UC-Santa Barbara

Rank Congratulations to Our Colleagues at UC-SB

Byuclafaculty

From time to time on this blog, we have said skeptical things about the various rankings that occur in the world of higher education. But we do want to take the opportunity of congratulating our colleagues at Santa Barbara for their number 2 ranking among the top 10 party schools by the Princeton Review. From Inside Higher Ed today comes the story and here are the rankings: Princeton Review’s Top 10 “Party Schools”1. University of Iowa2. University of California, Santa Barbara3. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign4. West Virginia University5. Syracuse University6. University of Florida7. Ohio University at Athens8. University of…

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Listen to Regents Meeting of Nov. 13, 2012

Byuclafaculty

The UC Board of Regents, Committee on Grounds and Building met on the afternoon of Nov. 13, 2012.  On the agenda were public comments, approval of the UC capital budget plan, discussion of a long term plan for student housing at UC-Santa Barbara, and design approval of a $118.6 million faculty office building project at UC-San Francisco. Two speakers in the public comments session referred to out-of-state students although exactly what was being suggested was unclear. The capital budget is a wishlist of projects that it would be nice if the state funded through general obligation bonds.  However, given the…

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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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Campus Demonstrations: Recent & Back in the Day

Byuclafaculty

Videos from the Occupy demonstrations yesterday at UC-Berkeley are available at: http://www.dailycal.org/2011/11/16/video-series-november-15-occupy-cal-strike/ Of particular interest is the talk given by Robert Reich, shown above. Click on the link above (not the image above) to see the Berkeley videos. See also http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2011/11/16/MN7V1LVH5N.DTL Old timers will remember some of the scenes below: UC-Berkeley UCLA UC-Santa Barbara

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Unseemly Picture? A Proposal to Tax State Public Pensions – But Not UCRP – Is Among Three Initiatives Submitted by a Santa Barbara Group

Byuclafaculty

A group called the California Center for Public Policy submitted three initiatives to the Attorney General Tuesday. One would ban collective bargaining in the public sector in California. Two others deal with public pensions. Notably, the two pension initiatives omit the UC pension and cover only CalPERS and CalSTRS. One initiative would tax pension benefits above $100,000 with progressive surcharges. The other raises the basic retirement age to 65. Scroll down to the bottom of this entry to read the three initiatives. (Reminder: Anyone can submit initiatives for $200. It takes $1-$2 million to pay signature-gathering firms to get things…

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Hot Potato?

Byuclafaculty

The Assn. of American Universities (AAU) is a organization with major research universities as its members including UCLA. Its current president, Robert Berdahl, is a past chancellor of UC-Berkeley. UC-Berkeley is a member. Davis, Irvine, San Diego, and Santa Barbara are also members. On March 31, the AAU issued the press release below with other organizations concerning the federal deficit. (This is not a timely piece of information; yours truly just stumbled on it, a month late.) Also a signatory to the document is the Assn. of Public and Land-Grant Universities which includes the UC campuses above plus Santa Cruz…