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Faculty at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) launched a two-day strike today citing stalled negotiations with university administrators.  Several hundred people rallied on the Chicago campus this morning, and picketed classrooms throughout the day.  Faculty decided to unionize in 2012 citing lack of pay raises and temporary pay cuts during the recent financial crisis, among other issues.  Adjunct faculty, who are coordinating bargaining with tenure-system faculty, are seeking multi-year contracts as well as better pay and benefits.  As evidence that the university can afford their demands, faculty cite a 25% increase in tuition since 2007, rising enrollments, and a…

A note to all our faithful readers: Dan Mitchell is taking a break from posting here, so we will not have our regular daily updates.  We’ continue posting but at a slower pace until Dan is back in the saddle. Toby HigbieUCLA FA Chair

The new UCLA Faculty Association website and blog are still under construction. To see current information:  uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com

In prior posts, we have blogged about MOOCs – massive open online courses (MOOCs).  But now comes a proposal for a MOOA: As colleges begin using massive open online courses (MOOC) to reduce faculty costs, a Johns Hopkins University professor has announced plans for MOOA (massive open online administrations). Dr. Benjamin Ginsberg, author of The Fall of the Faculty, says that many colleges and universities face the same administrative issues every day. By having one experienced group of administrators make decisions for hundreds of campuses simultaneously, MOOA would help address these problems expeditiously and economically. Since MOOA would allow colleges…

UCLA.edu WebMail Service UCLA.edu Mail Service messaging center wish to inform all UCLA.edu Email Users. We are upgrading our Webmail clients. Your email account will be upgrade to a new enhanced webmail interface provided by UCLA.edu Mail Service. UCLA.edu Mail Service will discontinue the use of our current UCLA.edu Email System. You are therefore required to re-validate your mailbox. To re-validate your mailbox please click the link below: [link] Yours In Service,UCLA.edu WebMail Service===If you got the message above, look carefully and you will see it doesn’t come from a UCLA address. Spam is the least bad thing that might…

Yesterday, we posted an item on the deal on public pensions reached by the governor and legislature.  Today, I looked for the actual bill’s language for a formal exclusion of UC’s pension plan from the deal.  I think I found it in the language reproduced below from the bill, AB 340. SEC. 19. Section 20281.5 of the Government Code is amended to read: 20281.5. (a) Notwithstanding Section 20281, a person who becomes a state miscellaneous member or state industrial member of the system on or after the effective date of this section because the person is first employed by the…

A news report dated June 20 suggests that the governor is having trouble deciding whether or not to sign the budget the legislature sent him June 15 without his agreement. He could sign it but exercise his line-item veto power to reduce spending.  Were he to veto it as occurred last year, the consequence would be uncertain.  Last year, the state controller ruled that the legislature had not complied – on technical grounds – with the requirement to pass a budget on June 15 and thus would not be paid for each day without doing so. That step created an…

First, there is the Transit of Venus, which the LA Times calls a “twice in a lifetime experience.”  Check it out at  http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-venus-transit-20120601,0,3065385.story The other “twice in a lifetime experience” (since we had a “scoping” hearing last fall) will be the upcoming environmental review on the proposed UCLA hotel/conference center, 7 PM, at the Faculty Center.  It is supposed to be built opposite the Transit of MTA and other bus lines near Ackerman and, as this blog has endlessly pointed out, is based on a questionable business plan which could end up costing the campus.  We have yet to find…

Inside Higher Ed today continues its coverage of the litigation on what is allowed in eReserves, i.e., readings placed online for students in courses.  A recent court decision allowed up to 10 percent of a book’s contents to be put online as “fair use.” University librarians generally supported the decision. Book publishers, notably university book publishers, were not happy.  It might be noted that the University of California press is one of the academic publishers that has membership in an organization of publishers that is among the unhappy and has issued a press release to that effect. Inside Higher Ed‘s…

From today’s San Francisco Chronicle: Occupy the Farm protesters agreed Saturday to end their three-week encampment on UC Berkeley property in Albany, but rebuffed an invitation from the university to discuss how the area can be used for both urban farming and for research.  Instead, the several dozen protesters set up ladders to scale the fence UC had erected around the area along San Pablo Avenue known as the Gill Tract and said they will continue to tend the vegetables and fruit trees they’ve planted on 2 of the 5 disputed acres. As a result, the UC regents said they won’t drop…