A stricter conflict-of-interest policy the University of California Board of Regents approved for high-ranking leaders last month… requires top administrators who want to hold outside positions to describe how their service will benefit their institutions. That’s a very different proposition than a more traditional policy, which would require administrators to pledge that their roles outside the university do not create a conflict of interest… The newly passed rules, which UC President Janet Napolitano proposed, apply to a 165-member senior management group. That group includes chancellors at campuses as well as other high-level administrators. But they grandfather in administrators’ existing outside positions…

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by Rick Seltzer, Inside Higher Ed.

Posted: August 2nd, 2016, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

After a Merced County sheriff’s deputy declined to collect fingerprints to trace a letter disparaging of Merced College administrators, the college hired a private investigator to do so, according to documents obtained by the Sun-Star through a public records request… The invoice, obtained by the Sun-Star’s public records request, says the investigator was paid $150 for three hours of work. Shepard said fingerprinting is not a routine part of campus investigations, but that this case included special circumstances… Union President Patrick Mitchell said he was also dismayed by the investigation. “It’s very sad that while faculty are out on the front lines helping our students succeed that the Merced College administration is using taxpayers’ money to treat us like criminals,” he said.

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by Thaddeus Miller, The Fresno Bee.

Posted: August 1st, 2016, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

With millions of students across the United States set to begin returning to school in coming weeks, the U.S. Department of Education issued guidance Wednesday for states and school districts on how to respond to the specific needs of homeless students. The guidelines, provided in response to new provisions in the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, emphasize practices aimed at providing stability and safety for the homeless public school population, which included more than 1.3 million students in the 2013-2014 school year… To assist educators and administrators, the department will issue a fact sheet for school staff to offer ways in which homeless students can best be helped and to explain protections that the new legislation provides for the students.

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by Joe Heim, The Washington Post.

Posted: July 27th, 2016, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Nine in 10 (89%) respondents with a 4-year degree say college was a good investment, the survey shows. That’s even as the costs make a deeper and deeper bite… Generally, the older the graduate, the more likely that he or she will say college was a good investment. About a fifth of the younger millennial grads (21%) say college was not worth it, more than any other age group. But a whopping 97% of degree holders 65 or older say it was a good investment, the survey shows… On another survey question, 62% of all Americans support making tuition to public colleges and universities free to anyone who wants to attend, with millennials most in favor, at a hefty 77%.

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by Stephen Pounds, Bankrate.

Posted: July 25th, 2016, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

For-profit college chains often market themselves to non-traditional students — single parents, lower income individuals, military service-members — as a viable path to better job prospects and more money. However, a new report suggests that enrolling in of these sometimes costly schools may not help students reach their goals. A study recently published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that most students who enroll in certificate, associate and bachelor’s programs at for-profit colleges and universities generally see a decline in earnings five or six years after attendance, when compared to how much they earned before attending classes, Inside Higher Ed reports. “Analysis of degree-seeking students suggests that on average associate’s and bachelor’s degree students experience a decline in earnings after attendance, relative to their own earnings in years prior to attendance,” the report states.

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by Ashlee Kieler, Consumerist.

Posted: July 21st, 2016, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

State budget cuts have left California State University with about 19% less in funding to spend per student compared with pre-recession years — compromising efforts to fully address student needs, university officials said… The state’s final budget agreement for fiscal year 2016-2017 gave Cal State about 60% of the additional funding that administrators wanted, which forced some priorities, such as student enrollment, to be downsized… Cal State is the largest university system in the nation and last fall had to turn away about 30,000 applicants who fulfilled all the admissions requirements, Chancellor Timothy P.

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by Rosanna Xia, Los Angeles Times.

Posted: July 19th, 2016, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

A whistleblower complaint alleged that Dirks had failed to pay for use of the campus Recreational Sports Facility and its professional services, and that he used public funds to pay for travel with a recreational sports employee on non-university business, according to an April 11 letter to Dirks from Rachael Nava, the University of California’s chief operating officer… Dirks told the Chronicle that he paid taxes on the hours and “there is no issue there.” A copy of some of the 2014 accounting documents obtained by The Times showed that both McNeil and Dirks signed off on the hours, which amounted to 1% or less of her UC time. UC policy allows the staff of chancellors and presidents to spend up to 25% of university time on personal tasks, but the value of the hours is taxable.

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by Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times.

Posted: July 13th, 2016, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Despite concerns, the State Board of Education on Wednesday approved a preliminary version of California’s first College and Career Readiness Indicator, a tool aimed at measuring how schools prepare students for postsecondary opportunities. The metric would evaluate high schools and districts by their students’ Advanced Placement test scores, the number of students concurrently enrolled in community colleges, how many successfully completed a career technical education pathway, how many completed courses required for UC and CSU admission, and other measures. The College and Career Indicator is part of the state’s overall effort to create a new school accountability system to meet new federal and state guidelines.

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by Fermin Leal, EdSource.

Posted: July 13th, 2016, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

For the third consecutive year, the University of California topped the list of universities granted U.S. patents in 2015, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Academy of Inventors and the Intellectual Property Owners Association. “UC is the world’s largest academic research system,” said Dorothy Miller, director of systemwide programs and initiatives at the University of California Office of the President. “This research innovation generates some of the world’s most significant inventions every year. UC Berkeley accounted for 56 of the 520 patents issued by the UC system and generated more than $7 million in revenue from royalties and fees in 2015. Only UCLA and UCSD ranked ahead of UC Berkeley in patents issued this year, accounting for 120 and 97 patents, respectively.

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by Winston Cho, The Daily Californian.

Posted: July 13th, 2016, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Despite tuition increases, public universities, and especially the less-selective non-flagships that serve the bulk of the population, are increasingly resource-starved. Our calculations, based on data from the Delta Cost Project,which conducts research on how colleges spend their money, show the following: In 1987, public universities spent 88 cents for every dollar that private nonprofit institutions spent on the wages and salaries that drive instruction. By 1999 the ratio had fallen to 81 cents. And by 2010, it had fallen further, to 73 cents on the dollar.

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by David H. Feldman and Robert B. Archibald, Business Insider.

Posted: July 12th, 2016, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.