News

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Not Coming to a Campus Near You

Byuclafaculty

Not only are we unlikely to see snow on campus, according to a recent UCLA report, snow in the mountains around LA in winter will be diminishing: …The projected snow loss, a result of climate change, could get even worse by the end of the 21st century, depending on how the world reacts. Sustained action to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions could keep annual average snowfall levels steady after mid-century, but if emissions continue unabated, the study predicts that snowfall in Southern California mountains will be two-thirds less by the year 2100 than it was in the years leading up…

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Cost of Living

Byuclafaculty

We often make faculty salary comparisons based on nominal dollars.  However, price levels (the “costs of living”) vary from location to location; a dollar may buy more or less depending on where you are. There have been private surveys that purport to tell you the relative price level in various locations but they typically have unknown methodology.  Now the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis has released estimates of relative price levels by state and selected metro areas.  Aboveyou can see the results by state for 2011.  With the U.S. average = 100, some metro areas in California are San Francisco…

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Middle-class scholarships to UC, CSU likely

Byuclafaculty

But not this year! So says the headline in the San Francisco Chronicle: [excerpt] The “Middle-Class Scholarship” proposed by Assembly Speaker John Pérez, D-Los Angeles, would offer tuition discounts for students from families earning $80,000 to $150,000 a year. The program would start in the 2014-15 school year, with partial scholarships costing the state $107 million from its general fund. The state would increase spending on the program each year until it was fully implemented in 2017-18, at a cost of $305 million – assuming 75 percent of eligible students apply. Tuition discounts would decrease as family income rises… Full story at…

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Gov. Jerry Brown’s university plan is left unfinished in budget

Byuclafaculty

That’s what the headline in the LA Times says.  It goes on to say: [excerpt] The final spending plan does not include the governor’s proposal to tie new money for public universities to specific requirements like improving graduation rates and increasing the number of transfer students from community colleges. Nor will the plan automatically cut funding if tuition is increased. The changes emerged after negotiations with lawmakers and officials at the University of California and California State University, who resisted much of Brown’s proposal. For now, universities will simply be required to track nine different benchmarks… Full story at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/political/la-me-pc-jerry-brown-california-universities-20130612,0,6175034.story…

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It might not be yours

Byuclafaculty

Both the Chronicle of Higher Ed and Inside Higher Ed are running stories about an AAUP warning that faculty who give MOOC-type courses may not end up owning the content.  According to the Chronicle, the AAUP will be starting a campaign to clarify ownership of faculty intellectual property. The Chronicle story is at http://chronicle.com/article/AAUP-Sees-MOOCs-as-Spawning/139743 The Inside Higher Ed version is at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/06/13/aaup-session-centers-intellectual-property-and-academic-freedom-online-education-age You may think it’s yours but…

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Just another sign of the times; they’re coming to build the grand hotel

Byuclafaculty

Just another reminder that UCLA is marching ahead with its plans to build the grand hotel where parking structure #6 and the Ackerman-area bus turnaround now stand.  There are two lawsuits pending but the build-and-bond folks are anxious to put “facts on the ground.”   Bus riders will be displaced starting July 8 and during the construction period, as the sign indicates.Of course, we don’t know what direction they will be coming from to build the grand hotel on July 8.  But there are rumors it will be down the Janss Steps: [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqQazd6jjRw?feature=player_detailpage]

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Wrong Irk; Right Irk

Byuclafaculty

Op Ed: Yours truly will concede that everyone is entitled to his or her own pet irk.  There is a headline in the Capitol Alert blog of the Sacramento Bee entitled “Cap-and-Trade Loan in Budget Deal Irks Environmentalists.”*  Actually, there is nothing unusual about borrowing by the general fund from other earmarked funds of the state.  The controller routinely does such borrowing when the general fund is short of cash – which was the situation much of the time during the last few years.  What is the real irk here is that as part of the budget that looks likely…

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Want a Riverside Med School? Legislature Says (Commands?) Do It Yourself

Byuclafaculty

There has been ongoing agitation from UC-Riverside and UC for the state to put up money for a med school.  As bits and pieces about the state budget leak out, it appears that the legislature has not provided extra money but instead has told UC to take it out of its general allocation.  Apparently, the legislature doesn’t view this matter as a suggestion; more of a command. From the Riverside Press-Enterprise:The Legislature’s budget conference committee late Monday altered the funding mix for a school of medicine at UC Riverside, eliminating a $15 million augmentation but directing the UC system to…

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What Ever Happened to the Campus Climate Survey?

Byuclafaculty

The Chronicle of Higher Ed published the chart above back in January based on national freshmen reports about the neighborhoods from which they came. [http://chronicle.com/article/BackgroundsBeliefs-of/136771] The data were gathered by UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute (HERI).  [Click on the chart to enlarge and clarify.]  It was around that time that UCOP sponsored a “campus climate” survey of all the campuses.  The survey had been announced with great fanfare after various racial incidents: http://www.ucop.edu/newsroom/newswire/img/16/16489629294e7b6333135a8.pdf.  As we have pointed out on this blog from time to time, there is no sign of any results from that survey as yet despite the considerable…

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Deal Reportedly Reached on the State Budget Between Legislature and Governor

Byuclafaculty

From the governor’s website: Governor Brown Issues Statement on Budget 6-10-2013: SACRAMENTO – Following action from the Joint Legislative Conference Committee on the Budget this evening, Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. issued the following statement:  “The Legislature is doing their job and doing it well. It looks like California will get another balanced budget and, very importantly, educational funding that recognizes the different needs of California’s students.” Source: http://gov.ca.gov/news.php?id=18087 The Sacramento Bee indicates that a) the deal is based on the governor’s more conservative revenue estimates as compared to the Legislative Analyst’s numbers* and b) there is (some) money for…