Master Plan

| | | | |

The Moral: It’s a Good Idea to Avoid the Rush

Byuclafaculty

From Inside Higher Ed today… Maybe it was inevitable that one of the new massive open online courses would crash. After all, MOOCs are being launched with considerable speed, not to mention hype. But MOOC advocates might have preferred the collapse of a course other than the one that was suspended this weekend, one week into instruction: “Fundamentals of Online Education: Planning and Application.” Technology and design problems are largely to blame for the course’s problems. And many students are angry that a course about online education — let alone one offered by the Georgia Institute of Technology — wouldn’t…

| | |

Peter Schrag on Yudof Retirement

Byuclafaculty

Peter Schrag, a former columnist for the Sacramento Bee, wrote an op ed about President Yudof’s retirement.  Excerpt: …All told, the UC is in far better shape now than when he came. But it’s unlikely that it can ever again exercise the kind of influence, both in this country and abroad, that it did in its glory days under Clark Kerr in the 1950s and 1960s. It was an era when new UC campuses and new programs were created one after another, when students paid low “fees” and not tuition, and when California adopted a master plan that promised every…

| | | | | |

Gov. Jerry Brown on Executive Pay at the University of California & Many Other Topics

Byuclafaculty

At the University of California (UC) Regents meeting of Jan. 17, 2013, Regent Leslie Tang Schilling asked Gov. Brown not to protest about UC executive pay.  The state portion of executive pay can be capped, she seemed to agree, but the Regents should then be free to raise private donations for increments of pay above the state portion.  She argues that UC will need high-quality leadership and must be free to compete for talent.  She expresses skepticism about psychic income. Brown responds at length with a learned discourse ranging from his one-time vow of Jesuit poverty to the history of…

| | | | | | | |

Why the Resignation?

Byuclafaculty

They don’t seem to be looking in the same direction. President Yudof resigned shortly after last week’s Regents meeting.  Undoubtedly, the resignation was planned earlier so nothing that specifically happened at the meeting could have been the triggering event.  The official press release mentioned health, family, etc., obliquely. While the Regents meeting was not the trigger, I would guess that what happened at the meeting was no surprise and could have been anticipated by anyone who heard or attended prior meetings.  The governor wants to take a bigger role than have prior governors.  That’s fine by itself, but the question…

| | |

Don’t worry if you forgot to reset your clock. You’ll just be an hour early to our program on Wednesday!

Byuclafaculty

SPEAKERS’ FORUM ON ALTERNATIVE FUNDING MODELS FOR UC DATE: Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2012TIME: Noon-1:30 pm LOCATION: Faculty Center, California RoomLUNCH: Complimentary Sandwiches and Beverages will be served.RSVP: ucfa@earthlink.net so we can get an accurate food count.  (Cut and paste this address into your email.  You can’t do it from here.)APRIL 1982: ANCIENT CALIFORNIA HISTORY “The interconnected complications surrounding the upcoming state budget for 1982-83 defy comprehension by most state legislators let alone the public at large… Governor Jerry Brown is projecting a $3 to $4 Billion shortfall in revenues for 1982-83. This is against the Governor’s $2.1 Billion estimate in his January proposed budget…It would be…

| |

UCLA Report Calls for Overhaul of Community College Transfer Process & Master Plan

Byuclafaculty

Inside Higher Ed today pointed me toward the UCLA Civil Rights Project and its series of three reports critical of the transfer process from community colleges to four-year colleges.  One of the reports was co-authored by former UC President Richard Atkinson. The summary from Inside Higher Ed is at:http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2012/02/15/racial-transfer-gap-california-community-colleges A press release from the Civil Rights Project is reproduced below: CRP Calls for Fundamental Changes in California’s Community Colleges Date Published: February 14, 2012 Almost 75% of all Latino and two-thirds of all Black students who go on to higher education in California go to a community college, yet in 2010…

| |

New Plan Could Affect Transfers to UCLA

Byuclafaculty

You may have seen an article in the LA Times about a possible change in direction at California community colleges.  UCLA says about 40% of its graduates (undergrads) are transfer students.  Not all of these transfers come from California community colleges, however.  But poking around on the web suggests that around 90% of them are from the state’s community college system. The original Master Plan viewed community colleges as colleges of last resort.  Anyone with a high school degree could enroll.  (Indeed, some enrollees may not have high school degrees.)  If an enrollee got on an academic track (some courses…

| | |

Out of the box on higher ed: Uh Oh

Byuclafaculty

From the Sacramento Bee today (excerpt): Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom railed against tuition increases and said Wednesday that the state’s master plan for higher education is outdated, promising “a different narrative” for higher education by the end of the year. It was unclear what the plan might contain or how Newsom, a Democrat, might propose to fund it. “We’re going to come up with some out- of-the-box recommendations, is our hope and expectation,” he told The Bee’s Capitol Bureau. Fifty years after the production of the California Master Plan for Higher Education, Newsom said he and officials are preparing to…

| | | | | | |

Cal State-Westwood?

Byuclafaculty

Gov. Pat Brown signs the Donahoe Act in 1960 implementing the Master Plan for Higher Education. The LA Times ran an editorial yesterday, lamenting rising tuition at UC and the lack of state support. It also threw out some suggestions. Among them: …The university also should consider a temporary policy that favors admission to students in the immediate geographical area for a certain percentage of new undergraduates. That way, more students could live at home and avoid the hefty cost of a dorm. UC campuses are not usually commuter schools, but troubled times call for a willingness to make sensible…