation Office to select it for restoration to its original design. The inaugural season for the performing arts subscription series in 1937 included the Los Angeles Philharmonic and famed contralto Marian Anderson. Today, Royce Hall, revered by many for its beauty and acoustics, is the main performance venue for…

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Posting Salaries

Byuclafaculty

As is well known, state salaries are posted on websites available from such sources as the Sacramento Bee. You can go to the Bee website and find salary by name of a particular employee, including UC employees. Last October, I wrote an op ed for UCLA Today asking why the Bee thought it was a good idea to publish state salaries by name which could encourage identity theft or other abuse. The Bee could have alternatively provided the basic information using just job titles, pay distribution charts, etc., that would not identify individuals. See http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/documents/areas/fac/hrob/bee-post.pdf I asked the Bee why…

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Furloughs in the Bank?

Byuclafaculty

Here is an interesting question: What happens to furloughs at UCLA that weren’t taken? For state employees (those under control of the governor – not UC), a decision has been reached that such untaken furlough days do not expire. They last indefinitely “in the bank.” See: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/08/07/2943128/state-workers-furlough-time-now.html#mi_rss=State%20Politics Since employees who did not in fact take time off had their paychecks reduced nonetheless, it would seem that in the future they could take off days with pay for each untaken furlough day. (The pay reduction was previously taken from their paychecks so taking a day off would not reduce future pay.)…

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Ronald Brownstein Comments on UC and CSU

Byuclafaculty

The Coming Campus Collision: Public universities face expanding needs and contracting resources. Aug. 7, 2010by Ronald Brownstein IRVINE, Calif. — The orientation tours that I attended last week at two University of California campuses looked like a postcard from the next America. Demographers project that minorities will comprise a majority of all Americans under 18 as soon as 2023. But that future is already here in the sprawling University of California system, where African-Americans, Asians, Hispanics, and all other nonwhites represent 70 percent of students, up from about half two decades ago. These campuses are not only cultivating the state’s…

Westwood’s Crest Theater is Closing

Byuclafaculty

The art deco Majestic Crest Theater – just south of UCLA – has been staggering from financial crisis to financial crisis for years. It is apparently about to close. If you have never been inside and seen the wall murals of Westwood past and Hollywood past, this is your last chance. From the Theater’s website: The Majestic Crest has a long and fascinating history as one of the true landmark single screen theatres in the country. By 2002, sagging box office returns and an overzealous landowner almost brought an end to the magic. The cinema was in danger of being…