The Roadmap: Now you see it...

Blog readers may have noticed an article in today's LA Times on the SAT issue. Specifically, the article notes that just as the Regents meetings are about to begin, including issues of admissions criteria, links on the systemwide Academic Senate page to the "roadmap" seem to be disappearing.

The University of California admissions board has voted to rescind — for now — its plan to study whether to resume SAT or ACT requirements in admissions, a move that leaves one of the university’s most closely watched debates unclear a day before the Board of Regents meets in San Francisco... At a Friday meeting, BOARS voted to pull back on the plan, and the links that explained it — which appeared on the UC website late last week — have been removed...

In a statement Monday evening, UC Academic Senate Chair Ahmet Palazoglu said the senate was “not rescinding its commitment to a comprehensive review of standardized testing in admissions.” The admissions board is a committee of the senate...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-07-13/uc-suspends-plan-to-reconsider-sat-in-admissions.

Yours truly is not a fan of disappearing documents. And it turns out the old links are still available. So, we have put the roadmap plan at a new location where it won't disappear:

Executive Summary:

https://ia600601.us.archive.org/32/items/blog-3rd-qtr-2026/UC-academic-senate-boars-roadmap-executive%20summary%2006-11-2026.pdf.

Full Roadmap:

https://ia600601.us.archive.org/32/items/blog-3rd-qtr-2026/UC-academic-senate-boars-roadmap-06-05-2026.pdf.

Cuts

From KVIE-Sacramento: Federal cuts from the Trump administration have affected programs and research at UC Davis. The university lost about 10% of its overall grant funding over the past year, a steeper decline than all but one of the other UC campuses. The funding cuts make some programs less stable and limit the university’s pipeline of top-tier scientists.

UC Davis received less grant money in fiscal year 2025 than during any of the previous 15 years, after adjusting for inflation, the latest UC system data shows. Federal, state, nonprofit and private awards totaled $961 million in fiscal year 2025, down about 10% from the previous year. Among the 10 UC campuses, only one, the University of California at San Francisco, saw a larger decline in award funding than UC Davis. The entire system saw a 6% decrease in grant funding...

Full story at https://www.abridged.org/news/federal-cuts-hit-uc-davis-hard/.

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Chart above from https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/about-us/information-center/awards-and-proposals. Note: Figures refer to research grants from all sources.

Straws in the Wind - Part 402

From the NY Times: The number of students admitted to Ph.D. programs this fall dropped 15 percent from the previous year, according to data from over 50 top research universities, raising fears that the nation’s capacity to produce new science could be diminished. The decline is driven, in part, by a chaotic and unpredictable federal funding environment under the Trump administration, as federal cuts are promised and then reversed, and budgets remain unclear. A reduction in doctoral students could mean fewer scholars at universities to teach and mentor undergraduates. Higher education leaders also worry that, if the declines continue, there will be fewer researchers to power a rapidly evolving scientific work force.

The data showing the decrease comes from 55 universities, all of them members of the Association of American Universities, an invitation-only organization that includes 69 of the most prestigious research institutions in the United States. The data collection was conducted by another group, the Association of American Universities Data Exchange. Schools in A.A.U. confer half of the nation’s research doctorates, according to the association...

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/06/us/research-universities-fewer-phds-science.html.

Note: In the 1950s, Sputnik had the reverse effect:

MAGA seems to want to recreate the 1950s, except for that part.

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Cartoon from https://www.archives.gov/files/legislative/resources/education/cold-war-in-political-cartoons/primary-source-sheets.pdf.

Removed

Sometimes, items that appear on the preliminary Regents agenda are removed before the actual meeting.

Item F5 - an action item that was on the agenda for tomorrow - has been removed from the agenda of the Finance and Capital Strategies Committee. The item:

UCLA West Valley Medical Center Replacement Hospital and Parking Structure, UCLA Health, Los Angeles Campus: Preliminary Plans Funding and External Financing

Apparently, somebody decided it was not yet ready for prime time.

Let's do it again, let's do it again, let's...

From EdSource: As the University of California weighs whether to reinstate the SAT in admissions, another option is also on the table: using California’s existing standardized test administered to high school juniors. The committee charged with exploring the pros and cons of bringing back the SAT and ACT will also investigate the possibility of using Smarter Balanced exams, the annual tests given to 11th graders in California public schools to measure proficiency in math and English, as an admissions tool...

After UC’s Board of Regents voted in 2020 to suspend the use of the SAT and ACT in admissions, the system’s Academic Senate created a committee to explore whether the Smarter Balanced test could be a replacement. The committee ultimately recommended against it. A 2021 committee report concluded that the Smarter Balanced test was not designed to be a high-stakes exam and that repurposing it as one would likely lead to the same inequitable practices associated with the SAT, such as expensive third-party test preparation courses.*

Mary Gauvain, a now-retired professor of psychology, co-chaired that committee. She said in an interview that she was “completely surprised” to learn that UC is reconsidering the use of Smarter Balanced scores in admissions. “I think our findings still stand. I don’t see any reason to look at it again,” she said. 

Some UC faculty were also caught off guard, including Zvezda Stankova, a UC Berkeley math professor. Stankova was among the five Berkeley professors who crafted an open letter calling on UC to reinstate the SAT and ACT as an admissions requirement for students in science, technology, engineering and math programs. That letter now has more than 2,300 signatures.** Stankova said she prefers the SAT and ACT because the exams include more Algebra II concepts than the 11th grade Smarter Balanced exam. “I’m not saying it’s a bad test, but it does not have the sophistication of the SAT,” she said.

Volz, the BOARS chair, said he is aware of the 2021 recommendation. But he added that “the general sentiment” among the members of BOARS is that “a lot has changed” since that report was published, including the proliferation of artificial intelligence and its impact on student learning.

“We weren’t sure if we could assume that those (conclusions) were still valid,” he said...

Full story at https://edsource.org/2026/uc-considers-smarter-balanced-exams/761765.

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*https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/nov21/b3attach2.pdf.

**https://ucstudentsuccess.org/.

Testing not on the agenda

As blog readers will likely know, there has been a flurry of news articles about the Regents abandonment of the SAT as an admission criterion.* And there seems to be an assumption that the Regents will do something about the issue at the upcoming meetings this week. But doing something seems both unlikely and unrealistic. While the Regents do have one element of admissions on their agenda for discussion, that item concerns the A-G requirements for high school courses. The documentation for the A-G topic references the SAT only its historical context and only in passing.**

Of course, the SAT topic could be brought up by Regents during that discussion, or by anyone during public comments. But without documentation directly addressing the issue, it is hard to imagine big decisions being made about it. 

We have noted in past posting, however, that a full discussion would be possible for the September meetings. So the question is whether the Regents want to have the necessary documentation prepared for them over the summer.

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*Example: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-07-09/uc-sat-act-return-admissions-math-skills.

**https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/july26/a3.pdf.

Unrelated

Do I really have to point out that lack of new pennies had nothing to do - Zero, Zilch - with the decision to not accept cash at ASUCLA operations? It's an excuse, not a necessity.

Due to the federal discontinuation of pennies, ASUCLA, including UCLA Store locations, will be adjusting how cash is accepted for payment.

Starting Saturday, January 3, 2026 ASUCLA will be transitioning to cashless operations at the below locations:

All ASUCLA Restaurants

U.S. Post Office Express at Ackerman Union

This transition to a cashless payment system will support faster service and more efficient operations.

Cash will be accepted only at selected registers at the following UCLA Store locations. Please provide exact change when paying with cash at:

UCLA Store at Ackerman Union, including the Market

UCLA Store - Hill Top Shop

LuValle Commons Store

Health Sciences Store 

Thank you for your understanding and continued support as we adapt to limited cash availability.

Source: https://www.asucla.ucla.edu/cashless-campus.