News

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Tobacco Tax Initiative for UC/CSU Student Aid Advances

Byuclafaculty

As prior posts have noted, an initiative was filed featuring a tobacco tax to be used mainly for student aid at UC and CSU.  Unlike many initiatives that are filed, there seems to be serious money behind it since it is being handled by a professional law firm that deals with electoral matters. The Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) has now come up with an analysis of the initiative, a step towards petition circulation. According to the LAO, about $730 million, net, would be raised by this initiative annually. Once the initiative is approved for circulation, we will see whether someone…

MOOC problem

Byuclafaculty

Inside Higher Ed has an article today on the problem of hate speech and suicide threats that appear among the many student comments in online MOOCs.  Excerpt:…Troubled MOOC users are an elephant in the room, said Gary Pavela, the author of a book on college student suicide and an instructor at Syracuse University and the University of Maryland’s College Park campus…Different analogies could be applied.  Since such courses are MOOcs, we prefer seeing the problem as a bull in a china shop. The article is at:http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/03/06/professors-wonder-how-deal-suicidal-or-homicidal-students-online

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Regents to “Review” UCLA Teaching & Learning Center for Health Sciences

Byuclafaculty

The Regents will again be presented with a major UCLA capital project they have already discussed: The Teaching & Learning Center for the Health Sciences.  Regardless of the merits of this particular capital project or any other that comes before them from the campuses, in the end – as this blog has noted many times – the Regents have no independent review capability to evaluate capital proposals or to follow up on actual outcomes.  This particular project has a budget (see below) of $104.7 million, not chump change, plus another $6 million for furniture and equipment.  Past discussions at the…

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Audit Results to be Presented at Regents

Byuclafaculty

Page 10 of audit report [click on image for clearer view] At the upcoming Regents meeting, there will be a presentation of the annual audit report through fiscal year 2011-12 (the year ending June 30, 2012).  Among other things, it reports a $26 billion budget for what the auditor calls core activities, as can be seen above.  This audit definition of “core” should not be confused with the similar term used in the state budget for UC which refers only to basic teaching activities and is essentially the state appropriation plus tuition (roughly one out of five dollars in the…

Uh Oh! The UC Elephant Lives!

Byuclafaculty

Who could forget the brouhaha when there was an attempt to replace the old UC seal with something that looked like an elephant’s behind, upside-down.  If you have nonetheless forgotten, you can be reminded at: http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2012/12/hindsight-on-yesterdays-post-on-new-uc.html The new seal seemingly was withdrawn.  But it lives on!  If you click on the UC newsroom webpage, you can still see it as shown above. This may require drastic action![youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aD9wL0ffxqY?feature=player_detailpage]

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Traffic Nightmare Reported This Afternoon/Evening

Byuclafaculty

EMERGENCY OUTAGE NOTIFICATION! *****DESCRIPTION: What: Sepulveda Closure at Mulholland When: Currently Ongoing until midnight Impacts:  Sepulveda Blvd is closed in both directions at Mulholland due to police activity in that area. Mitigation: Please use either the 405 (joke, right?), Beverly Glen, or canyons further east. Thank God it’s not Friday.  Or maybe it is:*  *If you are too young to get the pun, ask an elder. UPDATE: Apparently Friday caught the culprits because Sepulveda is now reported as reopened.

One of our many reminders on what not to click

Byuclafaculty

UCLA.edu WebMail Service UCLA.edu Mail Service messaging center wish to inform all UCLA.edu Email Users. We are upgrading our Webmail clients. Your email account will be upgrade to a new enhanced webmail interface provided by UCLA.edu Mail Service. UCLA.edu Mail Service will discontinue the use of our current UCLA.edu Email System. You are therefore required to re-validate your mailbox. To re-validate your mailbox please click the link below: [link] Yours In Service,UCLA.edu WebMail Service===If you got the message above, look carefully and you will see it doesn’t come from a UCLA address. Spam is the least bad thing that might…

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For whatever it means…

Byuclafaculty

Above are the world rankings of universities from the British Times Higher Education magazine based on “academic reputation.” [Click on the image to make it clearer.] The full list and info on the survey methodology is at:http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2013/reputation-ranking

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Regents Meeting Coming Next Week

Byuclafaculty

The Regents are meeting March 13-14 – Wednesday-Thursday of next week.  The agenda is only partly online.  At this point it just lists topics without the supporting materials.  One March 13 item is the UCLA Health Sciences Teaching and Learning Center which we are assured won’t cost the campus a penny.  Of course, we know the Regents will carefully undertake a review of the business plan using outside independent expertise and will be monitoring the project after it is built to ensure it is a total success, just as they did, and surely will do, with the Grand Hotel: http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/mar13/gb.pdf…