Revising Discipline

Currently under systemwide Senate review - with comments due by May 19* - are UC procedures for student discipline. Excerpt from cover letter:

...In the spring of 2025, former President Drake requested a review of the student conduct and discipline governance, process, and procedures as defined in systemwide and campus policies and related guidance. Key features of this review included:

• A description of the student conduct and discipline governance, process, and procedures in effect at each UC campus, including average timelines for each stage in the process relative to any policy-required timelines, and any notable or significant procedural differences across campuses.

• In partnership with UC Legal, a review of campus disciplinary investigations and an assessment of consistency.

• An assessment of and recommendations related to systemwide standards regarding student conduct procedures, outcomes, and timely resolution...

One guesses that Drake was motivated by the events of 2024 in calling for the review, although there is no reference to those events in the cover letter. In any case, if the intent was to change the procedures and penalties in response, not much was done. Much of the revision involves compliance with state legislation dealing with misbehavior related to drug or alcohol abuse and creates alternative treatment options. Most of the misbehavior cited involves actions unrelated to the events of 2024: things such as cheating, sexual harassment, etc. There is some reference to obstructing academic activities, but it appears that no changes were made to related rules or processes. There is some added language which allows reasonable, but limited, procedural delay caused by unavailability of an advisor to the student accused of misbehavior.

You can find the cover letter and documentation under review at:

https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/underreview/systemwide-senate-review-pacaos-100.pdf.

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*The Senate wants comments by May 19. The cover letter refers to June 11.

Straws in the Wind - Part 297

From Inside Higher Ed: The Trump administration cut off funding for area studies and foreign language education in September, putting an end to the flow of financial support for centers and programs that assisted national security strategy for decades. Justifying the cuts, the administration has said these kinds of programs are “inconsistent with Administration priorities and do not advance American interests or values.” For years, area studies centers were funded through National Resource Center grants as part of Title VI of the Higher Education Act of 1965. Congress partially restored this funding in its most recent budget, but the damage to area studies may be irreversible. 

The University of Washington, home to one of the nation’s oldest area studies centers, lost $2.5 million in National Resource Center and foreign language grants—half of which went directly to student scholarships—for the 2025–26 academic year. The University of Michigan lost about $3.4 million and the University of Kansas lost $2 million. Western Washington University’s Center for Canadian-American Studies reportedly took a 70 percent hit to its budget after the Title VI funds were pulled.

...Facing a hostile presidential administration, institutions are unlikely to stick their necks out too far for area studies, said Zachary Lockman, a historian and professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic studies at New York University. “They’re skeptical. They’re all in austerity mode. They’re under attack,” Lockman said. “Many of them just want to fly under the radar and remain invisible, so giving money to people whom the Department of Education sees as enemies of the Trump administration doesn’t seem like a wise tactic to them.” ...

[The] symbiotic government–university partnership worked for a while. But in the 1970s, while the U.S. was at war in Vietnam, that relationship began to fracture, experts explained. Government officials started to think that they weren’t getting their anticipated return on investment, [Osamah] Khalil [of Syracuse University] said. It was never a requirement that recipients of federal fellowships work for the government afterward—and in large part, they did not, he said. “One of the things that came out of Vietnam was this idea that ‘We’re not getting the experts that we wanted out of this. We’re getting campus radicals who are protesting U.S. foreign policy’”... 

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/business/academic-programs/2026/03/26/area-studies-once-vital-wither-without-funding.

Getting In - Part 3

We have been displaying Facebook ads aimed at parents who want their kids to get into top universities. But in California, to get into any UC or CSU, you must complete the A-G required courses in high school. Many don't. From CalMatters:

...Statewide, 54% of high school students pass the classes minimally needed to enroll in the University of California or California State University systems as freshmen, according to a CalMatters analysis of traditional high schools. In recent years the state has provided extra funding to help schools boost their numbers, but the readiness rate has only inched up. Low-income, Black and Latino students have among the lowest class-completion rates. English learners and students with disabilities also have low rates, but the numbers have climbed slightly the past few years.

California’s two public university systems require all students applying for admission to earn a C or better in a suite of courses. The requirements are four years of English, three of math, two years each of science, social science and foreign language and one year of art. Known as the A-G requirements, they often dictate a student’s schedule beginning in ninth grade or even earlier. It’s easy for a student to fall off track — by getting a D or F in a class, for instance, or by skipping a tough class like chemistry or trigonometry, or by not taking a class if their school doesn’t offer it.  

CalMatters looked at data from the 2024-25 school year for 1,468 public high schools, excluding about 800 alternative high schools, some specialized schools with high A-G rates, continuation schools and juvenile detention programs. The analysis shows that 222 of those schools posted A-G completion rates of less than 30%. More than 400 schools had A-G rates exceeding 70%.

Schools may have few students completing the full suite of A-G courses for a variety of reasons, said Sherrie Reed Bennett and Michal Kurlaender, education researchers at UC Davis who wrote a 2023 analysis on the gaps in A-G rates across public high schools. Some schools may offer the courses, but students don’t enroll in them. Or students earn below a C in these courses and don’t retake them after school or during the summer. Next, teachers may not allow students to repeat assignments in order to avoid having to retake a class; some schools allow this. Meanwhile, nearly a tenth of traditional high schools didn’t offer the needed courses, the researchers’ data show... 

Full story at https://calmatters.org/education/k-12-education/2026/03/college-admission-california/.

Watch the Afternoon Meetings of the Regents: March 18, 2026

We continue catching up with the Regents' March sessions.

At the Finance and Capital Strategies Committee, one consent item was approved without discussion. The Committee then turned to the UCLA sports medicine and lab project to be placed in an existing structure that requires substantial internal modifications.*

It was reported that the winning contractor's bid came in 38% below estimate. Other than a comment by Chair Cohen that he was happy to hear of the discount, the project was approved without discussion.

The other UCLA project was the 19-story undergrad dorm to be constructed at 901 Levering Avenue which we took note of in an earlier post.** It was presented by AVC Michael Beck. Regent Makarechian raised the issue of cost. He compared it with a mid-Wilshire Building that UCLA had bought for grad students and noted the lower cost there. Beck said that building was a distressed sale by a developer. A second issue raised by Makarechian was bathroom construction. The plan has 8 students sharing two bathrooms. Makarechian said at no cost the bathrooms could be divided for multiple use. Beck said ADA compliance would prevent such a division. But Makarechian noted that ADA compliance did not require all bathrooms in all apartments. Beck agreed to come back with an alternative bathroom arrangement.

Another issue raised was that grad students have been displaced from the immediate campus area. But the project was approved.

Academic and Student Affairs approved professional program tuition increases for various medical degrees. It was noted that the number of Pell grant recipients had recently dropped, but the reasons for that decrease were not known at this point.

The Compliance and Audit Committee then approved some technical amendments with no discussion. There was then a presentation by KPMG, a new auditor, about its audit for the current fiscal year. It was said that AI would be used to analyze audit data. The plan was approved.

The Board then met for a brief meeting in which the reports from the various committees were approved.

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As always, we preserve recordings of Regents meetings because the Regents have no policy about retention.

The sessions of Finance and Capital Strategies, Academic and Student Affairs, and Compliance and Audit are at:

https://ia601500.us.archive.org/18/items/regents-board-am-3-18-2026/Regents%20Finance%20and%20Capital%20Strategies%2C%20Academic%20and%20Student%20Affairs%2C%20Compliance%20and%20Audit%20Committees%203-18-2026.mp4.

The afternoon Board meeting is at:

https://ia801500.us.archive.org/18/items/regents-board-am-3-18-2026/Regents%20Board%2C%20Committee%20Reports%203-18-2026.mp4. 

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*We previously discussed this project at https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2026/03/new-off-campus-health-complex.html.

**https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2026/03/big.html.

Straws in the Wind - Part 296

From Inside Higher Ed: The halfway point of the federal fiscal year looms at month’s end, yet the National Institutes of Health has only obligated around 15 percent of the estimated $38 billion it has to distribute in grants and contracts to universities and other research institutions, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. The AAMC [last] Tuesday released an analysis of data from NIH’s RePORTER site, showing it had only obligated $5.8 billion as of [the previous] Friday, compared to nearly $9 billion by that date in the final full fiscal year of the Biden administration. When the NIH “obligates” funding, it has sent an institution a notice saying the dollars are available to its researchers to spend...

The report says that current funding rates “raise concerns” that the NIH could be in a similar situation to last year, when it was forced to accelerate its spending to obligate the full amount of its budget by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. According to the AAMC, last year the NIH obligated over half of the necessary research funds to institutions in the final three months of the fiscal year, July to September. Many of the grants were obligated through controversial multiyear funding of individual grants that reduced the number of new grants it distributed over all.

The agency’s own data also suggest that the careers of early-career researchers were particularly harmed by fewer grant awards last year...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/science-research-policy/2026/03/25/aamc-nih-has-only-obligated-15-external-research.

Getting In - Part 2

Yesterday, we noted a Facebook ad promising to get your kid into a UC and featuring a former "reader" of applications to Berkeley. It was more of a hard sell. Act Now! Today we find a (somewhat) softer sell from a former admissions "officer" from UCLA and UC-San Diego:

Is Your Teen Interested in a UC School? Learn What a Strong Application Looks Like!

UC Applications: 250,000+ per year. 9 campuses, each unique.

Get insider knowledge from former UCLA and UC San Diego admissions directors!

• How top schools like UCLA & UCSD differ in what they want

• The truth about major choice & academic rigor

• Build a balanced list to boost admission odds

Ready for your teen's strategic head start?

Register now!

In the end, both ads are designed to get you to hit the panic button.

He ain't here... (for budget explanations) - Part 4 - Update

In our last iteration of "He ain't here...," we noted a Daily Bruin article describing an email sent by UCLA's interim CFO on budget affairs. We surmised from that article that the email likely gave no data or definitions of data other than citing a projected $220 million deficit for the current fiscal year.

Someone has now forwarded the email to yours truly.* It's not clear why I didn't get it directly; perhaps it wasn't sent to emeriti. But, in any case, the surmise was correct. The only number cited in the email is the deficit figure, without definition. From the email:

Based on approved spending plans and current planning assumptions, UCLA’s closing deficit on central accounts for FY26 is projected at approximately $220 million. You may have seen previous references in the media to a higher deficit figure. That projection included uncommitted funds: spending requests that had not yet been approved and did not therefore reflect UCLA’s projected closing deficit on central accounts.

The email came with an FAQ attachment.** In it, there is a question about the former CFO's deficit estimate of $425 million:

Where did the $425 million figure come from?

You may have seen previous references in the media to a higher deficit figure. That projection included uncommitted funds: spending requests that had not yet been approved and did not therefore reflect UCLA’s projected closing deficit on central accounts.

So what do we learn? It appears that it isn't the case that the CFO gave out a false number. It is common practice in public sector budgeting to make what-if projections, i.e.. what would happen to the budget if all planned spending were to occur and nothing was done to change inflows of revenue. For example, at the state level, the Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) typically releases a workload projection of this type before the governor releases his budget proposal.

If you look at the budget book the former CFO Agostini provided just before he was fired, it contains a breakdown by academic unit.*** You will find a footnote for the units that indicates the projections for the current year 2025-26 were as of September 2025. So it appears the figures in the budget book were really starting numbers for the year. Between September 2025 and February 2026 when the budget book was released, the powers-that-be at UCLA (probably including the CFO) had made some course corrections, bringing down the starting projection from $425 million to $220 million.

It remains the case, as we have repeatedly pointed out, that precise definitions remain elusive. And there is no information on reserves. If an organization is spending more than it is taking in, it has to be pulling the difference from somewhere. And what you have in reserve matters.

Let's take a simple example. If you have an ongoing deficit of $220 million and you have only $100 million in reserve, you have an immediate emergency. Drastic and quick action must be taken. If you have a billion dollars in reserve, you have a problem, but you also have some time - about four and a half years - to correct that problem.

In short, what is needed remains the same. When we talk about UCLA running a deficit, what portion of UCLA are we talking about? Is it everything including the hospitals? Is it some carved out sector? When we talk about a deficit, are we talking about the difference between revenue and expenditure in a specified fiscal year? And what are the reserves which have been financing the deficits?

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*The email is at https://ia803207.us.archive.org/35/items/ucla-budget-book-v-final-feb-2026/Interim%20CFO%20message%20to%20campus%203-26-2026.pdf. As blog readers will know, we are preserving all budget documents on the Internet Archive in case any of them disappear. The complete collection is at https://archive.org/details/ucla-budget-book-v-final-feb-2026.

**https://ia803207.us.archive.org/35/items/ucla-budget-book-v-final-feb-2026/Interim%20CFO%20FAQ%20message%20to%20campus%203-26-2026.pdf.

***https://ia903207.us.archive.org/35/items/ucla-budget-book-v-final-feb-2026/UCLA%20Budget%20Book%20v%20FINAL%20Feb%202026.pdf.