Food for Thought

From the Daily Bruin: UCLA’s Early Care and Education centers will raise tuition, pause hiring for vacant positions and stop providing food for children in response to university-wide budget cuts, its executive director announced to families [last] Thursday. UCLA ECE will discontinue financial support for formula and diapers, and it will not backfill vacant staff positions starting July 1, UCLA ECE’s Executive Director Tashon McKeithan said in a Thursday email to parents. McKeithan said in the email that UCLA ECE – which provides child care to UCLA students, faculty and staff – will increase tuition across all age groups, including infant, toddler and preschool levels, by 4% for the 2026-27 academic year.

Tuition for infants and toddlers will cost around $3,300 and $3,000, respectively, for UCLA affiliates, McKeithan said in the email. Monthly tuition for infants will cost around $3,800 for non-UCLA affiliates, and tuition for toddlers will cost around $3,200, she added. Campus administrators asked all university departments to reduce costs in response to UCLA’s ongoing budget deficit, McKeithan said in the email...

Full story at https://dailybruin.com/2026/04/21/ucla-child-care-centers-cut-food-for-children-raise-tuition-amid-budget-deficit.

Straws in the Wind - Part 326

From the Brown Daily Herald: Economics Professor Roberto Serrano normally holds in-person exams for his ECON 1170: “Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory” class, but this semester he decided to assign a take-home, closed-book exam for the first midterm to alleviate pressure for students after the Dec. 13 shooting. But after the class’s grade distributions indicated widespread cheating, Serrano has decided to return to in-person exams for all of his courses. The median for the exam was 98%, with 40 out of 86 students scoring 100%. Compared to previous data, the distribution for his first ECON 1170 midterm was “absolutely ridiculous,” especially since he had designed a more challenging exam for the take-home format, Serrano said in an interview with The Herald. “Historically, the average grade in the midterm exams ranged from 65 to 85,” Serrano said. After investigating the exam results, Serrano said he found signs of AI use and collaboration amongst students...

Pakzad-Hurson also suspects student AI use on homework assignments. “The biggest shift is just that students are seemingly a lot better at homework now,” Pakzad-Hurson said. He has noticed “perfect performance” on homeworks and “poor performance” on tests. Pakzad-Hurson lowered the weight of homeworks on students’ overall grades to reduce the incentive to submit AI work.

Economics Professor Rajiv Vohra noted that AI does not appear to be a problem with in-person exams, but may be an issue with homeworks or take-home exams. Teaching Professor of Economics Sylvia Kuo has also noticed potential AI usage on her homework assignments, even though they are graded based on effort. She said she has seen “weird answers” that still arrive at a solution, but use terminology that is inconsistent “with what was taught.”

In the last year, Kuo has also seen a decrease in exam scores, despite the fact that the content of exams has been “roughly” the same since she started teaching the course more than a decade ago. She said this suggests students are not using their “own brain” to do the “learning in order to perform well on exams.” ...

Full story at https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2026/04/after-ai-cheating-concerns-economics-professors-see-in-person-exams-as-a-path-forward.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 152

From the Harvard Crimson: Leaders of Harvard’s non-tenure-track faculty union quietly called off plans for a spring strike, overriding a membership vote after concluding the walkout risked failing to win approval from the United Auto Workers. At a... general membership meeting attended by roughly 150, workers represented by the Harvard Academic Workers-UAW voted to close an ongoing strike authorization vote on Friday and begin striking as early as next week, according to an attendee. But in an abrupt about-face, the union’s bargaining committee extended the voting timeline the following day — a move that rules out any strike this semester.

...The committee said the combination of low participation and a tight turnaround between the proposed vote closure and strike date created a “substantial” risk that UAW’s international leadership would not authorize its strike in time. Without that approval, workers would be ineligible for strike pay and other union support — and the authorization process would have to start over.

...The move strips HAW-UAW of a key source of leverage this semester as negotiations for its first contract with Harvard stretch into a second year. It also means that the non-tenure-track faculty will not picket alongside Harvard’s graduate student union, which previously began striking... 

Full story at https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/4/24/haw-strike-vote-override/.

News: Possible Mid-May UC Strike - Part 2

UC continues its policy of publicizing its latest offer in union negotiations. As the May 14 threatened deadline of the AFSCME strike approaches, UC has upped its offer and put out a news release. Excerpt:

Demonstrating its commitment to delivering proposals to address affordability concerns for employees, the University of California has expanded its contract offer to AFSCME-represented patient care and service workers, delivering even stronger wage growth, new financial protections, and meaningful improvements to working conditions. 

Building on its earlier proposal, UC’s latest package, an increase of more than $12 million over the previous offer, now delivers up to nearly 33% total pay growth over the life of the contract when annual raises and step increases are combined. In addition to the 5% wage increase already provided to AFSCME-represented team members in 2025, UC’s offer includes across-the-board raises of 5% in 2026, 4% in 2027, 4% in 2028 (up from 3.5%), and 3% in 2029, alongside step increases each year of the contract to support steady wage progression. 

The updated offer also includes up to a $1,000 ratification bonus for eligible employees, paid within 90 days, providing immediate financial support...

Full release at https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/press-room/uc-expands-afscme-offer-address-affordability-nearly-33-pay-growth-and-lower-health.

He won't be there

At the upcoming May meetings of the Regents, one Regent won't be there. From the Daily Cal: 

When Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed four new UC regents last month, the public statement overshadowed the quiet departure of a veteran of the body, Gareth Elliott, who left his post without announcement 11 years before the end of his term. A partner at the California lobbying firm Sacramento Advocates, Elliot served on the Board for over a decade prior to his departure and was reappointed by Newsom in 2025 to a new 12-year term.

Elliott’s exit from the board, however, was not a traditional resignation or termination. Rather, the regent left through a relatively rare procedural mechanism after just one year. Regents may assume their positions immediately upon the governor’s appointment, and an appointment is valid only if confirmed by the State Senate within a year. As he was reappointed by Newsom on Feb. 27, 2025, Elliott’s new term was never confirmed in this process, forcing him out of his seat last March.

According to UC Office of the President spokesperson Rachel Zaentz, Elliott “chose not to pursue confirmation for personal reasons.” Elliott did not respond to a request for comment...

Full story at https://www.dailycal.org/news/uc/uc-regent-quietly-exits-board-11-years-before-end-of-appointment/article_53c5d1cf-93db-4125-9821-22524cdb704d.html.

Straws in the Wind - Part 325

From the Columbia Daily Spectator: In her student advising meetings in recent years, Wendy Schor-Haim, director of Barnard’s First-Year Writing program, has noticed a shift in her advisees. Schor-Haim, who has taught in the program since 2009, said she saw a “notable decrease” over the past few years in first-year students voicing interest in humanities majors. Instead, more were arriving on campus with clear plans to pursue STEM fields.

Schor-Haim’s experience reflects a broader trend faculty say is emerging at Barnard: declining interest in traditional humanities majors alongside sustained growth in hard and social sciences. As Barnard continues to invest in scientific infrastructure and resources, professors across disciplines are wondering what this shift means for the college’s identity and the future of humanities in a liberal arts framework...

In her advising conversations, Schor-Haim said interests are skewing “overwhelmingly” toward natural sciences. Social sciences, particularly economics, follow. By contrast, she said she could “count on one hand” how many of her students enter Barnard expressing interest in fields such as literature, history, philosophy, or other humanities...

Full story at https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2026/04/19/as-barnard-advances-stem-initiatives-humanities-professors-express-enrollment-concerns/.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 151

From the Harvard Crimson: Harvard College Dean David J. Deming said [last] Thursday that he would cut administrative functions before scaling back student-facing programming as the College braces for significant reductions tied to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ $365 million structural deficit...

Deming pointed to the federal endowment tax — raised to eight percent last summer under the Republicans’ tax and spending bill — as a major driver of the FAS’ budget shortfall. “That blew a hole of roughly $100 million per year in the FAS budget,” Deming said. “That’s not a one-time thing. That’s an every year thing that is enshrined into legislation.” ...

Full story at https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/4/24/deming-administrative-functions-budget/.