UCLA will convert double dorm rooms to triples to prepare for an increased enrollment of students in the 2016-2017 academic year… UCLA agreed to enroll 600 more freshmen and 150 more transfer students, said UCLA spokeswoman Rebecca Kendall in an email. The university has not decided which residential halls will have an increased number of triple rooms… At the January regents meeting, UC President Janet Napolitano launched a new student housing initiative, which aims to add approximately 14,000 beds to the dorms by 2020. The UC intends to accelerate the completion of housing projects in order to accommodate student enrollment increases, she said at the meeting… Brostrom said he expects the UC Board of Regents to approve plans to add 7,200 beds across the UC system by 2020 at the July regents meeting.

Posted: June 5th, 2016, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Katehi’s activities point to a disturbing trend in higher education, especially among public institutions such as UC: Universities are getting cozier with businesses and industrialists, and less discerning about the pitfalls of these relationships, which include accepting donations with strings attached. What’s worse is that universities are adopting the corporate model of profit and loss as though they’re businesses themselves… In California, per student spending from the state’s general fund has fallen since 1980 by 43% at the California State University system and 54.7% at UC. Administrators scurrying to replace these lost resources have turned to what appear to be promising sources — scientific research grants and patent royalties. But the idea that these programs are the key to sustainable budgets is mythical.

Posted: June 3rd, 2016, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

A recent survey of emeritus professors in the University of California system seeks to show just how productive they have been, touting such tallies as 500 books, 3,000 journal articles, and 2,500 conference papers over a three-year span. Responses from about 1,600 emeritus professors on all but one of the system’s 10 campuses — about a quarter of the whole group — demonstrate that the amount of research, publishing, teaching, mentoring, and service performed by just that fraction of them is equivalent to a “virtual 11th campus,” a report on the findings says.

Posted: June 3rd, 2016, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Amid growing discontent over a campus budget crisis revealed publicly in February, workers on Thursday rallied in support of a clerical employee believed to be the first to receive a layoff notice: Janette Reid, who has worked for three decades on the campus, mostly as an administrative assistant in the Department of Molecular & Cell Biology… At Thursday’s rally, organized by Teamsters Local 2010, some carried signs blasting Chancellor Nicholas Dirks. Some read: “Workers not responsible for Dirks’ incompetence.”

Read full article [here].
by Katy Murphy, The East Bay Times.

Posted: May 5th, 2016, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

UC Berkeley’s plan to close a $150 million budget deficit has created great uncertainty across campus — and perhaps nowhere more than at a unique medical school program that mints some of the country’s most desperately needed doctors: primary care physicians. The possible shuttering of the nearly 40-year-old Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program — which trains physicians for three years before they begin their clinical rotations at UCSF — comes as the state desperately seeks doctors to treat millions of Californians newly covered as a result of the Affordable Care Act.

Read full article [here].
by Katy Murphy, The San Jose Mercury News.

Posted: May 3rd, 2016, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

A new bill with bipartisan support in the state Senate would help more students finish in four years — and maybe entice them to do so — by offering tuition freezes and priority in course registration in exchange for a commitment to maintain a B average and take five courses a semester. That’s the magic number of courses for an on-time graduation, said the bill’s author, Sen. Steve Glazer, D-Orinda, who served on the CSU Board of Trustees… confusion is part of the problem: Some students don’t realize until it’s too late that five classes per semester, not four, is what they need to stay on track because four courses is considered a “full-time” load for financial aid purposes. Ask any student why it takes so long to graduate, and you’ll likely get an earful about key classes with long waitlists or poor advising.

Read full article [here].
by Katy Murphy, The San Jose Mercury News.

Posted: March 5th, 2016, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

So why are conflicts of interest allowed to persist in nutrition research? One root cause is the need for funding. Right now nutrition science is relatively underfunded by government, leaving lots of space for food companies and industry groups to step in and sponsor research. “If you look at the amount of funding available from the [National Institutes for Health], there’s been a contraction of inflation-adjusted dollars available for research over the last decade,” says Jason Block, a physician and researcher at Harvard Medical School.

Read full article [here].
by Julia Belluz, Vox.

Posted: March 3rd, 2016, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The University of California paid hedge fund managers about $1 billion in fees over the last 12 years… the university’s “experiment” with hedge fund investments “has fallen far short of the expectations on which they were sold” and wasted money on performance and management fees “for returns that largely mirrored the stock market.”

Read full article [here].
by Hannah Albarazi, CBS San Francisco.

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

In the struggle between the governor and the University of California, it is Brown who is mostly in the wrong. He seems not to recognize that UC is the part of California’s public education system that works best… The public’s frustration with the wildly expensive cost of a college education — and what appears to them like a capricious system for admitting or rejecting applicants — is reaching fever pitch. Why can’t we have free college education for all, parents and students want to know, like so many countries in Europe have? …Brown will have to recognize that providing great university education costs money — and that the investment will repay the state and its residents in many ways.

Read full article [here].
by The Editorial Board, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: February 23rd, 2016, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

If the legislation is adopted, students who agree to take 15 units a semester and maintain a minimum grade-point average would get priority registration for popular classes, among other benefits. The bill by state Sen. Steve Glazer (D-Orinda), a former Cal State trustee and strategist for Gov. Jerry Brown, is similar to pilot programs at four of the 23 Cal State schools. Participating students often get first shot at classes, additional academic advising and tuition waivers for any class that’s required to graduate but isn’t offered during the students’ first four years. The proposed legislation would go a bit further by freezing tuition for students in the program.

Read full article [here].
by Jason Song, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: February 22nd, 2016, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.