The decision by an accrediting commission allows the college of 85,000 students – among the largest in the country – to stay open until July 31, 2014, unless an appeal is successful or if the college can make enough progress to win an extension. State law prohibits taxpayer funds from going to unaccredited institutions, so if the commission’s decision stands, the college would probably be forced to shut its doors… “This announcement clearly shows that the (accrediting commission) is an out-of-control, rogue institution that must be stopped by the (U.S.) Department of Education,” said Wendy Kaufman, an engineering instructor and coalition leader… The coalition has backed a complaint filed recently by the California Federation of Teachers with the U.S. Department of Education alleging that the commission has overstepped its authority in sanctioning City College.
Read full article [here].
by Nanette Asimov, The San Francisco Chronicle.
Posted: July 3rd, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Thelma Scott-Skillman, interim chancellor of the college, said that it had made “a tremendous amount of progress” in meeting the commission’s demands but that progress was “still far short of what needed to occur.” She nonetheless offered assurances that the institution remained accredited for at least the coming year and would be enrolling students in the fall. At a separate news conference, Josh Pechthalt, president of the California Federation of Teachers, said his union was considering a legal challenge to the commission’s decision, on top of its existing complaint to the Education Department. Alisa Messer, president of American Federation of Teachers Local 2121, which represents faculty members at the college, announced plans for a protest march next Tuesday in downtown San Francisco…
Read full article [here].
by Peter Schmidt, The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Posted: July 3rd, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
The program Yudof approved is a step back from the university’s original plan, proposed in 2010, to make the whole school self-sufficient. After pushback from UCLA faculty, the plan was pared back to just the M.B.A. program, leaving the doctoral program and undergraduate classes under traditional control. That plan received support from UCLA faculty but got what was essentially a “no” vote from the UC System’s Academic Senate, which argued that the program did not meet any of the criteria for establishing a self-supporting program. Critics of the proposal also said the state has poured decades of operational and capital funding into the program and wouldn’t be adequately compensated if it made the program self-sustaining.
Read full article [here].
by Kevin Kiley, Inside Higher Ed.
Posted: July 2nd, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Despite the link between workforce talent and state economic capacity-building, public higher education has been deprioritized as a state investment priority. In the past quarter century, state higher education funding per full-time equivalent student has declined 35 percent; as a share of states’ general fund budgets by 16 percent; and per $1,000 of personal income by 37 percent, while full-time student enrollment has grown by 62 percent.
Read full article [here].
by Daniel J. Hurley, The Huffington Post.
Posted: July 2nd, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Gov. Jerry Brown, who pressed California colleges and universities earlier this year to expand their online offerings, backed off Thursday, vetoing his own budget proposal to earmark $20 million in funding for online education. Brown, who proposed in January to provide $10 million each to the University of California and California State University systems to expand the number of courses available online, will include that money in the college systems’ annual allocation, but without requiring it to be spent on online education… State Finance Director Ana Matosantos said, “The expectation is that UC and CSU are going to move forward with online education, understanding it’s a high priority.”
Read full article [here].
by David Siders, The Fresno Bee.
Posted: June 27th, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Call it circumstantial evidence that City College of San Francisco will survive its accreditation crisis and won’t be shut down: The college is dropping its crisis spokesman just days before a verdict is expected. College officials have decided not to renew the contract for crisis spokesman Larry Kamer, who has been handling inquiries about the college’s accreditation troubles for a year. Although college officials say they don’t know what their fate will be, they have seen a report from accreditation evaluators who visited the college in April.
Read full article [here].
by Nanette Asimov, The San Francisco Chronicle.
Posted: June 27th, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
University of California President Mark G. Yudof has approved a proposal by the UCLA Anderson School of Management to convert its full-time, state-supported M.B.A. program to self-supporting status. Yudof’s decision — outlined in a June 24 letter — applies to the financing of the school’s flagship M.B.A. program, where the full costs will now be covered solely by student tuition rather than a combination of state funds and student tuition and fees. In other respects, including issues related to academic content and quality, the M.B.A. program remains integral to the campus and is subject to the same policies and regulations that govern UCLA’s professional schools.
Read full article [here].
by Ricardo Vazquez, UCLA Newsroom.
Posted: June 26th, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
In a unanimous vote last month, the Regents of the University of California created a corporate entity that, if spread to all UC campuses as some regents envision, promises to further privatize scientific research produced by taxpayer-funded laboratories. The entity, named Newco for the time being, also would block a substantial amount of UC research from being accessible to the public, and could reap big profits for corporations and investors that have ties to the well-connected businesspeople who will manage it… Newfield of UC Santa Barbara said that Berkeley and UCLA currently have “different visions” when it comes to tech transfer. “The contrast is between a narrow revenue goal for commercializing science and a public interest goal for getting science into the world,” he said. The irony of something like Newco, he continued, is that managing university research to maximize patenting and corporate startups doesn’t even appear to increase revenues for the university.
Read full article [here].
by Darwin BondGraham, The East Bay Express.
Posted: June 26th, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Dr. Thrun makes no mention of the dramatic funding cuts that have degraded the educational services he claims to fix. Nor, naturally, does he mention his own role in convincing major state politicians like California’s governor and Senate President Pro Tem that they don’t need to reverse cuts to improve public university quality. The Georgia Tech spreadsheets are (very incomplete) proof that online technology cannot make up for massive public funding cuts. So now, in many states, public universities are in limbo–not saved by a MOOC cost revolution that has not materialized, and yet impoverished by a MOOC-fed consensus that the “traditional” college is dead. For example, Iowa’s governor invoked online technology in vetoing capital expenditures for pharmacy, biosciences, and education buildings…
Read full article [here].
by Chris Newfield, Remaking the University.
Posted: June 25th, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
The CIC provosts’ idea to develop a cross-campus network is prompted by an increase in technological capabilities they believe could improve learning, but their effort is also infused with skepticism regarding whether ed tech companies are creating desirable products for faculty and students. The provosts’ paper directly challenges the hype about massive open online courses, or MOOCs. The provosts said the ability to offer a course to a large number of people “is not, in and of itself, a means for extending educational opportunity to millions of potential ‘students.’ ”
Read full article [here].
by Ry Rivard, Inside Higher Ed.
Posted: June 19th, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
