News

  • Technical Frustrations With Missing Links

    Byadmin

    There are occasional technical frustrations involved in blogging.  Some are inherent in the process.  We often provide links to articles or other items.  If those links change, or if the items are taken down, the links will no longer operate.  So if you go back to past postings, you may encounter such missing links and we cannot in general remedy that situation. Where is it? In some cases, however, we have posted audios or videos of public meetings such as Regents sessions.  Some of those postings were originally put on a Facebook page maintained by yours truly.  It appears that…

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    May Regents Meeting: Preliminary Agenda Posted

    Byadmin

    The Regents’ May 15-16 meeting agenda has been posted in preliminary format.  It lists the days and times.  (Apparently May 14 – which had been listed earlier – was dropped as a meeting day.)  Below is the agenda as of today.  The attachments are not yet posted.  Yours truly has highlighted a few items of potential special interest in italics that may be listed in more detail in the days to come. Agenda: Wednesday, May 15 8:30 am Committee of the Whole (open session – includes Public Comment session) 9:30 am Committee on Oversight of the DOE Laboratories (open session)…

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    Cap Removed

    Byadmin

    Earlier posts on this blog have noted the controversy surrounding the lifetime cap on UC student health insurance.  Most students are healthy and never hit the cap.  But if a major illness occurs, the insurance, which students must have unless they have some other coverage, could run out. The new federal healthcare law generally forbids such caps but UC was able to continue it as a self-insured plan.  It appears, however, that after complaints about the limit, the cap will be removed. (We also noted in a recent post that UC-Berkeley was planning to pull out of the UC-wide plan…

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    Notes on Yesterday’s Session on Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age

    Byadmin

    A program on Teaching and Learning in a Digital Agewas held at the Young Research Library on May 2.  Various faculty members attended and some emailed their notes and reactions.  Below are edited versions of those responses.  The agenda for the program is at the bottom of this posting. (Scroll down.) = = = From: Prof. Toby Higbie I was only able to attend the Senate event on and off due to teaching duties. I arrived in the afternoon, and so missed the session with the deans.  From what I saw, there was quite a bit of critical engagement with…

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    The Block Bill: The Other Online Higher Ed Mandate

    Byadmin

    Although the online higher ed bill by Senate president Darrell Steinberg (SB 520) has been receiving much attention – as well as opposition from UC – there is another bill on the subject that is also pending in the legislature.*  That bill, by Senator Marty Block (D-San Diego), has received a much softer response from UC, essentially that it might be OK with more faculty control and funding.  The bill, as introduced, requires the UC Academic Senate to undertake certain actions with language for UC indicating that the Regents should first endorse the requirement. Below is the text of the…

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    I’m Outta Here

    Byadmin

    An earlier post on this blog noted that there were concerns about caps on total payouts under the health insurance plan for students at UC.*  Now, apparently, there are also big premium jumps coming. UC-Berkeley has announced it will pull out of the UC-wide plan and run its own.  From the San Francisco Business Times: Following intense pressure from students, UC Berkeley is pulling the plug on participation in a controversial, deficit-plagued student health plan run by the University of California system, Chancellor Robert Birgeneau said Thursday. Birgeneau said the system’s flagship Berkeley campus will jump ship effective Aug. 15, when it…

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    It’s always good to hit the target but…

    Byadmin

    We’ll let William Tell us about hitting targets. As we have noted in prior postings, the state received what seemed to be a windfall of $4+ billion in income tax revenue early in 2013 which seemed possibly related to taxpayer concerns about fiscal cliffs, etc.  But the receipts did not reverse later and a key indicator is what happened to income tax receipts in April, the big month for that tax. According to the state controller, April income tax receipts came in as expected under the governor’s budget estimate for the current fiscal year.  See below: So it appears the…

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    The Next ObamaJam Will be June 7

    Byadmin

    The President has not been doing any local fundraisers recently.  But when he does, they inevitably tie up traffic on the Westside.  The hiatus will end on Friday, June 7, when he comes for a lunchtime event in Santa Monica.  Yours truly will be in St. Louis on that day.  For those readers who remain in town and plan to come to UCLA on June 7, however, it would be best to arrive early and leave late. (Or you can attend the fundraiser for a mere $10,000 and up.) Source of these tidings:http://www.smmirror.com/articles/News/Obama-To-Attend-Fundraiser-June-7-At-Peter-Chernins-Santa-Monica-Home/37450

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    Needs Improvement

    Byadmin

    For many years, California had an agency known as CPEC, the California Postsecondary Education Commission.  CPEC was supposed to coordinate the three public segments of higher ed with the private higher ed institutions.  It was a successor to an earlier agency connected with the 1960 Master Plan.  CPEC basically gathered data on higher ed, wrote reports, etc.  However, in 2011, Governor Brown zeroed out the CPEC budget with a line-item veto.  All that remains is a website:http://www.cpec.ca.gov/ CPEC was run by a commission consisting of political appointees and members of public higher ed governing boards – for UC, the Regents…

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    Slow Growth

    Byadmin

    Replacement for the Grizzly Bear on the state flag? The California Dept. of Finance regularly estimates population of the state and its local jurisdictions.  It estimates that the state’s population grew at a 0.8% rate in 2012.  Not surprisingly, the faster growing areas within the state are generally those around the Silicon Valley. It’s not an accident that the making of demographic estimates is assigned to the Dept. of Finance because population growth has a variety of effects on the state budget.  California actually has been growing at roughly the national rate since the end of the Cold War when…