AI Purchase Train Bypasses Academic Senate

October 30, 2026

James B. Milliken

President, University of California

Rachael Nava, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer

Re: Proposed Systemwide OpenAI Purchase Agreement and Senate Consultation

Dear President Milliken and COO Nava:

On behalf of the Academic Council, I write to express our serious concern about shared governance and the very limited Academic Senate consultation regarding the proposed systemwide purchase agreement between the University of California and OpenAI.

In the written item submitted to the Board of Regents for its September 16, 2026 meeting, the administration reported that UC was exploring systemwide agreements with multiple AI providers, and explicitly stated that any resulting arrangements would undergo Academic Senate consultation before the University made a commitment.

Nevertheless, the Academic Council was not aware of the proposed OpenAI purchase agreement until our October 21, 2026 meeting with Vice President and Chief Information Officer Van Williams. On October 22, at our request, CIO Williams invited formal written Council input. The proposed agreement was made available to Council on October 24, with written feedback requested by October 30 before final execution of the purchase agreement anticipated by November 1. We understand this agreement will operate under UC’s 2024 Master Services Agreement (MSA) with OpenAI, signed June 13, 2024.

To be clear, Academic Council does not object to the use of AI, nor to the idea of UC providing frontier model access to its researchers. We recognize the potential benefits of a coordinated purchasing approach, including reduced costs, improved security, and more equitable access to AI platforms. Council members with a range of views about the merits and implications of the proposed agreement have questions that cannot be adequately assessed within the present timeline. Notably, these include the direct impact of widespread AI access on teaching and learning, student assessment, and research practice.

Although procurement actions are an administrative responsibility, decisions about procurement of any goods or services that may impact instruction and research policies call for Academic Senate consultation before they are made. We do not view making ChatGPT Edu licenses available to every UC student, instructor, and staff member as a routine software procurement decision, but rather a significant academic policy matter that falls within the Senate’s delegated authority and expertise to advise on as part of our shared governance process.

Council also observes that making available a chat application capable of producing much of the work that UC courses are designed to teach and assess could be perceived as the University signalling endorsement for its use in all courses. For courses in which instructors have sound educational reasons to restrict these AI tools, that signal will sit in tension with the syllabus.

Neither late consultation nor notification after purchasing decisions have been made can substitute for faculty involvement in shaping the discussion about the issues at hand, given such far-reaching academic consequences. Consultation should mean participation in the decision, through the Senate’s processes, and is not achieved by the simple presence of one or more faculty representatives on administrative bodies.

Accordingly, the Council requests that: 1) finalization of the purchase agreement with OpenAI be deferred to permit meaningful Senate consultation; and 2) no deployment of ChatGPT licenses for academic uses by students and faculty take place until appropriate consultation with the systemwide and divisional Senates has occurred regarding the educational implications of such deployment and the establishment of appropriate protections for faculty authority over instruction.

We further request a consultative role for the Senate through the Academic Council and UCACC in renewal of the OpenAI Master Services Agreement, specifically where its terms bear on instruction and faculty research, as well as an ongoing role in future decisions about purchasing, allocation, deployment, evaluation, and renewal of AI tools for academic uses, whether from OpenAI or any other AI providers. Such consultation should include opportunities to assess educational benefits and risks, safeguard faculty authority over instructional decisions, ensure transparency and appropriate data protection for faculty and students, and develop guidance for uses that evolve along with the AI technologies themselves.

Sincerely,

Susannah Scott

Chair, Academic Council

Encl. Invitation from VP Williams to Academic Council to provide input

cc: Academic Council

   Vice President and Chief of Staff Kao

   VP and CIO Williams

   AVP and Chief Procurement Officer Williams

   Chair Brookwell, University Committee on Academic Computing &  Communications (UCACC)

   Senate Division Executive Directors

   Senate Executive Director Lin

==

Source: https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/reports/council-chair-president-openai-purchase-agreement-10-30-26.pdf.

Our Annual Halloween Offering

You'll need about half an hour for this slowly building scare:

https://dn800202.us.archive.org/0/items/ucla-rehab-strength-training/Earwig.mp4 

We again remind the medically adept not to let me know that the brain doesn't have internal pain receptors.

Straws in the Wind - Part 511

From the Cornell Daily Sun: The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression wrote an “urgent” letter to President Michael Kotlikoff on Oct. 16, criticizing his Oct. 13 decision to ban all Cornell Interfraternity Council social events for the rest of the academic year. “FIRE urges Cornell to rescind the October 13 directive as applied to any IFC organization that is not the subject of a pending Report or Formal Complaint,” the letter reads, requesting a “substantive response” confirming that the University has removed the ban by Oct. 26.

The letter claims that the ban violates students’ right to freedom of association, stating that this right prohibits universities from banning social functions unless such restrictions are “narrowly tailored to serve a compelling interest.”

“Courts have invalidated far less onerous restrictions as impermissible burdens on associational freedom,” the letter reads. FIRE is an independent nonprofit organization whose mission is to investigate and protect against violations of free speech, focused on issues related to college campuses. In its 2027 College Free Speech Rankings, FIRE recently granted Cornell an F grade for its speech climate, ranking the University 219 out of the 261 schools studied.

“Guilt by association serves no one and guarantees that injustice will be done to innocent individuals -- in this case, including students who were not even on campus in October 2024,” [Robert Shibley, FIRE’s special counsel for campus advocacy,]  wrote...

Full story at https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2026/10/fire-calls-kotlikoff-s-fraternity-party-ban-a-guilt-by-association-punishment-that-violates-free-speech.

No Sharing

From the Daily Bruin: UCLA will enforce a review process to limit the data that research faculty and staff share with certain foreign countries in line with guidance from the federal government... The requirements – issued by the Department of Justice and National Institutes of Health – prohibit researchers from sharing sensitive personal information, government-related data and biological samples with people or organizations associated with China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela, said Roger Wakimoto – vice chancellor for research, innovation and creative activities – and Mark Krause, associate vice chancellor for ethics, compliance and audit...

Full story at https://dailybruin.com/2026/10/23/ucla-to-limit-data-sharing-with-countries-of-concern-in-line-with-doj-nih-policies.

The Plan

There is a plan that - someday - there will be a train from Panorama City to Westwood/UCLA and points south. From LA Metro:

The Sepulveda Transit Corridor is a proposed high-capacity rail line that will provide a crucial north-south transit connection between the San Fernando Valley, the Westside and eventually Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to address one of the most heavily traveled and congested corridors in Los Angeles County.

In January 2026, the Metro Board of Directors selected a Locally Preferred Alternative (LPA) for the project consisting of underground heavy-rail transit between the Van Nuys Metrolink Station and the Metro E Line Expo/Sepulveda Station with a connection to the Metro G Line and the East San Fernando Valley Light Rail Transit Line at Van Nuys Boulevard. The Metro Board also identified an Initial Operating Segment (IOS) alternative, extending approximately 8.4 miles between the Wilshire/Westwood Station and the G Line/Van Nuys Station. The project would require construction of a maintenance and storage facility for rail vehicles, with several potential location options to be evaluated. 

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and Metro are now holding a scoping period before the formal preparation of an environmental document under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and a Recirculated Draft Environmental Impact Report (RDEIR) under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).  

Stakeholders are invited to comment on the project's purpose and need; project elements, including station and maintenance/storage facility locations; and potential environmental impacts. Learn more at the Project Hub.

Comments may be provided at the scoping meetings, online, via email, via phone at 213.922.7375, or by mail to Peter Carter, Project Manager, Metro, One Gateway Plaza, Mail Stop 99-22-6, Los Angeles, CA 90012.

Comments are due November 18, 2026

Scoping Meeting Details 

Wednesday, November 4, 12-1pm.
Zoom Link: https://bit.ly/STC-Nov4
Call-in Number: 213.338.8477
Webinar ID: 822 7276 3299

Saturday, November 7, 3-5pm
Culver City Veterans Memorial
Building Multipurpose Room
4117 Overland Av
Culver City, CA 90230

Tuesday, November 10, 5:30pm- 7:30pm
Westwood United Methodist Church
10497 Wilshire Bl
Los Angeles, CA 90024

Saturday, November 14, 10am- 12pm
Marvin Braude Constituent Center
6262 Van Nuys Bl
Los Angeles, CA 91401

Monday, November 16, 5:30pm- 7:30pm
Sherman Oaks East Valley Adult Center
5056 Van Nuys Bl, Building B
Sherman Oaks, CA 91403

Source: https://www.metro.net/projects/sepulvedacorridor/. 

Straws in the Wind - Part 510 (Les Jeux Sont Fait)

From Inside Higher Ed: One of the country’s leading prediction markets is planning to get into the business of college admissions. Kalshi could soon add what it calls “event contracts” regarding admission rates at 22 selective institutions, including Johns Hopkins University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago, according to notices filed this week with its federal regulator. Users will be able to wager whether a college’s admission rate will be less than, equal to or greater than a certain value, such as 10 percent. Kalshi plans to verify admission rates for first-time, first-year undergraduates using the Common Data Set.

...Kalshi plans to allow bets for admissions rates at the following universities: Brown University; the California Institute of Technology; Carnegie Mellon University; Columbia University; Cornell University; Dartmouth College; Duke University; Harvard University; Johns Hopkins University; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Northwestern University; Princeton University; Rice University; Stanford University; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of Chicago; the University of Notre Dame; the University of Pennsylvania; Vanderbilt University; Washington University in St. Louis; and Yale University.

Employees and others in the admission and financial aid offices of the universities won’t be able to wager on their university’s rates. Others barred from trading include employees in the university’s communications office and other departments who might have advance knowledge of the rate. “Employees and contractors of any application platform or vendor that hosts, operates, or processes data for UCLA’s first-year applications or admissions records” also can’t trade, according to the notice for the UCLA contract... 

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2026/10/23/kalshi-could-let-you-wager-admission-rates-22-colleges.

The $90 Zero

Received in the mail this past Monday from Navitus, the formulary that provides drug benefits for retirees. What a difference a zero can make!