UC

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Help Wanted

Byuclafaculty

SPECIAL COMMITTEE TO CONSIDER THE SELECTION OF A PRESIDENT, March 14, 2013 TO THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA The Committee presents the following from its meeting of March 13, 2013 CRITERIA FOR SELECTION OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY LEADERSHIP The President of the University of California must be a visionary leader with the judgment, creativity, and courage to enhance the quality and reputation of the University as one of the preeminent public research universities in the world. The President represents the University in its role as an international, national, and state exemplar in the education policy arena….

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New Beginnings, Courtesy of LBNL

Byuclafaculty

A supercomputer in downtown Oakland has identified the most ancient light in the universe, assembling an image that reveals that the universe is older, and slower, than we thought. The powerful Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory computer, housed in a former Wells Fargo Bank vault near the Paramount Theatre, analyzed data sent by NASA from Europe’s Planck space telescope. It compiled a portrait of an infant cosmos that was hot, small and crowded — and traced our creation back 13.8 billion years, about 100 million years older than previous estimates. Its analysis also revealed a rate of expansion that is slower than seen…

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Divergent Views (and that’s all we know)

Byuclafaculty

Apparently, a meeting on the legislative proposal to create some kind of commission for approving online courses at UC, CSU, and the community colleges took place Tuesday.  Exactly what transpired at that meeting, however, is unclear.  The only comment so far has come from the legislative side.  Excerpt from the Contra Costa Times: …(State Senate President Darrell) Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said the first-of-its-kind legislation is aimed at relieving classroom bottlenecks that are making it more difficult to graduate. Faculty leaders counter that course access is not an acute issue within the UC system, which has some of the highest graduation rates…

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LAO on Cost of College and Cost to State of Cal Grants

Byuclafaculty

The chart above is self-explanatory.  The chart below shows that budget cuts produce tuition increases which then increase the cost of the state’s Cal Grant program. The LAO’s full report is at:http://www.lao.ca.gov/handouts/education/2013/Financial-Aid-and-the-State-Budget031313.pdf

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Bad PR on MOOcs – But Don’t Be Cowed

Byuclafaculty

We noted yesterday that an article in the San Francisco Chronicle indicated that faculty leaders from UC would be meeting today with state senate president Darrell Steinberg to discuss his bill on online higher ed. As the headline/extract below from the conservative news aggregator Flashreport suggests, it is easy to portray faculty objections as obstruction.  In fact, the objection is that the bill creates an external mechanism for course approval. The challenge, therefore, is a) to make the faculty objection clear and b) to try to persuade the relevant politcos (and the Regents?) that there is an established mechanism for…

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A little online education for the folks in Sacramento

Byuclafaculty

From the LA Times: In a crossing of swords between academics and politicians, the University of California’s top two faculty leaders on Friday strongly criticized legislation that would allow students bumped from overcrowded core courses at state schools to instead take online courses from other colleges or private companies. The bill, authored by state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), “raises grave concerns,” Robert L. Powell and Bill Jacob, the chairman and vice chairman of the UC system’s faculty Senate, wrote in a letter to colleagues. Among other things, “the clear self-interest of for-profit corporations in promoting the privatization…

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Bad Law?

Byuclafaculty

Inside Higher Ed  today carries a brief report that faculty from many law schools (including some from UCs and Hastings) have signed a letter saying the current tuition, debt, and job market for law students are incompatible.  Excerpt from the letter:  …Over the last three decades, the price of a legal education has increased approximately three times faster than the average household income. With the help of the federal student loan fund, some ninety percent of law students borrow to finance their legal education and the average law school debt now exceeds $100,000. Overall, law students in 2011-2012 borrowed more…

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Tobacco Tax Initiative for UC/CSU Student Aid Advances

Byuclafaculty

As prior posts have noted, an initiative was filed featuring a tobacco tax to be used mainly for student aid at UC and CSU.  Unlike many initiatives that are filed, there seems to be serious money behind it since it is being handled by a professional law firm that deals with electoral matters. The Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) has now come up with an analysis of the initiative, a step towards petition circulation. According to the LAO, about $730 million, net, would be raised by this initiative annually. Once the initiative is approved for circulation, we will see whether someone…

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Audit Results to be Presented at Regents

Byuclafaculty

Page 10 of audit report [click on image for clearer view] At the upcoming Regents meeting, there will be a presentation of the annual audit report through fiscal year 2011-12 (the year ending June 30, 2012).  Among other things, it reports a $26 billion budget for what the auditor calls core activities, as can be seen above.  This audit definition of “core” should not be confused with the similar term used in the state budget for UC which refers only to basic teaching activities and is essentially the state appropriation plus tuition (roughly one out of five dollars in the…

Uh Oh! The UC Elephant Lives!

Byuclafaculty

Who could forget the brouhaha when there was an attempt to replace the old UC seal with something that looked like an elephant’s behind, upside-down.  If you have nonetheless forgotten, you can be reminded at: http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2012/12/hindsight-on-yesterdays-post-on-new-uc.html The new seal seemingly was withdrawn.  But it lives on!  If you click on the UC newsroom webpage, you can still see it as shown above. This may require drastic action![youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aD9wL0ffxqY?feature=player_detailpage]