UC

Court Decision: UC Must Disclose Detailed Venture Capital Fund Returns

Byuclafaculty

Inside Higher Ed reports today that UC has been ordered to make public information on rates of return received from venture capital funds in which it invests.  UC has had this battle before – and lost it back in 2003.  My guess in reading the Inside Higher Edreport and the Reuters report on which it is based is that the University asked the funds not to give it more than summary information on a collective return on various funds so it could say it didn’t have the detailed info.  Or it may be that the funds told UC that it…

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The Governor on Higher Ed and UC

Byuclafaculty

On Oct. 16, Gov. Brown came to UCLA to promote his tax initiative, Prop 30.  As part of that visit, he met with UC student journalists at the UCLA Daily Bruin offices.  An audio was made of the interview.  The full interview runs about three quarters of an hour.  It is available at: http://www.dailybruin.com/multimedia/51093 However, about thirteen minutes was focused on Brown’s thoughts about higher ed, particularly his long-term vision for UC as an ex officio Regent.  I think it is fair to say that while he had thoughts, it would be hard to term them a coherent, long-term vision. …

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Legal victory for university consortium that includes UC

Byuclafaculty

Inside Higher Ed is reporting a legal victory concerning a Google/university partnership that involves indexing a vast number of books.  Excerpt:Much of the work of the HathiTrust (a consortium of universities) to make books in university collections more easily searchable and accessible to people with disabilities is protected by “fair use” and is not subject to a copyright suit brought by authors’ groups, a federal judge has ruled…I can’t give you the ins and outs of this case but UC is a member of the HathiTrust.  The full Inside Higher Ed article is at:http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2012/10/11/fair-use-applies-book-digitizing-work-judge-rules That article links to a legal blog which…

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UC History: Ansel Adams Photos

Byuclafaculty

A report in the San Francisco Chronicle today indicates that in 1964, UC President Clark Kerr hired famed photographer Ansel Adams to take pictures of the UC system.  The photos came out in a picture book later which has not been reprinted until now when copies were made for incoming UC-Berkeley freshmen. Only a few photos are reproduced in the Chronicle such as the one on the right of a class for veterinarians at UC-Davis.  It’s nice that Adams gave us the horse’s head rather than the reverse. You can find the report at:http://www.sfgate.com/art/article/Ansel-Adams-prints-found-at-UC-Berkeley-3909179.php

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Brown Vetoes Bill Requiring Consideration of Community Service for Tenure

Byuclafaculty

A bill was vetoed yesterday that would have required CSU and “requested” UC to consider community service for tenure and other academic personnel decisions.  The veto message is at:http://gov.ca.gov/docs/AB_2132_Veto_Message.pdf The message notes that such service is already part of the academic review process and that such matters are best left to campus-level decision making.

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Governor Vetoes Collective Bargaining for RAs

Byuclafaculty

Collective bargaining in the public sector in California is regulated by a series of statutes.  The major ones have the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) as their administrative agency.  One of these laws covers UC and CSU and is known as HEERA, the Higher Education Employee-Employer Relations Act.  Current law allows collective bargaining for student teaching assistants. However, research assistants are not covered. Yesterday, the deadline for signing or vetoing bills, Gov. Brown vetoed a bill that would have extended collective bargaining rights to RAs. You can read his veto explanation statement at:http://gov.ca.gov/docs/SB_259_Veto_Message.pdf For those interested, the full text of…

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The Thrifty Fifty Online Textbooks

Byuclafaculty

Governor Brown signed twin bills that create a mechanism for producing and distributing free online textbooks for what are described as fifty lower-division core courses at UC and CSU in cooperation with the community colleges. Exactly how these texts are going to be produced (for no royalties, if I read the new laws correctly) remains to be seen.  There do seem to be some mechanisms for payment for supplying such texts but, again, details are not clear. The twin bills are at:http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/sen/sb_1051-1100/sb_1052_bill_20120905_enrolled.html andhttp://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/sen/sb_1051-1100/sb_1053_bill_20120905_enrolled.html

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That Feels Sooo Good

Byuclafaculty

The governor has signed legislation that does everything about tuition other than allocate money to stop it from rising.  It is (sort of) voluntary for the Regents and UC. And it feels so good. LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST AB 970, Fong. University of California and California State University: systemwide student fees. Existing law, known as the Donahoe Higher Education Act, sets forth the missions and functions of the segments of public postsecondary education in the state. The California State University, which is governed by the Trustees of the California State University (trustees), and the University of California, which is governed by…

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How Jerry Brown Views Higher Ed

Byuclafaculty

If you are wondering what Governor Brown thinks about higher ed, you might be interested in the excerpt below from the transcript of an interview with the LA Times which appeared on the web on 9-24-12: …So here’s an interesting point. This is Page Smith. He was in the history department in Santa Cruz. You went to Santa Cruz. Do you remember Page Smith? Well, he was one of the original guys. He kind of left in disgust when they started going more conventional. His wife I made the first head of the arts council and I got to know…