We posted yesterday about the news from UC-Berkeley that many earthquake-prone buildings are located in southern California – including in Westwood. The Westwood-Century City Patch, in picking up the story from the LA Times, blamed USC instead of UC-B, at least in the headline. See above. Probably just as well. Who wants to be the bearer of bad tidings?.
The governor is to propose his budget for 2014-15 this coming Friday. And although the budget is baked by now, this headline from the LA Now blog of the LA Times can’t hurt as the budget process proceeds between now and June. The guv loves online ed and he can’t give the money to USC. But UCLA would be happy to receive it.
Full article at http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-college-online-20140107,0,7388397.story
Nothing like being the top:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc7152gQK-U?feature=player_detailpage]
Yes, to meet the academic challenge, what we need is a Grand Hotel. It must be so because we are directing large sums and a major area of the central campus to the project which has its groundbreaking today. So strike up the (hotel) band!
The LA Times today has a behind-the-scenes story of the recruitment by USC of the neurology lab entourage:
…Some colleagues in Westwood were aware that Toga and Thompson “were having conversations” with USC but didn’t know the specifics, said John Mazziotta, chairman of UCLA’s neurology department and executive vice dean of the medical school. The Bruins would have tried to respond if given a chance, he said: “We always try to keep our top faculty.” …
Full story at
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-usc-ucla-recruit-20130518,0,6963020,full.story
All in all, seems like someone was not fully alert:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq9hQDzQFvo?feature=player_detailpage]
The Regents are meeting today and tomorrow. While they are considering UCLA’s loss of the neurology lab (see our earlier post), they can also consider this headline from a USC news release that was highlighted today in Inside Higher Ed::
Music Industry Icons and Entrepreneurs Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre Give $70 Million to Create the USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy for Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation
Our earlier post on the neurology lab raid is at:
http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2013/05/lessons-to-be-learned.html
http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/05/am-alert-uc-regents-arrive-in-sacramento.html
Today’s LA Times carries the story of two neuroscientists recruited by USC from UCLA:
Arthur Toga and Paul Thompson will move to the USC Keck School of Medicine campus next fall, along with scores of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and staffers who now work at UCLA’s Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, known as LONI. In establishing a new institute at the USC campus in Boyle Heights, they will also move substantial government and private grants that fund the lab’s $12-million annual budget as well as some of the highly sophisticated equipment used to investigate the brain’s inner workings. (The move)…raises concerns about the ability of financially strapped public universities to fend off raids from deep-pocketed private colleges like USC.
The scientists did not divulge details of their new salaries and research funding but said they did not seek a counteroffer… According to a UC website of employee compensation, Toga was paid $1.06 million in 2011, including basic salary and extra money for research work. Thompson was listed at $421,150…
Toga said he did not want to disparage UCLA but said private schools “are often a little quicker on their feet.”…
Full story at http://www.latimes.com/health/la-me-0510-usc-ucla-brain-research-20130510,0,6976660.story
Of course, Chancellor Block comments and says that although he is disappointed, not to worry, there is plenty left at UCLA. But that is not a good response. Let’s note that at UCLA, the LA Times had only to look up faculty pay on the website because of court decisions regarding pay at UC. USC also has complete access to the data. But no pay disclosure occurs, or is required, at a private university such as USC. There is also the observation about private universities being able to respond quicker. Sounds like plenty to worry about to yours truly. Sounds like the kind of story that should be trumpeted to the governor – who still harbors his youthful notions of “psychic income” for faculty – and to the legislature that is busy mandating this or that for the university and pursuing fantasies of saving money via online ed. Will we hear anything about these matters at the Regents meeting next week?
President Yudof is supposed to present a state of the university report to the Regents next week. Instead of the usual presentation about UC – despite budget cuts – still being the best public university, how about taking up these issues for real? After August, there will be a new UC president. Whatever political constraints there have been on Yudof in the past, they are gone now. Tell it like it is, Mark. We’ll be listening.
From Inside Higher Ed today:
The philosophy department at… the University of Southern California has hired almost a dozen new professors in the last decade. USC’s hiring has caused the program to rocket up 35 spots on the Philosophical Gourmet Report, which ranks graduate programs in philosophy based on the reputation of their faculty members. “[N]o department has improved more over the last decade than USC,” Brian Leiter, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School who edits the report, said in an e-mail. He said USC, tied at No. 11, is likely to crack the top 10 if its upward trajectory continues*… While USC’s ranking stems from the quality and reputation of its faculty, the philosophy department has expanded its interdisciplinary programs for undergraduate and graduate students alike. New additions include a progressive 5-year master of arts degree in philosophy and law, and an interdisciplinary major in philosophy, politics and law, which has grown from 18 to 201 students in less than four years. In that same time, the department’s total number of philosophy majors has gone from about 125 to 258, said Scott Soames, chairman of USC’s philosophy department.
Some readers of this blog may recall the popular TV series from the late 1980s and early 1990s: LA Law. Folk wisdom at the time was that applications to the UCLA law school went up during the show’s run and dropped when it was cancelled. In any case, things are not what they were according to some data – shown below – that appear today in the LA Times in connection with a story on the jobs problems of recent law school grads.
USC recently announced a gift from philanthropist Glorya Kaufman to establish a new school of dance. In a radio interview on KCRW, Kaufman said she had given money for renovation of a dance building at UCLA but the building wasn’t being used as intended. Excerpt:
…Glorya Kaufman, the philanthropist funding USC’s new dance school, won’t reveal exactly how much money she’s putting into it. “That’s not the important part. The important part is what it’s doing … that’s why I’m withholding that amount,” she says. But whatever the pricetag, it’s large enough to pay for a brand new building and at least part of the faculty hiring and curriculum.
So who is Glorya Kaufman? She is the widow of Donald Bruce Kaufman, one of the founders of the home building company now known as KB Homes, who has given tens of millions of dollars to dance programs in and outside of L.A in recent years, including a $20 million gift to downtown’s Music Center to host dance companies from around the world. She’s also given $6 million to Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and $3.5 million to the Juilliard School in New York. In 1999, Kaufman gave UCLA $18 million to renovate its dance building. She says she’s since been disappointed in UCLA’s dance program — an interdisciplinary one that’s combined with the World Arts and Cultures Department –and in how the school has used the building…
You can read the full transcript of the broadcast and listen to the program at:
http://blogs.kcrw.com/whichwayla/2012/12/glorya-kaurman-brings-dance-to-usc
First with the Japanese Garden affair and now with dance, UCLA seems to be establishing a reputation with donors of not doing what is promised. We have noted in prior posts that gifts of human capital such as scholarships, endowed chairs, and research grants are more likely to leave a long-term legacy for donors than grand buildings which can someday be demolished or re-purposed. Yes, you can try and protect legacies with contracts. But, as noted, the Japanese Garden affair seems to suggest that putting it in writing doesn’t provide guarantees when it comes to physical facilities.
Neon Tommy is an online student news service of the USC Annenberg School. The service features a news item dated Nov. 28 which reviews UC’s “Onward” fundraising campaign. That’s right; USC is reviewing UC. What is interesting about the piece is what isn’t in it. Back in the day – say, the 1950s or 1960s – any such story would deal with the impact of a public university competing with privates in fundraising. Private universities would complain about the competition and say UC should be getting its funding from the state. But despite the traditional USC-UCLA rivalry, no such view is mentioned in the story. The idea that UC should rely on the state no longer even occurs to anyone.
You can read the item at:
http://www.neontommy.com/news/2012/11/education-cuts-pushes-uc-onward