UC-Davis

| |

UC Egypt Programs Suspended

Byuclafaculty

UCLA student at the Sphinx From the LA Times: Worried about student safety amid the political violence in Egypt, the University of California has suspended its fall semester program in Cairo, officials said Monday. The move affects 22 students who had signed up to study advanced Arabic and other classes at the American University in Cairo… Those students can enroll instead in UC programs in Jordan, Turkey, Morocco and Israel that also offer Arabic classes… The move comes a few days after the safe evacuation of 10 UC students from a UC Davis-sponsored summer program in Egypt and the worsening…

|

In a family way

Byuclafaculty

Families may not be what they once were, back in the day.  But Inside Higher Ed today carries a story about an effort by the American Council on Education (ACE) to deal with worklife-family balance for faculty.  Readers will know of such changes in the faculty promotion system such as “stopping the tenure clock” for child birth.  However, the effort described in the article notes that ten university presidents or chancellors have signed on.  Curiously, only one is from the UC system – Linda Katehi of UC-Davis. As it happens, one of the issues the revamped UCLA Faculty Assn. hopes…

| | | | |

What Happened to LA Law?

Byuclafaculty

Some readers of this blog may recall the popular TV series from the late 1980s and early 1990s: LA Law.  Folk wisdom at the time was that applications to the UCLA law school went up during the show’s run and dropped when it was cancelled.  In any case, things are not what they were according to some data – shown below – that appear today in the LA Times in connection with a story on the jobs problems of recent law school grads. Here are percentages of California law school graduates in 2011 who had found full-time, long-term jobs as…

| | | | | | |

Emisions Remissions?

Byuclafaculty

UCLA co-generation plant California’s cash-strapped public universities would save millions of dollars under legislation by Orange County state Sen. Mimi Walters, but the bill’s prospects are uncertain because it would alter a landmark global warming law beloved by environmentalists. Walters’ proposal seeks to exempt University of California and California State University campuses from the new cap-and-trade program established under the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, otherwise known as Assembly Bill 32 or AB32, one of the nation’s most ambitious environmental laws… At least five UC campuses, including Irvine, UCLA and San Diego, qualify for the cap-and-trade program in 2013……

| | | | | |

Regents Meeting Coming Next Week

Byuclafaculty

The Regents are meeting March 13-14 – Wednesday-Thursday of next week.  The agenda is only partly online.  At this point it just lists topics without the supporting materials.  One March 13 item is the UCLA Health Sciences Teaching and Learning Center which we are assured won’t cost the campus a penny.  Of course, we know the Regents will carefully undertake a review of the business plan using outside independent expertise and will be monitoring the project after it is built to ensure it is a total success, just as they did, and surely will do, with the Grand Hotel: http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/mar13/gb.pdf…

|

Another UC capital project that seemed like a great idea

Byuclafaculty

From time to time, we have noted that UC capital projects don’t necessarily work out as planned. While we have generally raised this point in the context of the UCLA grand hotel, other campuses are not exempt. The Sacramento Bee carries the interesting report from UC-Davis excerpted below: Before construction began, UC Davis laid out a vision for West Village, its new on-campus community, as a showcase of energy efficiency that would provide affordable housing for faculty and students. Nearly two years after the $300 million development opened, it has not yet fulfilled those expectations. Its student apartments have experienced high turnover. Single-family homes for faculty and staff…

| |

Good News Story About the Med Center at UCLA; Not So Good at UC-Davis

Byuclafaculty

The web brings Good News about the UCLA med center in the form of a new transplant procedure: http://www.smmirror.com/articles/Health/UCLA-Performs-First-Breathing-Lung-Transplant-In-United-States/36374 On the other hand, our friends at UC-Davis are getting anything but good news from the feds in a story that might make some folks there nostalgic for the days when all they had to worry about was pepper spraying: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/12/23/5072625/evaluation-of-uc-davis-medical.html

UC officials release thousands of documents related to Davis pepper spraying incident

Byuclafaculty

From the Sacramento Bee: Nearly a year after police pepper sprayed protesting students at the University of California, Davis, UC officials today released thousands of pages of internal documents and emails related to the aftermath of the incident. The document release comes in response to Public Records Act requests from The Bee and numerous other media organizations that were filed immediately following the Nov. 18 incident. However, disclosure of the documents was delayed while university officials said internal reviews of the matter and a criminal investigation was conducted… Full article at http://www.sacbee.com/2012/10/09/4895291/uc-officials-release-thousands.html [The documents described above do not seem to be on the…

| | | |

One Bill That Got Away (from our attention last month)

Byuclafaculty

As Governor Brown was signing or vetoing bills last month, we tried on this blog to point to those affecting UC.  However, one – AB 1955 – got away from us and escaped our attention.  It deals with the aftermath of the UC-Davis pepper spray incident.  As is often the case, while the bill mandates CSU to do something, it just “requests” the Regents to do the same because of UC’s constitutional status.  Gov. Brown signed this bill which you can read below: AB 1955, as introduced, Block. Public postsecondary education: campus law enforcement agency and student liaison. Existing law…

| |

UC History: Ansel Adams Photos

Byuclafaculty

A report in the San Francisco Chronicle today indicates that in 1964, UC President Clark Kerr hired famed photographer Ansel Adams to take pictures of the UC system.  The photos came out in a picture book later which has not been reprinted until now when copies were made for incoming UC-Berkeley freshmen. Only a few photos are reproduced in the Chronicle such as the one on the right of a class for veterinarians at UC-Davis.  It’s nice that Adams gave us the horse’s head rather than the reverse. You can find the report at:http://www.sfgate.com/art/article/Ansel-Adams-prints-found-at-UC-Berkeley-3909179.php