UC President Milliken has talked about public discontent with higher ed with opaque admissions being one of the causes. A waitlist with a Zero probability - or even a close-to-zero probability - isn't likely to improve the situation.
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*https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/college-waitlists-national-decision-day-4cb7b5d8.
From George Washington University media relations: The university is aware of reports that at Israel Fest..., individuals dropped vials containing an unknown substance, in an apparent attempt to disrupt the festival.
At least one student was injured by this incident, which is now under an investigation that will examine among other things whether individuals were targeted based on their Jewish faith. The university condemns this reprehensible and criminal action. Acts like this have no place in our community, which is a safe and inclusive place for individuals of all backgrounds, perspectives and experiences.Full release at https://mediarelations.gwu.
From the Harvard Crimson: At least 259 Harvard officials enslaved more than 1,600 people over a 229-year period. Researchers expect both numbers to grow as they continue working to identify enslaved individuals. Harvard officials enslaved more than 1,600 people from 1636 to 1865, new research released Tuesday shows. Harvard University shared details in a new database about the people who were enslaved as well as those who owned them. Researchers with the Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery Initiative say they’ve found at least 259 Harvard university leaders, faculty, staff and board members who enslaved individuals.
The initiative, which began in 2022 as a way to identify the descendants of enslaved individuals, partnered with American Ancestors, a national genealogical nonprofit, on the project. Harvard officials said the database is expected to grow beyond the initial 1,613 people. In a 2022 report, the university identified 70 people who were enslaved... Henry Louis Gates Jr., a Harvard professor who directs the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research and serves on the initiative’s advisory council, said in the university’s news article that he hopes Harvard will be a leader “in demonstrating institutional honesty and humility in confronting the complexities of our institutional past...
Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2026/05/13/harvard-tallies-how-many-people-officials-enslaved.
We are again catching up with the Regents, this time for their second-day meeting of May 6. The meeting began with public comments covering disabled students, complaints about ERs being well-above capacity, support for the AFSCME negotiations,* lack of budget information for student government, revisiting the issue of hiring undocumented students by UC, student affordability and basic needs including housing costs and childcare, revisiting the issue of departmental political statements, two thank-yous to Regent Sures for statements on antisemitism, and divestment. There was a brief AFSCME protest at the end of the public comment session.
Grad student Valadez spoke about federal cutbacks, advocacy for a second student regent, and made a veiled criticism of an unnamed Regent. (This may have been Sures for the same reason he received praise in public comments.) Undergrad student rep Hariharan spoke about federal cutbacks, disabled student funding, Native American students, a need for ICE warnings on campus, and support for union workers.
There was then a presentation about the research "landscape" which included reference to federal cutbacks and support for the proposed state bond for research. There was an emphasis on medical research, scientific patents, and commercialization of such research and patents. Following that presentation was one on campus energy systems referencing emissions reductions, decarbonization over twenty years, and UC-Santa Barbara's purchases of renewable electricity and a new heating and cooling system. Regent Makarechian wondered whether new developments in small nuclear power plants should be considered.
In the Finance and Capital Strategies Committee, some items were pulled off the consent calendar for more detailed discussion. These items included expenditure rates from the General Endowment Pool for UC usage and administrative purposes. Modified version of these items were approved although Milliken voted "no." Exactly what his concerns were was unclear. This episode seemed unusual. First, apparently controversial items were initially put on the consent calendar. Second, approval over opposition by the UC president - one newly appointed - would seem to be significant.
New student housing for UC-Santa Cruz sparked some controversy. Regent Makarechian, who has more knowledge of real estate development than many other regents, noted that with land costs for campus housing being zero, the proposed housing seemed expensive compared with the private sector (which has to deal with land costs). He also noted that the housing proposed was bare bones, with 3 in a room sharing a bathroom, unlike the private sector. Ultimately, he abstained from voting. UC-Santa Cruz spokespersons said the "geology" of the campus was more difficult than in the City of Santa Cruz. In contrast, a building for UC-San Francisco for hearing disorders was quickly approved.
Item F4 - suspension of STIP loans to the pension for a year - was approved without much discussion. Regent Cohen said that UC needed to have liquidity given the current budgetary pressures. The consultant/actuary noted that this suspension was not the first to occur and that going forward estimates of the calendar of pension funding would be made without assuming further STIP usage. This was another issue that seemed to merit more discussion than it got.
The final item was the UCOP budget. Makarechian asked about legal costs, given the current conflict with the feds. Were lawsuits aimed at particular campuses being handled at the systemwide or campus level? The answer he got was fuzzy. It was said that campus lawsuits that had systemwide implications would be handled at the systemwide level. But it was never clear which those were.
Regent Hernandez asked whether there was still funding for the Hawaiian Thirty-Meter Telescope (TMT). It was said by Nathan Brostrom that there was no cost at this time (although some funding had been set aside in the past), and that planning had shifted to the Canary Islands location. It was unclear if this shift was now a definite decision or just an option - but it sounded more like the former than the latter. If that is so, it is a Big Deal for the project. But this was again a matter than seemed to float by with little attention.
Academic and Student Affairs featured a review of UC's student programs in Washington, DC and Sacramento.
Public Engagement and Development had a report on state government relations. Note that this session occurred before the governor's May Revise budget proposal. There was discussion of the proposed research bond and repeated notes that the campaign in the legislature to put the bond on the ballot was being undertaken in cooperation with UAW. There is also support for a housing bond that might provide some student housing support. It was noted that UC can advocate for bills to put things on the ballot. But if they actually make it to the ballot, UC as an institution cannot provide support.
The May 6 meeting ended with full board approval of the various committee reports and tributes to various outgoing regents and representatives.
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As always, we preserve recording of Regents meetings since the Regents have no policy on retention and their YouTube recordings are unlisted. You can find the May 6 meeting at:
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*In a prior post last Tuesday, we noted that an AFSCME spokesperson indicated that UC wanted to push AFSCME-covered staff out of Kaiser and into UC providers.
From the Daily Princetonian: Princeton will not have to pay any net investment income tax on returns from its $36.4 billion endowment, a University investment official said at a private event in January, after a recent expansion of its undergraduate financial aid program left the University below a 3,000 tuition-paying student threshold to qualify for taxation. Experts had projected that the new tax on wealthy university endowments — enacted under H.R. 1, the omnibus tax and spending bill passed by congressional Republicans in July 2025 — would have cost Princeton roughly $180 million annually. The 8 percent endowment tax was predicted to impose one of the country’s highest university tax burdens on Princeton, which currently enrolls 9,100 undergraduate and graduate students. According to University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83, recent widespread budget cuts have been driven by decreased long-term endowment projections — growth estimates that likely would have been further eroded if the University were required to pay the tax.
...In July, amid several Trump administration attacks on higher education, Congress set the 8 percent tax rate for universities with over $2 million in endowment funds per student and over 3,000 tuition-paying students. At around $3.9 million in endowment funds per student, Princeton was expected to be subject to the tax, and many of its peer institutions are still likely to pay hundreds of millions annually.
...Emeritus Professor of Economics Burton Malkiel GS ’64, who has publicly written about how universities benefit from the illiquid assets of endowments, called the University’s endowment tax strategy a “brilliant response to a punitive and discriminatory tax.” The expansion of financial aid “increases our income and produces much-needed student support,” he wrote to the ‘Prince.’ ...
Full story at https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2026/05/princeton-news-adpol-university-spared-endowment-tax-financial-aid-millions-princo.
From the Harvard Crimson: A group of former Harvard athletes who are now physicians and scientists pitched the University’s sports medicine team last summer on disclosing the risk of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy to contact-sport athletes. Nearly a year later, the group says they have heard nothing back. At least seven former Harvard football players have been diagnosed with CTE, a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated head impacts that can only be confirmed via autopsy, according to Christopher J. Nowinski ’00, the co-founder and CEO of the Concussion & CTE Foundation. The most recent diagnosis, Jim Higgins ’70, came earlier this year.
The other publicly identified cases are James M. Peccerillo ’78, Toby Brundage III ’95, Mike T. Brooks ’01, Dick Clasby ’54, Hank Keohane ’60, and Christopher J. Eitzmann ’99, a former Harvard football captain who went on to play for the New England Patriots. The youngest of the seven died in his 30s. Nowinski, a former Harvard defensive lineman, said he first raised the issue with Harvard Athletics Director Erin McDermott at an Ivy League Football Association dinner in January 2025...
Nowinski said communication from Harvard Athletics stopped after the presentation. “We could not get emails returned,” he said, “so we suspect they did not go forward with our proposal to provide education on CTE to Harvard athletes.” ...
Full story at https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/5/6/cte-training-unanswered/.
We're catching up with the Regents' May 5 meeting, the first of two days. The meeting began with public comments. Topics included complaints about an ICE official who spoke at a UCLA law school program, a UC-Davis family center (??? speaker was unclear), anti-Israel, resident doctor negotiations, termination of the UC-Davis equestrian team, ICE notifications, divestment, divestment from Apollo, disabled student programs, names of protesters shared with federal government, revisiting UC hiring of undocumented students, AFSCME negotiations, and a proposal for a second student regent.
The Health Services Committee heard a report on the strategic plan for UC Health. It was noted that ERs are getting more patients due to federal cutbacks.
At the full Board, Chair Riley noted that this would be her last meeting as chair and reflected on UC's contributions. She welcomed newly-appointed Regents. UC President Milliken took note of the significant legal expenses incurred as a result of the conflict with the federal government. He referenced public concerns about higher ed as described in the recent Yale report. Problems mentioned were complicated pricing, campus climate, and opaque admissions standards. He suggested a need for more transparency with regard to pricing and admissions. With regard to the latter, it's not clear what that would mean as long as subjective judgments are made. Faculty representative Palazoglu discussed the need for a new Master Plan and wanted the Academic Senate to be involved in developing such a Plan. There was then a tribute to selected UC and UCLA alumni. Finally, there was a celebration of UCLA women's basketball and a presentation by coach Cori Close followed by brief remarks by Chancellor Frenk.
The Governance Committee proposed the appointment of a new director for the Berkeley National Lab and the full Board reconvened to ratify the appointment.
The Investments Committee hear a brief report by CFO Bachhar covering the first 9 months of the fiscal year in which returns looked good thanks to the stock market. A disturbance at the meeting halted the session and the room was cleared. Bachhar cited the usual uncertainties: war, inflation, AI. It was noted during the discussion that the Blue and Gold Pool, which is a simple indexed fund, i.e., no stock picking, nothing but equities and fixed income, performed very well at very low administrative cost. It was suggested that maybe other funds managed by the CFO's office might be run that way.
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As always, we preserve recordings of the Regents sessions since the Regents have no policy on retention and their YouTube recordings are unlisted. The sessions described above are at:
