It’s almost as if the board of regents that runs the University of California can’t wait to fire a warning shot across the figurative bow of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state Legislature and the candidates now running for those positions. "Show us more money," UC’s leaders seem to be saying, "or we’ll make some radical changes that your constituents won’t like very much." Since regents are appointed to 12-year-terms, they will not have to face furious voters if those changes come; the politicians would have to.

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by Thomas Elias, The Ventura County Star.

Posted: June 17th, 2010, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Terry McHale, policy director for the state firefighters union, said Wednesday’s agreements mark "significant" if controversial changes. The retirement age for new firefighters would rise from 50 to 55. The same is true for future Highway Patrol officers… The unions agreeing to the rollback are the California Assn. of Highway Patrolmen, the California Department of Forestry Firefighters, the California Assn. of Psychiatric Technicians and one of two units of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. They also each agreed that pension sizes would be determined by future workers’ three highest years of pay

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by Shane Goldmacher, The Los Angles Times.

Posted: June 17th, 2010, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

UC wins about $3.5 billion per year in research grants, of which $780 million is for indirect costs. It’s not nearly enough, Croughan reported. Research support actually costs $1.5 billion per year, or $720 million more than UC recovers. "We’re losing about 20 cents on the dollar," Croughan told the commission. "Harvard complains about losing 5 cents on the dollar. I would argue we’ve not been aggressive enough." No university can hope to recover all of those indirect costs. In fact, some grant providers refuse to reimburse at all, Croughan said. But most big research universities are better than UC at negotiating reimbursement rates. "I was pretty astonished at how low our rates were," said UC Executive Vice President Nathan Brostrom, a commission member.

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by Nanette Asimov, The San Francisco Chronicle.

Posted: June 16th, 2010, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

UC implemented a furlough program last year but because it started in September, only four months of the associated pay cuts are reflected in the 2009 salary data. The furloughs were not applied consistently across the university, with about 25 percent of UC’s 250,000 employees participating. UC imposed furloughs on many categories of nonunion employees, but most hospital employees were exempt, as were lab and campus employees whose salaries are paid by external research grants. In addition, not all labor unions agreed to take the furloughs, and workers in some unions got raises called for in their contracts. While compensation was up overall in 2009, the impact on salaries was uneven. Not counting student workers, 60 percent of UC workers earned more than they did the prior year, while 40 percent earned less.

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by Laurel Rosenhall and Phillip Reese, The Sacramento Bee.

Posted: June 16th, 2010, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Josh Keller, writing last year in the Chronicle of Higher Education, comments that California’s master plan retains "a mythic status," even after five tumultuous decades. Even so, many worry that California

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by Brice Harris and Linda Katehi, The Sacramento Bee.

Posted: June 15th, 2010, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

…campuses here have stubbornly insisted on using the word "fees" for the instructional charges that other states call tuition. Now, however, a movement is underway to drop what many education experts consider an outdated, even dishonest term. It’s high time, they say, to adopt the "T-word" in registration bills and campus discussions. For example, with UC’s basic undergraduate educational cost now topping $10,000 a year, three times more than a decade ago, "tuition" is the accurate term, they say. They also note that in 2009, California’s confusing terminology nearly kept the state’s veterans from receiving certain federal education benefits and financial aid.

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by Larry Gordon, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: June 14th, 2010, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

California State University trustees may ignore a recommendation by their own staff to raise student fees by 5 percent next week, opting instead to boost the price by 10 percent, board Chairman Herb Carter told The Chronicle Wednesday. "I’m not sure that the board will be willing to raise the fees by 5 percent, then run the risk of having to come back in September and raise the fees again" if state lawmakers don’t come through on a plan to make more funds available to CSU, said Carter, whose Board of Trustees will vote on a fee hike in Long Beach on June 18.

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by Nanette Asimov, The San Francisco Chronicle.

Posted: June 10th, 2010, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

On Tuesday, a letter went out to all of the university’s faculty members from the California Digital Library, which negotiates the system’s deals with publishers, and the University Committee on Library and Scholarly Communication. The letter said that Nature proposed to raise the cost of California’s license for its journals by 400 percent next year. If the publisher won’t negotiate, the letter said, the system may have to take "more drastic actions" with the help of the faculty. Those actions could include suspending subscriptions to all of the Nature Group journals the California system buys access to

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by Jennifer Howard, The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Posted: June 8th, 2010, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

A new study by ICF International… found that the California State University system’s 1.96 million graduates employed in the state earn an additional $42 billion annually because of their advanced degrees. Losing the economic activity that future graduates would generate could cost California hundreds of thousands of jobs and dilute the most important ingredient in California’s economic success: a highly educated, diverse workforce capable of fostering the innovation and entrepreneurship of the 21st century.

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by Charles B. Reed, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: May 27th, 2010, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

California’s elected leaders would do well to remember Washington’s words about "a flourishing state of the arts and sciences." In today’s knowledge-based economy, the threat to the University of California and the state’s Master Plan for Higher Education is a threat to California’s prosperity and reputation. At a time when California’s economic future depends on producing more college graduates and better-educated citizens, the state must invest in public education. As Washington knew, both democracy and prosperity depend on it.

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by Henry T. Yang and David Marshall, The San Francisco Chronicle.

Posted: May 20th, 2010, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.