Listen to the UC Regents Morning Meeting of 7-17-2013

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.)

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: