Remote

From the Daily Californian: SSAP-UAW, the union that represents undergraduate advisers, is bargaining to stop a return-to-office mandate that would require UC Berkeley’s College of Letters and Science undergraduate advisers to work on campus three days a week, up from once a week, arguing the change would cost workers thousands of dollars a year. Letters and Science announced that its undergraduate advisers must return to their on-campus offices three days a week, extending their one-day-a-week schedule which has been in place since 2021. A union survey found that the extra commuting expenses would cost advisers an average of $6,738 a year.

Ziva Armstrong, a senior college adviser in the college’s undergraduate adviser office and member of the union’s bargaining team, said the change will have a heavy impact on the unit’s long-haul commuters, who commute from as far as Stockton and Sacramento. Undergraduate advisers in Letters and Science earned an average gross pay of $6,637 per month in 2024, according to Armstrong.

...SSAP-UAW is bargaining with the university for a stipend to cover transportation costs and equitably exempt advisers who commute over 50 miles per day...

Full story at https://www.dailycal.org/news/campus/administration/letters-and-science-advisers-bargain-over-return-to-office-requirement/article_755c0c27-e54f-4002-968e-6f62e0a328c1.html.

Straws in the Wind - Part 443

From the Daily Princetonian: Two Princeton University professors and a former professor at the Princeton Theological Seminary were awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) in July. The new $41.4 million wave of humanities funding follows a legal battle regarding the future of federal support for the humanities. In 2025, more than 1,400 NEH grants were terminated, including funding for Princeton researchers. In May 2026, a federal judge ruled that the NEH’s termination of these grants was unconstitutional, mandating that the agency rescind the terminations. It remains unclear when the grants will be distributed. 

The awards given out this July are among the first NEH grants issued since that ruling... The NEH did not respond to multiple requests for comment regarding the awarding of grants now and in the future.

Full story at https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2026/08/princeton-news-adpol-professors-awarded-neh-grants-months-lawsuit.

Answering the Call

From Inside Higher Ed: Just over two weeks after Education Secretary Linda McMahon called on colleges to outline their plans for reform,* the University of North Carolina System responded on behalf of its 17 institutions. In an 11-page letter..., UNC System President Peter Hans and Board Chair Kellie Hunt Blue outlined the minimum admissions standards for the system’s universities and touted efforts to keep tuition affordable for in-state students, among other points.** McMahon had asked colleges to answer a series of questions about seven topics, including admissions, free speech, prioritizing American interests and academic rigor in the age of AI.

Florida public colleges and universities also responded... McMahon asked institutions to publicly post their answers by the end of the year. Like the Florida institutions, Hans and Blue noted that they’ve been working on the issues addressed in McMahon’s letter for many years. “Your seven questions are both timely and a reflection of longstanding challenges to the integrity of higher education,” they wrote. “Access, student success, affordability, and efficiency, economic impact, and institutional excellence have been our consistent goals through a turbulent chapter of American higher education.” ...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2026/08/20/how-unc-system-responded-mcmahons-call-action.

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*https://ia600601.us.archive.org/32/items/blog-3rd-qtr-2026/McMahon%20Call%20to%20Action%20by%20Universities%208-3-2026.pdf.

**https://www.northcarolina.edu/wp-content/uploads/reports-and-documents/president-docs/8.18.26-doe-letter.pdf.

Parallel Blogs / Subscribing

We have been putting out this blog since 2009 under the heading "UCLA Faculty Association" using the link:

https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/

The blog site was originally created by the then-executive director of the Faculty Association. As such, yours truly does not have control of the site; he is simply a blogger on it. So when technical issues arise, that can be a problem. Given that issue, we have been adding a parallel site with the same blog entries since July 23rd:

https://danmitchellsblogcontinues.blogspot.com/

We will be running the two in parallel for the indefinite future. Possibly, at some point we will switch to the new link.

If you read the blog using the Facebook page of Yousee Elayemeriti, you can continue to do so:

https://www.facebook.com/yousee.elayemeriti 

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Want to subscribe?

You can't subscribe directly. But you can subscribe indirectly to this blog via a service called Blogtrottr. Go to blogtrottr.com and fill in the URL for the blog:

https://danmitchellsblogcontinues.blogspot.com/ 

or

https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/

and put in your email address. 

You will then receive an email at the email address you provided asking you to confirm. After you confirm, you will receive an email notification of new postings whenever they appear. If there are, say, three postings on a particular day, you will receive three notifications (one for each one). 

Note and full disclosure: There are ads on these notifications.

The Pay and Benefits Man

From UCNet:

UC Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Rachael Nava made the following announcement:

Dear Colleagues, 

Following an extensive nationwide search, I am pleased to announce that Calvin W. Turner has been selected as the vice president of Systemwide Shared Services (VP SWSS), effective August 10. 

This is a critical role on my senior leadership team and an important next step in the evolution of UC Operations. It reflects our continued work to build a more integrated, strategic approach to serving UC employees and retirees. 

In September 2025, I announced the formation of SWSS, uniting UCPath and the UC Retirement Administration Services Center (RASC) under one leader.  This was an intentional step toward strengthening coordination across these critical functions, creating greater alignment in how we deliver services, and building a shared-services organization positioned to meet the evolving needs of the university. 

With approximately 600 dedicated UCOP employees supporting employees and retirees across the UC system, strong and sustained leadership for this organization is essential. I am very pleased that Calvin will lead this next phase of our work. 

Calvin brings deep expertise in shared services, operational leadership and organizational transformation to this role. He started his UC career in 2021 as the executive director of UCPath. Since October 2025, he has also served as the interim VP of SWSS.  

Before UC, he was the director of the National Finance Center (NFC), a leading federal shared-services provider supporting payroll, human resources, financial, insurance and administrative services. NFC provides payroll, HR, financial and administrative services to more than 650,000 employees in 170 agencies, and health insurance services on behalf of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to the entire federal civilian workforce and tribal organizations.  

As NFC Director, Calvin successfully ensured continuity of business operations through natural disasters and unprecedented government shutdowns, while simultaneously growing NFC’s customer base, implementing operational improvements and launching organizational transformation initiatives to improve transparency and customer service.  

Prior to joining NFC, Calvin had more than 20 years of banking leadership experience at Hancock Whitney Bank, Hibernia National Bank (now CapitalOne) and the Federal Reserve Bank, and he was also previously an associate instructor with the University of Phoenix at the New Orleans campus. Calvin has a master’s degree in public administration and an undergraduate degree in business management and communication. Calvin will continue to be based in Riverside, California, and will travel to Oakland and all UC locations periodically. 

Over the coming months, Calvin will continue engaging leaders and staff across UCPath, RASC, UCOP and the broader UC system to further develop a strategic roadmap for SWSS, advancing our vision for a more connected and effective service experience for UC employees and retirees across the full journey from “hire” through “retire.” This work will also focus on strengthening operational excellence, accountability and service across UC Operations. Calvin will also launch a search for the executive director of UCPath. 

I would like to thank the search advisory committee for their tremendous effort and helpful insights during this process: 

• Ahmet Palazoglu, Chair, Systemwide Academic Senate and Distinguished Professor, UC Davis
• Erin Gore, Senior Vice Chancellor of Finance and Administration, UCSF
• Kurt Schnier, Vice Chancellor and Chief Financial Officer, UC Merced
• Dianna Henderson, Vice President of Human Resources, UCOP
• Van Williams, Vice President of Digital Innovation and Technology, UCOP  
• Christine Lovely, Chief Human Resources Officer, UCLA
• Caín Díaz, Associate Vice President, Budget Analysis and Planning, UCOP
• Marisa McAuliffe, Chief Policy Advisor, President’s Executive Office

In addition, my thanks to several other colleagues who advised on this search: 

• Amy Block Joy, Professor Emerita and Chair-Elect, Council of UC Emeriti Associations
• Susan Abeles, Chair, Council of UC Retiree Associations
• Jenny Kao, Vice President and Chief of Staff to the President
• Nathan Brostrom, UC Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

I also want to share my gratitude for the executive search team from Isaacson, Miller, as well as Pamela Wu and Quincy Kinsey in Systemwide HR’s Executive Search and Recruitment Team, who provided support for this search. 

Please join me in congratulating Calvin on this well-deserved appointment. I look forward to working with him and all of you as we continue building a stronger, more integrated UC Operations organization that serves the university with excellence. 

Sincerely, 

Rachael Nava 

Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer 

University of California

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Source: https://ucnet.universityofcalifornia.edu/employee-news/calvin-w-turner-appointed-vice-president-of-systemwide-shared-services/.

Straws in the Wind - Part 442

From the Chronicle of Higher Education: The University of Texas at Austin unveiled plans... for a sweeping makeover of its undergraduate core curriculum, replacing a sprawling system of hundreds of course options with a more prescriptive menu organized around foundational texts, broad fields of study, and what the university calls the “fundamental questions and themes” of human life. The proposal, detailed by President Jim Davis during a meeting of the university system’s Board of Regents, would reduce the number of credit hours in the core curriculum, from 42 to 36. Some core credit designations are slated to be replaced with categories such as “Western Civilization,” “Masterworks of Literature,” “Great Questions of Human Life,” “Principles of American Politics,” and “Computer Science & AI.”

That plan is laid out in a much-anticipated report... from a 22-member faculty task force whose members Davis selected in the fall to “identify gaps in quality, rigor, or intellectual cohesion” in UT-Austin’s core and propose solutions. Administrators hope to implement the new curriculum by the fall of 2028. The goal, Davis told regents, is to “wipe the slate clean and rewrite the core from the ground up,” noting that the existing system “has devolved over time into a haphazard grab bag of classes.”

The proposed changes at the state’s flagship come as Texas universities adjust to Senate Bill 37, which gives governing boards greater control over academic offerings. The University of Houston, Texas A&M University, and Texas Tech University have announced similar reviews of their core curricula; the latter two systems have faced federal lawsuits challenging restrictions on course content...

Full story at https://www.chronicle.com/article/republicans-want-colleges-to-emphasize-western-civ-ut-austin-plans-to-do-just-that. 

Hacked

From the Daily Californian: Most know better than to wire money to a Nigerian prince — but today’s scammers have adapted their strategies, according to Charron Andrus, associate chief information security officer at UC Berkeley. “Phishing,” according to UC Berkeley’s Information Security Office, is when “cyber criminals trick you into giving them your personal information, like passwords or credit card details, by pretending to be a legitimate company or person.” To do this, they often send fake emails and messages, or even create fake websites.

Undoubtedly, phishing has made its way to UC Berkeley. The ASUC Communications email account was hacked, and unauthorized phishing messages were sent from its email address to additional recipients before the ASUC Communications team could recover the account. The ASUC Communications email account received a phishing message on Aug. 11 disguised as a Google Docs proposal, according to ASUC Chief Communications Officer Juliette Rackohn. The phishing email came from a hacked UC Berkeley email address with which the ASUC Communications account had previously corresponded.

The ASUC account and the hacked UC Berkeley account were secured, though not before unauthorized messages were sent to other recipients, according to Rackohn...

Full story at https://www.dailycal.org/news/campus/asuc-hacked-by-phishing-scam-campus-office-launches-phish-tank/article_49e5ee58-e67d-42ec-b5e3-226d91ac1721.html.

I don't know if the Nigerian princes are still out there, but there are still old-fashioned hacks floating around. Received a few days ago: