UC Regents

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Listen to Regents Meeting of Nov. 14, 2013

Byuclafaculty

The November 14 meeting of the Regents opened with public comments.  These included concerns over staffing and safety at UC hospitals, a Berkeley city councilman who called for pension caps on high-paid UC executives, students advocating fossil fuel divestment, concerns about student costs and debt, and spending on “amenities” for students at UC. The Committee on Finance approved budgets for operations and capital after extensive discussion and back-and-forth with Governor Brown who said that UC was asking for $120 million more than it was going to get.  There was a bit more push back from Regents and administrators with regard…

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Listen to Regents Discuss Retiree Health on Nov. 14, 2013

Byuclafaculty

We’ll post the audio for the entire Nov. 14 Regents meeting subsequently.  However, below is a link just to a discussion of the issue of retiree health.  As blog readers will likely know, as part of the open enrollment, UC retirees who are out of state are being dropped from UC programs and given a flat dollar contribution to buy their own policies from local exchanges.  An external contractor – Extend Health – has been engaged to provide counseling for out-of-state retirees. According to the back and forth between regents and UC administrators, this change will drop the liability to…

Known Unknowns at the Regents

Byuclafaculty

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was famous for his known unknowns.  One of the known unknowns apparently is what went on at last Wednesday’s afternoon Regents meeting which had an open session as you can see from the agenda for that day/time below: 1:00 pm Special Meeting: Committee on Finance (Regents only session) 2:30 pm Board (Regents only session) 3:00 pm Committee on Investments (open session, followed by closed)  The open session was supposed to discuss criteria for the next Chief Investment Officer and Vice President for Investments.  But when you look at the archives now posted for Wednesday,…

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Listen to the Regents Morning Session: Nov. 13, 2013 (including the Napolitano speech)

Byuclafaculty

As noted in prior posts, yours truly is out of town and behind on listening to, and recording, the Regents meeting.  I am now current through the morning of Nov. 13.  That was the morning in which UC president Napolitano gave her speech on her goals for UC.  Blog readers will recall that there was supposed to be a similar unveiling of goals in a speech awhile ago, but that turned out to be a booster/dud.  This one was more significant, but more on that below. Again, we provide audio archives of Regents meetings because regental policy is to preserve…

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Listen to the UC Regents: Nov. 12, 2013

Byuclafaculty

As blog readers will know, we post audio of Regents meetings because the current regental policy is only to post their meetings for a year.  But the meetings live on here!  Yours truly has various commitments this week that will slow the posting.  But a link to yesterday’s meeting is below. The public comment session included speakers complaining about lack of affirmative action at UC (blocked by Prop 209), inadequate services for disabled students (including those with mental problems), and complaints about the appointment of Janet Napolitano.  The last took up a good deal of time with demands that the…

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No magic; no free lunch

Byuclafaculty

  As you can see above, Gov. Brown promised to raise $10,100 for UC by holding a brown bag lunch.  Various other fund raising promises were made in connection with a campaign – Promises for Education – announced at the September Regents meeting.  The campaign, which appears to be over although the website persists [http://www.promiseforeducation.org/], raised $1.3 million. From the LA Times: An unusual effort by the UC system to raise scholarship money through online crowd-funding tactics — including promises by faculty and students to lead hikes, wash cars and wear kooky costumes — has garnered $1.3 million, officials said…

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Things to Come?

Byuclafaculty

Events at this week’s CSU Trustees meeting suggest what may occur at next week’s Regents meeting, especially if the governor shows up, as he has been doing. From the LA Times: (excerpt) A committee of the Cal State Board of Trustees on Tuesday approved a $4.6-billion budget plan that includes money to hire faculty and increase student enrollment. The 2014-2015 proposal seeks an increase of $237.6 million in state funding. Included in that total is about $80 million to increase student enrollment by about 20,000; $13 million to hire more than 500 new, full-time faculty members; $15 million to finance…

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Listen to the Regents Committee on Investments: Nov. 5, 2013

Byuclafaculty

The Committee on Investment of the Regents met yesterday.  Only part of the meeting was open.  As we have been doing in the past, the audio from the meeting is posted at the link below since the Regents follow a policy (why?) of archiving meetings for only one year. Investment Committee meetings are meant to show that the Regents are exercising oversight of the various funds that the Treasurer manages.  They also are supposed to exercise oversight of the various campus foundations.  The foundations can invest with the Regents and/or invest on their own, using their own fund managers. There…

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The Regents are Coming

Byuclafaculty

Regents: 1964 Edition In fact, there will be a meeting tomorrow of the Regents Committee on Investments, primarily to review returns on the UC portfolios and those of the campus foundations.  See:http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/meetings/agendas/nov5.html Next week’s meetings (Nov. 12-14) are beginning to be posted as of this morning.  Agenda items are available but not detailed attachments.  See:http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/meetings/agendas/nov13.html You might be curious to know about an item entitled “Participation in Joint Venture to Establish and Operate a Rehabilitation Hospital, Los Angeles Campus.”  Too bad if you are.  It will be discussed only in a closed session:http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/nov13/hsx.pdf

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Good Idea: Take a Risk

Byuclafaculty

The website of the San Francisco Chronicle today is running a story today about a Silicon Valley forum in which California first lady Anne Gust Brown and new UC president Janet Napolitano argued that women should take more risks in public life. In earlier posts, we noted that a recent speech – billed in advance as a major address – by the new prez was largely a dud with no sense of priorities for UC or even key questions that she thinks need further investigation.  So we agree about risk taking.  Our new prez should take a risk at the…