News

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Need for Improvement

Byuclafaculty

From the Sacramento Bee‘s Capitol Alert blog: Not a single member of the California Legislature earned an A from the tough graders at the University of California Student Association, who released their first-ever legislative scorecard at the regents meeting in Sacramento Wednesday. Not Sen. Marty Block, a former professor who chairs the Senate Education Committee. Not even Sen. Leland Yee, who holds a doctorate in psychology and takes every possible opportunity to publicly bash university management. “As students we get a lot of grades, and we’re turning the table on legislators,” said Justin Chung, a grad student at UC Irvine……

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Appy days are here again

Byuclafaculty

From an article in today’s Sacramento Bee describing Governor Brown’s visit to the Regents yesterday afternoon: …UC President Mark Yudof said many factors influence the time it takes for students to graduate, including how much pressure their parents put on them, how much they have to work to afford tuition and how complex the requirements are for their majors of study. Brown suggested that perhaps technology – “a little app,” he said – could help students by alerting them of their progress toward graduation… Source: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/05/16/5424543/uc-regents-cool-to-gov-browns.html Clearly, an app’t suggestion from the governor with no l’apps of his sound judgment….

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Listen to Remarks of UC Academic Senate Chair Robert Powell on Pending State Mandate of Online Courses

Byuclafaculty

Yesterday, we posted some of the Regents’ morning meeting.  Because of the disruption during the public comments period, the meeting was halted and the transmission was discontinued.  When it came back, it took me a few minutes to get the recording going and some of the remarks by Academic Senate Chair Robert Powell were missed.  However, they are now available and I have posted them (audio with still picture) at the link below. Much of Prof. Powell’s remarks deal with Academic Senate opposition to the bill pending in the state legislature that would mandate online courses.  He also spoke about…

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Listen to (Part of) Morning Session of UC Regents

Byuclafaculty

I had some trouble with recording this morning’s meeting of the Regents.  It began with a statement by UC President Yudof which included reference to the impending strike at UC hospitals (which UC is trying to enjoin).  During the public comment period, however, various union spokespersons said a strike would take place next week and the public comment session ended in a demonstration which led to a halt in the meeting (and transmission) while the room was cleared.  I did record the later meeting of the Committee on Finance.  Below is a summary and a link to a recording. Before…

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The official response

Byuclafaculty

If you are wondering about the official UC response to the governor’s May Revise budget proposal, here it is:  Patrick Lenz, the University of California system’s vice president for budget and capital resources:   With this proposal, the governor is continuing his multi-year funding commitment to increase the University of California by 5 percent in the 2013-14 fiscal year and then 5 percent, 4 percent, and 4 percent in the subsequent fiscal years. In addition, the administration is continuing its support for UC restructuring debt to achieve $80 million in annual savings. Those savings will provide not only the additional…

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Straws in the Wind

Byuclafaculty

The Regents are meeting today and tomorrow.  While they are considering UCLA’s loss of the neurology lab (see our earlier post), they can also consider this headline from a USC news release that was highlighted today in Inside Higher Ed::  Music Industry Icons and Entrepreneurs Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre Give $70 Million to Create the USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy for Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation http://universityofsoutherncalifornia.createsend1.com/t/ViewEmail/j/99843C9CB6AD3D5B/636A2070300EA8D9C67FD2F38AC4859C http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2013/05/15/two-music-industry-icons-give-usc-70m-start-music-business-center And they might also want to consider the new USC Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy: http://schwarzenegger.usc.edu/ Our earlier post on the neurology lab raid is…

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A Quick Review of the May Revise and an Inadvertent Lesson on Online Education

Byuclafaculty

As per our previous post this morning, the governor’s May Revise budget was released today in a presentation by the governor and his finance director.  But before we get to the numbers and issues relating to UC’s budget, yours truly cannot resist the following observation: There is nothing per se about online education in the latest summary document that accompanies the May Revise.  (More budget details will come out in the days to come.)  However, the online transmission of the news conference was a fiasco of jerky images, frozen audio, and total breaks in the transmission.  The effort in real…

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Governor’s May Revise (State Budget) Unveiling at 10 AM Today

Byuclafaculty

You can see it live-streamed at 10 AM at www.calchannel.com.  As noted in prior posts, bits and pieces have been leaking out as is traditional.  From the UC perspective, the elements to watch are contingent allocations based on performance goals and earmarks such as for online education. Another tradition is advance interpretation in the news media:http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/05/jerry-brown-to-propose-1-billion-for-common-core-education-standards.html http://www.sacbee.com/2013/05/14/5417832/browns-revised-budget-has-more.html http://www.californiascapitol.com/2013/05/where-has-all-the-surplus-gone-gone-to-classrooms-everywhere/ http://www.news10.net/rss/article/244970/525/5-key-things-worth-watching-in-Browns-revised-budget http://www.edsource.org/today/2013/school-funding-will-be-focus-source-of-contention-of-browns-revised-budget/31977 

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Verily, verily, Harvard seems to be in the news these days

Byuclafaculty

First there was the Ferguson apology: http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2013/05/how-to-be-really-famous-at-harvard.html. And now there is the Richwine PhD.  From Inside Higher Ed today: Veritas: Goddess of Truth Debate over a new Heritage Foundation report critical of proposed change in immigration laws has set off scrutiny and criticism of Harvard University for approving a dissertation in 2009 by one of the report’s authors. Some critics say that the dissertation’s suggestion of a long-term gap in the IQs of Hispanic immigrants and their descendants and the IQs of other groups is based on discredited theories that have been used to justify many forms of discrimination over…