News

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What Happened to LA Law?

Byuclafaculty

Some readers of this blog may recall the popular TV series from the late 1980s and early 1990s: LA Law.  Folk wisdom at the time was that applications to the UCLA law school went up during the show’s run and dropped when it was cancelled.  In any case, things are not what they were according to some data – shown below – that appear today in the LA Times in connection with a story on the jobs problems of recent law school grads. Here are percentages of California law school graduates in 2011 who had found full-time, long-term jobs as…

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Dog Days at the UCLA Medical Center

Byuclafaculty

Several four-legged volunteers with the People-Animal Connection (PAC) program at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and their human counterparts will star in an upcoming episode of the PBS television show, “Shelter Me: Let’s Go Home,” premiering in April… The show followed a handful of human/dog teams with UCLA’s animal-assisted therapy PAC program as they volunteered at the hospital. All of the dogs featured were adopted from shelters and now help people by bringing comfort to patients and their families, as well as joy to the doctors and nurses. “Our animal-assisted therapy dogs truly provide a sense of healing and comfort…

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Pension Protection in Stockton Bankruptcy

Byuclafaculty

From time to time, there have been suggestions that public employers should test the idea that prior defined-benefit pension promises – such as those made by UC – cannot be undone.  So far in California, all modifications of public pensions have been prospective, i.e, affecting new hires or possibly future accumulations of current workers. In the case of the ongoing City of Stockton bankruptcy, certain insurers of Stockton bonds – who will suffer losses – challenged whether Stockton should be allowed to declare bankruptcy if it didn’t try to undo its existing CalPERS pension liabilities.  CalPERS took the standard position…

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Closed Again

Byuclafaculty

A major nighttime freeway closure is scheduled on the San Diego (405) Freeway in the Sepulveda Pass Monday night, Caltrans officials said. Southbound 405 traffic from the San Fernando Valley into the Westside will be diverted late tonight and Tuesday morning as major work is under way to build the second half of the Mulholland Drive bridge. Metro officials said. Onramps and transition roads to the southbound 405 in the south end of the Valley will start closing at 7 p.m. Monday. Freeway lanes will begin to shut down at 10 p.m., and all 405 southbound traffic will be blocked…

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No Joke

Byuclafaculty

It’s not clear why the University of California Press chose April First to bring out a new biography of Jerry Brown, but it did. There is a review (really a comment) by Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters of the new book.  Some excerpts: Chuck McFadden, a retired wire service reporter who worked in Sacramento, wrote “Trailblazer” for the University of California Press and the relatively slender volume takes a terse, journalistic approach that is both a plus and a minus. Someone who is unfamiliar with Brown’s first governorship – that’s just about anyone under the age of 50 – has…

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UCLA History: Pauley Construction

Byuclafaculty

The photo shows UCLA Chancellor Franklin Murphy, basketball coach John Wooden, and donor Edwin Pauley at the groundbreaking ceremony for Pauley Pavillion, probably around 1964.  (The official opening was in 1965.)  Pauley – whose wealth came from oil – was a prominent Democrat.  However, the fundraising drive for the structure (which Pauley matched) was headed by H.R. Haldeman of Watergate fame.  Pauley, a Regent, played a major role in the dismissal of UC President Clark Kerr due to student protests, primarily at UC-Berkeley. Speaking of firing, we haven’t featured sports on this blog.  But there is so much news surrounding…

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A cautionary note on MOOC missionaries

Byuclafaculty

William Bowen, the former president of Princeton, is generally a proponent of online education as a potential cost saver.  But in Inside Higher Ed today, there is a profile of Bowen and his views and it includes the following cautionary note: Bowen… takes the hype about MOOCs with a grain of salt. “Missionaries don’t particularly want their methods tested – they are missionaries after all,” he warned. The missionaries include MOOC providers, the media, administrators and business-minded higher education policymakers, Bowen writes. “There is a real danger that the media frenzy associated with MOOCs will lead some colleges and universities…