Council of UC Faculty Associations (CUCFA, of which UCLA-FA is the UCLA chapter) President Constance Penley attended the historic National AAUP convention on June 16-18 in Arlington, VA, as the CUCFA delegate, which meant that she had an opportunity to vote on the proposed alliance between the AAUP and the AFT (AFL-CIO) and to fill six open AAUP Council seats. Read her report from the Convention at the CUCFA website.
Category: privatization
Chris Newfield @ UCLA, Feb. 22
Public Universities under Trump
Lessons from the Era of Privatization
Wednesday, February 22, 3:30-5 PM
6275 Bunche Hall, UCLA
Free and open to the public. Location Information
Privatization, student debt, and over-building have led public universities to the brink of disaster. So argues UCSB professor Christopher Newfield in his new book. Only by embracing their Continue reading “Chris Newfield @ UCLA, Feb. 22”
Univ. of Wisconsin Faces Big Changes under Walker
Wisconsin’s Republican governor Scott Walker recently proposed a $350 million cut to the University of Wisconsin system budget, and a fundamental shift in the university’s relationship to the state. Currently, the multi-campus system is a state agency. The new law would make the UW system a “public authority.” In a lengthy analysis, UW professors explain what this change will mean and why system administrators are not fighting it:
They [system leaders] recognize the cuts as a “DEAL” with the state in exchange for what they call the ‘flexibilities’ of the public authority model. This desire explains why no UW System Chancellor has, to our knowledge, demanded that cuts to higher education be outright rejected. System President Ray Cross characterizes this as a deal for one simple reason: UW system budget cuts are an exchange for public authority status. As President Cross mentioned in the email he sent to system-wide chancellors before news of the cuts became public, the part of the budget that would make the university a public authority was an opportunity to be seized — “something we might not get a shot at for another 20-30 years.”
The governors proposal also throws open the possibility of major changes in the tenure system and civil service rules since the creation of a public authority requires to repeal of a number of existing laws related to university governance. The Board of Regents would have the option of restoring these protections, but is not required to do so. In recent days, the Regents have voiced criticism of the governor’s plan and set up committees to write policies on shared governance and tenure, and system administrators have called for smaller cuts and greater autonomy.
The UW faculty group PROFS has a fact sheet outlining its opposition to the public authority scheme.
Privatized Strawberries at Davis
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Strawberry growers are literally being cheated out of the fruits of their labors by the University of California, according to a lawsuit filed against the Board of Regents by the California Strawberry Commission.
UC Davis is ending its strawberry breeding program and replacing it with a private company created by its two long-time strawberry researchers. The two plan to sell strawberry varieties, including those they developed over the past 30 years at UC Davis backed by annual payments of $350,000 by the strawberry commission.
Filed in Alameda County Superior Court, the commission’s eight-page lawsuit wants to block the move, saying the university “seeks to appropriate to itself and a private entity… the fruits – both literally and figuratively – of decades-long research the commission funded.” In return for the commission’s funding, strawberry growers who used the new UC-crated types of strawberries paid lower royalties and got two years of exclusivity before non-California growers could use the new varieties. That changed in 2012 when the university’s strawberry breeders, Doug Shaw and Kirk Larson, said they were going private…
Full story at http://capitolweekly.net/strawberry-growers-pick-uc-regents/
Well, nothing lasts forever. Nothing to get hung about:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-g2ocByOYo?feature=player_detailpage]
There are at least two ways to skin the business school self-sufficiency cat
Inside Higher Ed today has a lengthy article about the Anderson School’s self-sufficiency MBA program. The theme, however, is that the UC-Berkeley Haas School is doing the same thing in different ways that haven’t caused a ruckus with the Academic Senate. Both schools say the object is to put more money in the kitty and gain more “flexibility.”
You can read about it at:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/07/02/uc-business-schools-see-different-levels-resistance-innovation-plans
UCLA MBA Goes Self-Sufficient
From UCOP:*
UC president approves UCLA Anderson’s proposal for self-supporting M.B.A. program
By Ricardo Vazquez, June 26, 2013
University of California President Mark G. Yudof has approved a proposal by the UCLA Anderson School of Management to convert its full-time, state-supported M.B.A. program to self-supporting status.
Yudof’s decision — outlined in a June 24 letter** — applies to the financing of the school’s flagship M.B.A. program, where the full costs will now be covered solely by student tuition rather than a combination of state funds and student tuition and fees.
In other respects, including issues related to academic content and quality, the M.B.A. program remains integral to the campus and is subject to the same policies and regulations that govern UCLA’s professional schools.
Yudof’s approval comes after an extensive review process in which both the faculty of UCLA Anderson and the Legislative Assembly of UCLA’s Academic Senate voted to support the proposal. Yudof underscored that UCLA Anderson and all its programs will be expected to retain the characteristics of a public research university and to “operate as do all other academic units at UCLA.”
“We are very grateful to President Yudof for his thoughtful consideration and approval of the UCLA Anderson proposal,” said UCLA Chancellor Gene Block. “It recognizes our need to adjust to new state funding realities while ensuring that the M.B.A. program preserves the academic quality and access for needy students befitting a public institution.”
Among the conditions Yudof placed on the M.B.A. program’s change in status is a stipulation that the program continue to ensure that student financial aid is offered for “financially needy students at a level commensurate with other UC full-time State-supported M.B.A. programs.”
The conversion of UCLA Anderson’s M.B.A. program to self-supporting status benefits not just UCLA Anderson but the entire campus. It frees up more than $8 million that will be used to support campus-wide undergraduate programs hurt by major reductions in state support.
“The UC system has been hard hit by state budget cuts, and I’m pleased that we’ve been able to offer an innovative solution that is a win-win for both the university and for UCLA Anderson,” said Judy Olian, dean of UCLA Anderson. “This new financial model will provide students with tuition predictability and enable the school to invest in program innovations while redirecting state support to other needed priorities at the university.”
**http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/UCLA/document/Yudof_Letter_MBA_Program99.pdf
UPDATE: The LA Times version of the story is at:
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-ucla-business-20130626,0,4422034.story
It includes the following:
…Anderson school officials have said that donors have promised multimillion-dollar donations if the self-supporting plan goes forward in the expectation that the MBA program will become more innovative once it becomes financially independent from state support…
UPDATE: The Business Week version notes that the systemwide Academic Senate attempted to table the plan: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-06-26/ucla-wins-right-to-take-mba-program-private
…Yudof’s approval comes nine months after a UC Academic Senate panel suspended its review of the UCLA plan, saying the program failed to meet any of the four criteria required for a program to become self-supporting at UC…
More on Yudof Private Thoughts
In an earlier post, we reproduced part of a Daily Bruin article that dealt with UC President Mark Yudof’s comments on “privatizing” the UCLA Anderson School of Management at the March 7 IMED Seminar. Below is a link to what he actually said (audio with a still picture). Yudof’s comments were more ambiguous than the news item suggested. First, the interviewer, Prof. Lee Goodlick, used the word “privatize” without defining it. (The P-word hasn’t been used in actual proposals regarding the Anderson School; “self-sufficiency” is preferred. In addition, the latest version of the proposal referred only to the MBA program and not the entire School.) Yudof interpreted it to mean a stand-alone school which was affiliated with UCLA but more or less autonomous. Using that definition, Yudof said it was incompatible with a public university, in part because a privatized school might disregard such public goals as access. Second, he said he could imagine a situation in which Anderson paid more of its own bills and thereby freed up taxpayer monies for other departments. Third, he noted the issue is before various levels of faculty review. The interviewer joked that the process might take a hundred years. Yudof said he hoped it would be faster. But, of course, after the end of August, it will be some other UC president’s problem.
The actual Anderson portion of the interview can be heard below:
The earlier post is at:
http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2013/03/mark-yudof.html
Mark Yudof’s Not-So-Private Thoughts
“Yudof… said he opposes the privatization of parts of the UC, specifically mentioning the UCLA Anderson School of Management, which had been considering becoming financially independent from UC funds. He said he is concerned that privatization would shift priorities away from those of a public university.”
Full story from yesterday’s Daily Bruin at:
http://dailybruin.com/2013/03/08/mark-yudof-featured-speaker-at-institute-for-molecular-medicine-seminar/
Now he tells us!
Peter Schrag on Yudof Retirement
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 Californian who could benefit from it a place somewhere in its three-tiered higher education system. UC was that rarest of rare institution, a tax-supported world-class research university that was elitist and democratic at the same time.
Ever since he came, Yudof promised to resist privatization, but privatization has come in any number of ways: in spiking tuition; in recruiting and admissions policies increasing the percentage of foreign and out-of-state students and the high tuition they pay; in the pursuit of industry contracts. UC is still the nation’s premier public university. But in its attempt to keep pace with Harvard and Stanford, it’s becoming more like Michigan and the University of Virginia, nominally public universities that started down the road to privatization even before UC did.
Yudof had been thinking about retirement well before he made his announcement last week. But it’s hard to imagine that Gov. Jerry Brown’s muscle flexing at recent meetings of the regents – even his pointed reminder that he is the legally designated board president – did anything to encourage Yudof to stay…
Full op ed at
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/01/25/5139675/uc-president-had-unheralded-victories.html
Bottom line: We’ll miss him when he’s gone:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8xM7N0Tzm8?feature=player_detailpage]
Mitchell Presentation with Slides from Nov. 7 Forum on the Future of UC Funding
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A post of Nov. 7 on this blog carried the audio (only) of the forum sponsored by the Faculty Association at UCLA on the Future of University of California Funding held that day at the UCLA Faculty Center.
Each of the three presenters used slides as part of their talks. Below you will find two (alternative) links to the slides used by Prof. Daniel J.B. Mitchell along with the coordinated audio for his presentation. Use whichever works best for your connection.
Note: The Anderson presentation is at:
http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2012/11/robert-andersons-presentation-on-future.html
The audio of the entire event is at:
http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2012/11/audio-available-for-todays-ucla-faculty.html