UC Regents

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Regent Theater

Byuclafaculty

There is the Regent Theater in Westwood and there is theater at the Regents.  Yesterday, Gov. Brown continued his push for more online education from UC.  As far as I can tell from news accounts, the Regents, other than the student regent, are not resisting. We will eventually have the audio of the meeting and post it.  In the meantime, here is a TV news account. UPDATE: The Regents now are providing video and audio live and – perhaps – archived.  Is this the result of our putting the audios online and asking why the Regents don’t do it?  We’ll…

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No “mandate” but maybe some arm twisting

Byuclafaculty

We have been posting about Governor Brown’s interest in UC as expressed at Regents meetings lately and in the proposed state budget.  From the Sacramento Bee on what the governor wants from UC: …It is unclear how receptive UC regents will be to Brown’s involvement in their affairs. The university system is administered independently by the regents and subject to only limited legislative oversight. “You can’t, and we wouldn’t want to, impose some sort of mandates on them,” the state Department of Finance’s Nick Schweizer told reporters in a conference call after the budget’s release. “But at the same time…

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Listen to What the Governor Said About the Higher Ed Budget

Byuclafaculty

In an earlier post, we described the elements of the state budget for 2013-14 proposed by the governor and noted that his remarks at the news conference where the budget was presented largely mirrored prior statements he made at the Regents. Below is a link to an audio of his remarks on higher education (UC and CSU).  Although most of the time at the news conference was devoted to other aspects of the budget, higher education came up several times including once at the portion of the event with Budget Director Ana Matosantos. You can hear his remarks – and…

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Quick Summary & Reaction to the Governor’s Budget

Byuclafaculty

Here is some preliminary analysis of the governor’s budget proposal.  Note that it is a proposal and not an enacted budget.  Typically, the proposal is revised in May and not passed until close to the June 30 deadline. At the state level, the general fund is said to have had a negative balance of $1.615 billion as of last June 30.  The governor is proposing and forecasting that at the end of this fiscal year (2012-13), there will instead be a positive reserve of $0.785 billion.  That swing tells you that he is projecting a surplus this current year (inflow…

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Listen to Gov. Brown Say He is President of UC at Nov. 27, 2012 Special Regents Meeting

Byuclafaculty

The Regents held a special meeting to approve the new UC-Berkeley Chancellor and the interim UC-Riverside Chancellor on Nov. 27, 2012.  You can hear that meeting at the link below.  Governor Brown , Lt. Governor Newsom, and one Regent (Zettel) voted against the pay package for the new Berkeley chancellor Nicholas Dirks which paid $50,000 in sslary more than the previous chancellor.  (The increment was from private funds.)  All three voted for the appointment but against the pay. Brown’s comments are particularly interesting and occur roughly between minute 5:50 and 10:50 on the recording.  He says that the state funding…

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Things are heating up – particularly with regard to state politicos – concerning online ed at UC

Byuclafaculty

From the L.A. NOW blog of LA Times:Conference about online education attracts major players to UCLA January 8, 2013, Larry Gordon A national conference at UCLA on the future of online college education attracted some of the biggest names in the industry Tuesday, as well as politicians and faculty leaders from state universities. …Speakers at the event included Daphne Koller, the Stanford professor who is one of the founders of Coursera, a MOOC that offers courses from prestigious universities for free but usually without college credit, and Sebastian Thrun, a Stanford faculty member who co-founded Udacity, another MOOC that has…

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Apparently, UC’s Online Courses Didn’t Knock Their Socks Off

Byuclafaculty

As earlier posts have noted, the governor at a recent Regents meeting pushed for a presentation on the progress being made by UC in pitching online courses.  Such a presentation will be made at the next Regents meeting.  But it appears there will be some explaining to do: The University of California is spending millions to market an ambitious array of online classes created to “knock people’s socks off” and attract tuition from students around the world. But since classes began a year ago, enrollment outside of UC is not what you’d call robust. One person took a class. “It’s taking longer…

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Some Closing Thoughts for 2012

Byuclafaculty

U of Chicago Economics Professor Steven Levitt, co-author of the Freakonomics books, radio programs, blog, etc., made some interesting comments about business and MBA education in the context of a larger discussion of confirmation bias. Basically, he says that willingness to admit ignorance and non-expertise is not part of the business culture and that MBAs learn confidently to provide answers to questions for which they don’t know the answers. Admitting you don’t know is unacceptable. You can hear his comments at the link below. One suspects that the problem is not just one of business but of management of all…

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Lessons from NYU for Murphy Hall, UCOP, and the Regents to Ponder

Byuclafaculty

Inside Higher Ed today has an interesting and lengthy article on a pending NYU faculty vote of no-confidence in that university’s president which relates to a construction project of the university.  We have reported in this blog about the large capital project agenda that is routinely approved by the Board of Regents for UC campuses without real independent oversight capability on the part of the Board.  Perhaps there are lessons from NYU to be learned.  The recent extended brouhaha about the UC logo – clearly a minor issue compared to the NYU matter – suggests that folks in Murphy Hall,…

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Cautionary Tales for the Regents

Byuclafaculty

The New York Times today runs cautionary tales today about universities that go on building booms, build up debt, and get into trouble.  The opening lines give you the flavor:  Some call it the Edifice Complex. Others have named it the Law of More, or the Taj Mahal syndrome. A decade-long spending binge to build academic buildings, dormitories and recreational facilities — some of them inordinately lavish to attract students — has left colleges and universities saddled with large amounts of debt. Oftentimes, students are stuck picking up the bill. Overall debt levels more than doubled from 2000 to 2011…