University of California
Regents: July 17, 2013 - morning session
Agenda: Wednesday, July 17
8:30 am Committee of the Whole (open session - includes public comment session)
9:30 am Board (open session)
9:40 am Committee on Finance (open session)
12:00 Lunch
(Note: Appointment of the student regent was moved from the 9:30 am session to after the Committee on Finance due to airplane delays that affected some regents.)
8:30 am Committee of the Whole (open session - includes public comment session)
9:30 am Board (open session)
9:40 am Committee on Finance (open session)
12:00 Lunch
(Note: Appointment of the student regent was moved from the 9:30 am session to after the Committee on Finance due to airplane delays that affected some regents.)
Highlights:
Outgoing UC President Yudof
delivered observations that could be considered advice to the incoming
president. He included a skeptical
off-hand remark on the MOOC industry, noted that UCOP bureaucracy will tend to
grow unless checked, declared the UC funding model as “broken,” and – in what
appeared to be directed at state politicos - urged gradual, not abrupt,
adjustments for UC.
During the public comment
period, as suggested in a prior blog, there were speakers for and against
selecting Sadia Saifuddin as student regent due to her anti-Israel activities,
requests by resident docs at UC-Irvine to recognize their union, opposition to
tuition increases for certain nursing/medical professional programs, complaints
by union representatives about increasing pension contributions and about
staffing levels, and a proposal by a student group to divest from fossil fuel
companies.
UC Academic Council chair
Bob Powell made cautionary remarks about state demands for performance
standards, the student/faculty ratio, online education, and the need for
adequate total compensation for faculty.
A presentation from the UC
Staff Assemblies focused particularly on benefits and benefit plan changes.
There was a review of the UC
budget situation and an assertion that the legislature now recognizes its
obligations for the UC pension.
Tuition was raised for
certain nursing and medical professional programs and was set for certain new
tech-oriented programs.
Funding for UCOP was
approved.
Pension contributions were
raised as of July 1, 2014. Employer
contributions were raised to 14% of payroll from 12%. Employees in Tier 1 will have their
contributions raised from 6.5% to 8%.
Employees in Tier 2 would remain at 7%.
Budget measures for the
national labs were approved.
UC, whose credit rating is
better than the state’s, assumed responsibility for certain general obligation
bonds. In effect, the interest rate is
lower for UC because of its better rating which frees up $80 million for the UC
budget in a deal with the state.
It was known that Gov. Brown
would not attend and thus was not present for the vote on the selection of Sadia Saifuddin as student regent, the last
item taken up in the morning session.
The discussion featured support for the appointment from all but one of the Regents who
spoke. However, Regent Blum indicated
major reservations – although he officially abstained rather than opposed the
appointment.
As we have noted in prior posts, we continue to provide an
indefinite audio archive of the regents meetings since regental policy is to
preserve the recordings for only one year.
You can hear the full morning meeting at the link below:
A short-cut to excerpts from President Yudof’s remarking on
MOOCs, bureaucracy, and funding can be heard at:
A short-cut to the student regent appointment is at:
No comments:
Post a Comment