UC Merced

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Davis and Merced Get Drones, But We Have Snodgrass

Byuclafaculty

The website California’s Capitol reports that UC-Davis and UC-Merced have applied to the FAA to have drones. http://www.californiascapitol.com/2013/10/californias-drone-applicants/ and https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/faa_coa_list-2012.pdf. Obviously, the rest of us will be falling behind in this technology.  But at least we have Prof. Snodgrass who drones on and on, as former UC president Yudof once reminded us in his soliloquy on online higher ed:

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Mystery Email Seems Legit

Byuclafaculty

We have cautioned on this blog about responding to emails that purport to come from university sources but may actually be email spam or worse.  Yours truly – and probably many other UCLA faculty – received the email in italics below.  I was cautious because it did not come from a UCLA or UC source.  It came frommember@surveymonkey.com and had a reply address of survey@acrd.us. After a little snooping and Googling, however, it appears to be legit.   ============================ Dear University of California Colleague,The UC Office of the President funded researchers at UC Merced to conduct a system-wide survey of community…

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Wishlist budget adopted by Regents

Byuclafaculty

As expected, the Regents adopted the budget – which the governor on Wednesday termed a wishlist – yesterday.  The value of adopting a wishlist budget which will not be funded as requested was debated on Wednesday but adopted by the Committee on Finance of the Regents.  We posted the audio of that meeting, including the governor’s comments. Yours truly was in transit yesterday and so could not record the Regents’ live stream audio. We will, as usual, request the recording as a public document and post it when received. (And [sigh] again we ask why the Regents audios are not…

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Riverside and Merced say take our meds

Byuclafaculty

From the LA Times, Larry Gordon 7/16/12 (excerpt):…UC Riverside‘s long-held dream to have a full medical school was badly battered last year when the state refused to pay for it and then national accreditors wouldn’t allow it to open. Those denials were a blow to the UC system’s proud tradition of adding campuses and programs to serve a growing state. Now, UC Riverside is making what national experts say is a rare second attempt to gain approval for a medical school. Campus officials say they have obtained alternative financial backing, worth about $10 million a year for a decade, from private…

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More and More Getting Off Scale

Byuclafaculty

The Daily Bruin today has a piece on proposals for dealing with faculty salary scales which have grown increasingly outmoded.  As the table, based on a graphic in the Bruin, illustrates, most faculty at UCLA are paid off-scale.  The University, for recruitment and retention purposes, tries to meet the external academic labor market.  In effect, since there are only so many dollars to go around, paying more than the official scale has to mean a higher student/teacher ratio than would otherwise prevail. Percent of faculty off scale as of 10/2010:Merced 88%UCLA 80%Santa Cruz 73%Berkeley 72%Irvine 66%Santa Barbara 66%San Diego 64%Riverside…

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Too Many in the UC Lifeboat?

Byuclafaculty

Mike Lofchie pointed me to this article which questions the one-system view of UC and, in particular, UC-Merced, in a period of budget stringency. February 12, 2012, Chronicle of Higher Education Fault Lines Form Among Campuses as Finances Strain U. of California (excerpt): By Eric Kelderman President Mark G. Yudof of the University of California often says that the system he oversees is one university with 10 campuses.  But some higher-education experts say the economic strains and budget cuts of the past three years are fraying the ties that hold the system together. Several campus leaders have proposed measures to…

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UC students to protest at regents meeting (tomorrow)

Byuclafaculty

Lisa M. Krieger, San Jose Mercury-News 11-26-11 Student protesters with the Occupy movement will converge on four UC campuses Monday morning to vent their fury at a meeting of the regents, with demonstrators in Davis attempting a campuswide shutdown. The meeting, rescheduled after cancellation earlier this month because of threats of violence and vandalism, now includes a one-hour slot for student voices and other public comment, increased from the usual 20 minutes. The regents will be spread out in four locations — San Francisco, Davis, Los Angeles, and Merced — and conduct the meeting by teleconference… Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/health/ci_19419961 Above: In…

Merced Developers Learn to Be Careful What You Wish For

Byuclafaculty

For years, UC promised – but didn’t actually – to build a Central Valley campus. In many respects, the promise without the delivery was the best of worlds for UC when it came to the legislature. Real estate developers throughout the Central Valley, and their legislative representatives, had dreams of a new campus sparking a development boom. After all, it worked when UCLA moved to Westwood. Decades later, it worked for Irvine. Why not in my area (or legislative district)?, they thought. UC could study various locations but be noncommittal about the final decision. That way, multiple hopeful legislative members…

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From the UCOP-top-website-press-releases-as-of-today file

Byuclafaculty

MERCED — Chancellor Dorothy Leland of the University of California, Merced, said today (Oct. 3) the 6-year-old campus has made significant contributions to the state through its innovative research and that more investment is needed for it to meet its promise to bring greater economic prosperity to the San Joaquin Valley, the fastest-growing region in the state… UC President Mark G. Yudof, along with some 300 community members, formally welcomed Leland to the university during a ceremony today in the Carol Tomlinson-Keasey Quad… With countries such as Saudi Arabia, China and India aggressively funding higher education infrastructure for research, Leland…

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The Money Tree at the Fresno Bee

Byuclafaculty

You probably don’t follow the editorial page of the Fresno Bee religiously. With that in mind, yours truly reproduces an editorial that appeared on it last week – without comment. But before I do, you might be interested in the comment by state controller John Chiang regarding state revenues through the first quarter of the fiscal year and the possibility that the so-called budget “trigger” would be pulled – further cutting the UC budget: “For better or worse, the potential for revenue shortfalls is precisely why the Governor and Legislature included trigger cuts in this year’s State spending plan,” Chiang…