UCLA

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Many Faculty Send Open Letter to Chancellor Block Concerning “Occupy” Demonstration/Related Developments

Byuclafaculty

The letter below appears on the blog https://uclafacultyunited.wordpress.com/ in an entry dated Nov. 20. Open Letter to Chancellor Block November 20, 2011 Dear Chancellor Block: In the predawn darkness this past Friday, a large contingent of police arrived on campus to remove a group of students who were peacefully protesting tuition increases, student loan debt, and the collapse of public funding for the University of California. In an act of civil disobedience, 14 students chose to ignore an order to disperse and were arrested. Their crime, formally, was to violate a campus policy against camping. But in reality they were…

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UC-Davis Hotel Expansion Proposal: Cautionary Lessons for UCLA

Byuclafaculty

Yours truly has obtained some documents related to the proposed expansion of a campus hotel at UC-Davis. The documents are more complete than what we currently have for the revised UCLA proposal and include a consultant’s market competition study. You can access these documents by scrolling down in this blog entry. The consultant hired by UC-Davis, as might be expected, indicated that Davis-area commercial hotels would not be adversely affected by competition from the campus project. However, the City of Davis seems to disagree and worries about the loss of room tax revenue diverted from the commercial hotels and about…

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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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Walking Solution for Hotel/Conference Center Traffic Problems?

Byuclafaculty

We posted the audio of the “scoping” session on UCLA revised hotel/conference center proposal that was held on Nov. 14. There were repeated concerns raised about traffic. The plan evidently calls for all traffic to enter the campus through Westwood Boulevard, southern entrance from the Village. But there is a limited turn-around space in front of the proposed hotel/conference center which must also accommodate various municipal bus lines that terminate there, hired buses that will pick up and leave off hotel/conference guests, and other drop-off vehicles, as well as the entrance to the project’s own parking. Comments from the public…

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Audio of Scoping Hearing on UCLA/Hotel/Conference Center: 11-14-11

Byuclafaculty

This evening (11-14-11), a public hearing was held on the scoping report on the proposed hotel/conference center – primarily an environmental review. See earlier posts on this blog. Most speakers were representatives of neighborhood groups and representatives of local hotels. One retired and recalled faculty member spoke. Major themes were the lack of a business plan, incompleteness of architecture and design features, parking, and traffic issues. The UCLA architect repeatedly stressed that the various designs shown on PowerPoint slides were conceptual, not final. Some of those who made comments noted that it was difficult to evaluate a project without final…

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UCLA Sixth in US in Number of Foreign Students

Byuclafaculty

A report in the LA Times today indicates that UCLA has the sixth largest contingent of foreign students (at all levels) in the US. USC has the largest. No other UC is on the list of the top 20 universities ranked by number of foreign students. The listing is below: Total Int’l Students 1 University of Southern California Los Angeles CA 8,615 2 University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign Champaign IL 7,991 3 New York University New York NY 7,988 4 Purdue University – Main Campus West Lafayette IN 7,562 5 Columbia University New York NY 7,297 6 University of California…

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A modest request for a little more (information on the hotel/conference center)

Byuclafaculty

As a prior post on this blog noted, apparently the powers-that-be have a business plan for the new version of the hotel/conference center but – according to a letter in the Daily Bruin from the chancellor – they are reluctant to release it until some future Regents meeting. See http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2011/11/chancellor-says-we-need-patience.html Perhaps the request below will encourage adjusting the timing: As a prior post on this blog noted, apparently the powers-that-be have a business plan for the hotel/conference center but – according to a letter in the Daily Bruin from the chancellor – they are reluctant to release it. Perhaps the…

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UCLA History: Royce

Byuclafaculty

As the excerpt below notes, yesterday was Josiah Royce’s 156th birthday – the Royce after whom Royce Hall is named. November 10 is the 156th anniversary of the birth of Josiah Royce, world famous philosopher and Grass Valley native. He was the “leading American proponent of absolute idealism, the metaphysical view that all aspects of reality, including those we experience as disconnected or contradictory, are ultimately unified in the thought of a single all-encompassing consciousness,” according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Royce’s parents crossed the Sierras in a covered wagon in 1849. His father established a general store. His…

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UCLA (Recent) History: Nov. 9 Demonstration

Byuclafaculty

Prof. Tobias Higbie took a sequence of 65 photos – one of which is above – of the “ReFund California” demonstration on Nov. 9 that began in the center of the UCLA campus and ended at Westwood and Wilshire Boulevards. The full sequence is available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/higbie/6330346965/in/set-72157627969793047 (Some photos may load slowly depending on your connection speed.)