More is not merrier

From the Sacramento Bee: The University of California serves 67,000 more students today than it did 15 years ago. That’s equal to the size of about two UC Berkeleys and amounts to an increase of 28%. This is, at least in part, a result of a concerted effort by the university to increase its population of Californian students per an agreement with the state. While the university is ahead of schedule in meeting those goals, it has not hired permanent faculty to teach those students at the same pace — a trend that is leaving professors increasingly concerned...

Since 2011, the UC’s permanent faculty has grown from more than 9,000 to a little less than 11,000, marking a spike of less than 19%. The university had one permanent faculty member for every 26 students in 2011; in 2025, that number has increased to 28 students. Tenured and tenure-track faculty, according to the UC, are core to the university’s mission of teaching, research and public service. If they are not hired in adequate numbers, the university’s reputation for academic excellence could be at stake...

Full story at: https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article317418449.html.

Straws in the Wind - Part 494

I asked Gemini to summarize a much-too lengthy article in the NY Times: 

Prompt: Please summarize this article in 2 paragraphs: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7640599/2026/09/29/yale-golf-course-restoration-hanse/

The article examines how the Yale Golf Course, a century-old architectural masterpiece originally designed by Charles Blair Macdonald and Seth Raynor, rapidly deteriorated just five months after a multi-year, $30 million restoration led by renowned architect Gil Hanse. Following its high-profile spring reopening, the historic course was expected to regain its place among America's top-tier layouts. Instead, golfers, alumni, and community members encountered severe conditioning issues, including widespread patchy grass, parched and dying turf, dried-out greens, and unmaintained bunker complexes.   

The piece explores the operational, logistical, and management missteps that caused the project to spiral into a public relations and agronomic crisis. Beyond the physical turf failure, the reporting highlights frustration within the Yale community over higher playing fees, questionable maintenance practices, and poor oversight following the massive capital investment. Ultimately, the article underscores the disconnect between Yale's ambitious financial commitment to revive a historic classic and the university's failure to maintain basic agronomic standards and operational care post-reopening.

Extra Money/Interesting Times

The state controller is out with the monthly cash report for for the fiscal year through September. It shows about $5 billion in extra revenue compared with the budget forecast for the first quarter of the fiscal year (July-Sept.), with about $2.6 of that amount coming from the personal income tax (AI boom; capital gains) and $2 billion from the corporate tax. The state has about $102 billion in unused borrowable resources. 

There are a lot of what ifs out there, however. What if the AI boom turns out to be a bubble that bursts, similar to the dot-com boom/bust of the early 2000s? Much of that unused cash is not in the general fund or funds associated with the general fund. The dot-com episode and the later mortgage bust of 2008 both led to ongoing budget crises of the state - which filtered into UC. And there is the uncertainty of wars abroad, the upcoming election, etc.

Interesting times, as they say:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9ysqz4tGIMg.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 204

From the Harvard Crimson: Harvard faculty members were divided on whether freedom of speech in classrooms remains a problem at the University in an “Open Inquiry” panel discussion at the 15th annual Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching... Government professor Ryan D. Enos... sparked debate after he said that he believed open inquiry was not “much of a problem” at Harvard, despite having previously raised concerns about conservatives’ ability to share their views on campus... But Enos faced pushback from multiple faculty members in the audience, including Economics professor Jason Furman ’92 — who argued that “we need to be harder on ourselves internally while defending ourselves externally” — and raised concerns about persistent ideological slant in Harvard’s classrooms.

Claybaugh opened the discussion by asking panelists about effective strategies for designing balanced courses and avoiding projecting their individual political opinions onto students. But the most contentious topic was whether “open inquiry” remains an area of concern at Harvard... In open discussion in the second half of the event, Furman argued it did — pointing to examples of what he characterized as liberal biases in course catalogs and syllabi as evidence that there remained room for the University to improve...

Enos acknowledged that there was room to improve at Harvard, though he emphasized the importance of setting realistic expectations — especially in comparison to other institutions of higher education... “If we have a faculty that’s 90 percent liberal, and that’s the world we live in — and maybe that’s the problem we want to solve, but that’s a different problem — if that’s the world we live in, then do we do better than another institution with 90 percent liberals out there?” Enos added...

Full story at https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/10/1/harvard-open-inquiry-conference/.

Canary in the coal mine for TMT

Here is AI summarizing what has happened to the plan to build a Thirty-Meter Telescope (TMT) in Hawaii, then the Canary Islands, and now... ???

In September 2026, the TMT International Observatory (TIO) formally rejected a massive €1 billion ($1.13 billion) financing package offered by the Spanish government to construct the mega-observatory at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma.

The breakdown of the Canary Islands "Plan B" comes down to a few key factors:

• No Internal Consensus: The TMT board and its international partners (which include Caltech, the University of California, and the national science departments of Japan, India, and Canada) were ultimately unable to reach an agreement on the required financing structure.

• U.S. Budget Reductions: The project has been heavily strained by funding uncertainties and proposed budget cuts from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), complicating long-term operational planning.

• Scientific Limitations: Some astronomers remained hesitant about the move because La Palma's lower elevation and warmer climate compared to Hawaii limit its capability for mid-infrared observations.

What happens next?

With the Canary Islands officially ruled out, the TMT project is running out of options. The board is doubling down on its original, preferred site: Mauna Kea in Hawaii. However, construction there has been completely stalled since 2019 due to heavy protests from Native Hawaiians who consider the mountain sacred. 

===

As blog readers will know, UC is part of the consortium that intended to build TMT on Hawaii or the Canary Islands. Without a feasible plan and money for it, the plan is effectively dead.

Straws in the Wind - Part 493

From Inside Higher Ed: The University of Arizona put an interim pause on activities for all 21 of its fraternities... amid a series of ongoing misconduct investigations... In [a] letter, Dean of Students Chrissy Lieberman wrote that seven weeks into the semester, the university is “already” investigating nearly half of its fraternities for incidents including physical assault, hazing and inappropriate use of drugs and alcohol.  “The number of cases under investigation and the severity of the concerns is egregious,” Lieberman wrote to the “Arizona Fraternity and Sorority Community.” 

...Arizona’s decision to crack down on its Greek life system comes in the midst of a nationwide conversation over sexual misconduct at fraternities following a lawsuit against Cornell University for allegedly mishandling a 2024 allegation of gang rape at Chi Phi. UA's fraternity chapters are temporarily barred from hosting, sponsoring or participating in any organizational activities until the chapter advisers meet with Lieberman, her letter said. If they attend at least one of the three scheduled mandatory meetings and are in good standing, they will be allowed to resume activity. Quarterly follow-up meetings will also be required... 

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2026/10/07/u-arizona-temporarily-suspends-all-fraternity-activities.

H-1B at UC-D

From the NY Times: Vice President JD Vance announced [last] Thursday that Microsoft would be suspended from using a visa program that allowed foreign workers to permanently reside in the United States after an investigation found that the tech giant had “abused” the system... Mr. Vance took aim at the embattled H-1B visa program, which allows companies to hire skilled foreign workers in hard-to-fill jobs...

Schools [also] under investigation are Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Arizona State, Brown, M.I.T., the University of Pittsburgh, the University of California, Davis, and the California Institute of Technology... UC Davis... said [it has] complied with visa program rules...

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/08/us/politics/microsoft-visas-green-cards.html.