UCOP

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Faculty associations address UCOP

Byhigbie

The UCLA Faculty Association is part of a UC-wide coalition of faculty associations known as CUCFA–the Coalition of UC Faculty Associations. Through CUCFA, UC faculty are able to address the UC Office of the President on issues of importance to faculty, their students, and staff. Below is a round-up of recent communication between CUCFA and UCOP. UC Union Coalition on Health Insurance Costs CUCFA signed on to a joint letter from unions representing employees across the UC system expressing concern with large increases in the cost of health insurance. The unions requested a meeting to “address what appears to be…

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Academic Council knocks UCOP data policy

Byhigbie

The Academic Council of the UC Academic Senate called for significant revisions to a proposed new university policy on “Research Data and Tangible Research Materials.” The Council characterized the proposed policy as, “overly broad, difficult to enforce, and a potential danger to faculty intellectual property.” Previously, the Berkeley Faculty Association criticized the policy as a solution in search of a problem, and a danger to faculty academic freedom. As the BFA noted, the policy opens with a sweeping assertion of new university rights, “The Regents of the University of California owns all Research Data and Tangible Research Materials,” and goes…

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UCOP Response to CUCFA on Health Options

Byhigbie

In April, the Council of UC Faculty Associations drafted a letter of concern over proposed changes to UC employee health insurance options. Over 2,500 faculty system-wide added their names in support of these concerns. Now we have a response from the UC Office of the President (UCOP): Subject: Health care options letter Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 23:40:06 +0000 From: President at UCOP dot edu To: info at cucfa dot org Dear Professor Hays: Thank you for sharing the Council of UC Faculty Associations’ letter of April 7 to President Napolitano regarding the possible restructuring of healthcare plans available to…

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UCOP Study Shows Decline in Faculty Compensation

Byhigbie

A year ago Colleen Lye and James Vernon, co-chairs of the Berkeley Faculty Association, drew the attention of faculty across the ten campuses of the University of California to the continuing degradation of their pensions, benefits and salaries. Increasing employee contributions to health insurance and pensions were compounding the negative impact of slow salary group, they argued, and retirees faced fewer choices for healthcare. Now UCOP’s own study of total remuneration has confirmed much of their argument. The executive summary of this document contains the following depressing bullet points: Between 2009 and 2014, UC’s total remuneration fell from 2% below…

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Napolitano Responds to UCLA’s Moreno Report

Byuclafaculty

Moreno UC President Napolitano issued a response to the (former California Supreme Court Justice Carlos) “Moreno Report” of Oct. 2013, formally titled “Independent Investigative Report on Acts of Bias and Discrimination Involving Faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles.”  It includes directives to all campus chancellors: 1) Every campus should designate an official to serve as its lead discrimination officer. This official is responsible for ensuring that an appropriate response is made to all reports of perceived acts of discrimination, bias, and harassment involving faculty, students, and staff from all parts of the campus. * The discrimination officer will…

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We’re Not Alone in Pointing to the Risks of Open-Ended Capital Projects

Byuclafaculty

Vannevar Bush From: The Endless Frontier: Reaping what Bush Sowed?   by Paula Stephan (pp. 33-34)* NBER working paper 19687 (Nov. 2013) Excerpt: Overexpansion of research facilities In recent years, universities have gone on a building binge, constructing a substantial amount of new research space which led to a 30 percent increase in net assignable square feet for research between 2001 and 2011. Most of this increase is for facilities in the biological, biomedical and health sciences—a response of universities to the doubling of the NIH. Some of this space has been paid for by private philanthropy. At MIT, for…

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Mansion Awaits

Byuclafaculty

From the LA Times:Blake House, the Northern California mansion that is intended to be the official residence of the UC system president, may be coming back to life. Because of its rundown condition, UC executives in 2008 stopped living in the Mediterranean-style mansion in the unincorporated Contra Costa County neighborhood of Kensington. With a financial crisis for the university at the time, nothing much was done to fix up the 13,200-square-foot house, which is surrounded by 10 acres of gardens. Next week, however, the UC regents are expected to consider a plan that could start the ball rolling for a major…

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Looking Under the Egg

Byuclafaculty

The latest “Our University” newsletter from UCOP has an article about the increase in pension contributions recently enacted by the Regents.  When you look at the newsletter, there is a illustrative “nest egg” illustration – shown above – which you click on to read the article.  Now it’s not clear what the chart below the egg shows.  But let’s hope the downward falling line on the chart under the egg isn’t the future funded status of the pension plan.  As readers of this blog will know, while back in the day, the plan was (more than) fully funded, the long…

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Straw into Gold? More Positive Spinning on the New UC Prez

Byuclafaculty

An earlier post noted that there seemed to be some effort at positive spinning on the Regents selection of the new UC president.  The latest example appears in the LA Times as the headline below suggests: As Arizona governor, Napolitano put higher education on agenda http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-napolitano-gov-20130722,0,5155679,full.story Of course, there are some dangers in such spinning efforts:[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apZuO1nwSvQ?feature=player_detailpage]

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No Wonder the Regents Wanted the New UC Prez to Have Washington Connections!

Byuclafaculty

Inside Higher Ed alerted me today to this chart from the National Journal showing the university degrees of the top 250 Obama administration officials.  UC is not – shall we say? – prominent.  See: http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2013/07/22/obama-administrations-private-university-background andhttp://www.nationaljournal.com/decision-makers/more-top-obama-officials-have-graduate-degrees-from-oxford-than-any-public-university-in-the-united-states-20130719  [Includes link to methodology] But don’t worry about the apparent lack of a link between California and DC.  With the telegraph replacing the Pony Express, coast-to-coast communication will soon be easier.  Right, Janet?