miscellaneous

The National Bureau of Economic Research has released the study summarized below. In today’s tough job market for grad students, it suggests inherent optimists do better – at least for MBAs. Happy Labor Day. The Importance of Being an Optimist: Evidence from Labor Markets Ron Kaniel, Cade Massey, David T. Robinson NBER Working Paper No. 16328September 2010 Dispositional optimism is a personality trait associated with individuals who believe, either rightly or wrongly, that in general good things tend to happen to them more often than bad things. Using a novel longitudinal data set that tracks the job search performance of…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI4U-q2o2cg&fs=1&hl=en_US]

Below are data from a table from the recently-released “The Digest of Educational Statistics 2009” published by the National Center for Educational Statistics. It shows the estimated rate of 2005-06 high school graduates attending degree-granting institutions, by state, in 2006. Note that California – despite all of the talk we hear about preparing the workforce of the future – is not particularly highly ranked. The full table is available at http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d09/tables/dt09_203.asp United States…………. 62.0% ——————————- Mississippi ………….. 75.4 New York …………….. 75.0 Massachusetts ………… 72.6 South Dakota …………. 72.1 North Dakota …………. 71.9 New Mexico …………… 71.1 New Jersey ………………

Texas A&M System grades faculty — by bottom line (excerpt) September 01, 2010, Vim Patel, The Eagle Frank Ashley felt the shifting winds several years ago: As state officials embarked on accountability measures for K-12 teachers, he said, he told his faculty colleagues that public sentiment would eventually demand such measures in higher education. Now, Ashley, the vice chancellor for academic affairs for the A&M System, has been put in charge of creating such a measure that he says would help administrators and the public better understand who, from a financial standpoint, is pulling their weight. A several-inches thick document…

The online service California Watch reports that several faculty from UCLA, other UCs, USC, and Stanford have been removed from a state environmental panel that identifies toxic substances. The full report is at http://www.californiawatch.org/watchblog/after-warning-about-toxic-farm-chemical-scientific-panel-gutted-4332 Excerpts: Five out of nine members of a scientific panel that advises the state on toxic chemicals have been fired in recent weeks, following disputes with the chemical industry and a conservative group that targets environmental laws… Among the dismissed members is panel chairman John Froines, who also heads the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at UCLA’s School of Public Health. Froines has served on the…

August 26, 2010, NY Times Bay Area edition University to Manage Home Costs of PresidentBy STEVE FAINARUhttp://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/us/27bcyudof.html?_r=2&hpw The University of California has appointed an official to manage spending and operations at President Mark G. Yudof’s new private residence, after Mr. Yudof ran up nearly $700,000 in expenses and involved senior university officials in time-consuming personal matters over a rented mansion in the Oakland Hills. University officials said the action was necessary because of a lack of oversight and accountability during Mr. Yudof’s two-year stay at the Oakland property. The announcement came after The Bay Citizen disclosed the costly housing ordeal…

We can debate the factors in the rankings. But aspirations matter. Top university or top public university? Just an observation for California officials, voters, and UC administrators. The article is at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-rankings-20100827,0,1956749.story

An interesting item below posted on the LA Weekly website: Schwarzenegger Predicts Victory For Jerry Brown? By Gene Maddaus, Informer Blog/LA Weekly published: Wed., Aug. 25 2010 @ 12:34PM http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/politics/arnold-schwarzenegger-jerry-br/ ​So Patricia Sellers is an editor-at-large at Fortune, and as such she hangs out in L.A. restaurants where you might just happen to run into people like Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Upon bumping into Schwarzenegger on Monday at Le Pain Quotidien, Sellers asked the governor what he thought of Meg Whitman, about whom she wrote a profile last year. The governor’s answer was off the record, but it’s clear…

The Washington Monthly has a ranking of universities which puts an emphasis on such factors as “social mobility.” The top schools in its ranking are UC-San Diego, UC-Berkeley, and UCLA in that order. Perhaps more interesting than the rankings is that you can look at such factors as the percent of students receiving Pell grants. For details, go to http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/rankings_2010/national_university_rank.php