News

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    Pension Protection in Stockton Bankruptcy

    Byadmin

    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

    Byadmin

    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

    Byadmin

    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

    Byadmin

    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

    Byadmin

    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…

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    You can’t take it to the bank exactly, but…

    Byadmin

    The state auditor prepares a kind of balance sheet for the state as a whole and for individual components of the state such as UC. For the year ending last June 30, the accounts show that UC had assets of $58.0 billion (including buildings – construction costs minus depreciation) and liabilities of $34.6 billion for a net asset total of $23.4 billion. (pages 58-60)There is an ongoing issue of the degree to which the state is responsible for the UC pension.  The report indicates that $6.4 billion of the liabilities of UC are “net other postemployment benefits obligations” which probably…

  • Complicated Monkey Business Involving UCLA

    Byadmin

    No, I don’t know the full story behind the matter described below:From the Winston-Salem Journal: The board of regents for the University of California system is accusing Wake Forest University Health Sciences of stalling through recent legal actions that seek the dismissal of a countersuit related to a primate colony in southern Forsyth County. The Wake Forest group and the University of California at Los Angeles are involved in a legal fight to end their joint venture in the research center in the Friedberg community. The primate center is based on a 200-acre farm and has about 80 employees, including 12 veterinarians, according…