News

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It’s Budget Leak Time

Byuclafaculty

There are formal and informal elements of the state budget process.  One formal part is the requirement that the governor present a budget proposal to the legislature in early January (Jan. 10).  The legislature is supposed to enact a budget by mid-June.  But there are also informal elements.  For example, it is traditional that the governor present the legislature with a “May revise” modified proposal for the budget in mid-May.  Another tradition is that bits of news about the budget begin to leak out around this time. Given the realities of the complexities of the state budget, by now the…

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Lessons from NYU for Murphy Hall, UCOP, and the Regents to Ponder

Byuclafaculty

Inside Higher Ed today has an interesting and lengthy article on a pending NYU faculty vote of no-confidence in that university’s president which relates to a construction project of the university.  We have reported in this blog about the large capital project agenda that is routinely approved by the Board of Regents for UC campuses without real independent oversight capability on the part of the Board.  Perhaps there are lessons from NYU to be learned.  The recent extended brouhaha about the UC logo – clearly a minor issue compared to the NYU matter – suggests that folks in Murphy Hall,…

Pay Premium for Higher Ed in California Particularly High

Byuclafaculty

The chart above comes from a recently-released study on pay premiums by level of education by state.  California shows up as having a relatively high premium for college grads and advanced degree grads relative to high school grads.  The data are based on median wage & salary adjusted to 2010 dollars for 2006-10.  The study groups workers by their broad occupational field: arts & humanities, business & commerce, health, and STEM (science, technology, engineering, math).  It is interesting to note that the high premium in California shows up within each of these broad areas as well as for all combined….

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A Skeptical View About Online Courses (from a commercial viewpoint)

Byuclafaculty

The Digital Skeptic: Online Education Fails Economics Jonathan Blum, 12/18/12, LA Daily News NEW YORK (TheStreet) — …In this nutty digital age, the red-hot online thing is …old-school, throwback university classes with a Web-age twist: They’re free.”The course is working out better than I dreamed,” Michael J. Cima told me in an email. Cima, the David H. Koch Professor of Engineering at MIT, teaches a free, online version of one of his chemistry courses at the school… Cima is not the only super geek rocking the quad with free online higher ed.  …So where’s the investor bummer? That’s sadly far…

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The Westwood Barnes Dance

Byuclafaculty

Henry Barnes As you enter UCLA from the south on Westwood Boulevard, you come across this pedestrian crossing in which all traffic lights turn red for cars and pedestrians can walk diagonally as well as straight across the street.  (There is another such crossing a few blocks away also in Westwood.)  The system is called a “Barnes Dance” after the traffic engineer who pushed for its use, Henry Barnes.  Yours truly can remember when the Barnes Dance was introduced in New York City in the 1950s (where apparently now there is only one such intersection left).  In any event, a…

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The Really Exciting 405 Project (More or Less)

Byuclafaculty

The Westwood-Century City Patch brings us this news of the I-405 project near UCLA: The investigations that resulted in the denial of 71 percent of damage claims related to the I-405 Sepulveda Pass Improvements Project have been handled with careful attention to documentation and responsibility, according to a spokesman for Kiewit Construction, the main contractor for the $1 billion project.  Last week, the Metro Board of Directors approved Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky’s motion calling for the inspector general’s office to audit Kiewit’s claims since the project began in 2009. Dan Kulka, community relations manager for Kiewit, said 90…

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Nobody Noticed the Pledge and Maybe That’s a Good Thing

Byuclafaculty

It looks like none of the LA City mayoral candidates decided to take the environmental pledge that a UCLA report seemed to suggest they should.  We previously posted about the pledge at: http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2012/12/mayoral-campaign-pledges.html and http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2012/12/more-on-ucla-studys-request-for-mayoral.html Our posts noted that the seeming posture of UCLA pushing for political candidates to take particular positions and actions (in this case, creation of a new city agency was among the actions) goes beyond just posing the options that candidates might consider.  Although yours truly did not see the event, in an article describing a recent TV debate among the mayoral candidates appearing in the…

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The Logo Was Part of an Elaborate and Now-Disappeared “Branding” Program at UC

Byuclafaculty

Above is the screenshot – taken today – of the video used to introduce the new and now-“suspended” UC logo.  It’s an official video on the UC YouTube channel “UCofficeofpresident” http://www.youtube.com/UCofficeofpresident. The video there is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt-hO-y4PhA.  In case it disappears – see below on things that seem to be disappearing – we have preserved it as part of our earlier posting at: http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2012/12/who-needs-light-anyway-or-gravitas.html Since the text below the video is not clear from the screenshot, here is the text that appears underneath it:Published on Nov 14, 2012 This video explains the genesis of the University of California systemwide logo….