The Regents are meeting next week: Sept. 17-19. The basic agenda is below. The major capital project this time from UCLA
is a $70 million “Phase 2” engineering building opposite the
now-under-construction Grand Hotel. It appears
that one thing leads to another. From
the online documentation for Sept. 17, we learn that “Phase 1 is already under construction; without Phase 2, the site would
be underutilized.” Source: http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/sept13/gb5.pdf. As we have noted many times before, the
Regents never, in the end, turn down a campus capital project. And the Regents have no independent capacity
to examine the case for the buildings proposed or their costs or their
design. So, if the campuses ultimately
do what they want, why do these projects come to the Regents? Alternatively, if the Regents are going to
evaluate capital projects, why don’t they have independent capacity to provide
professional evaluation?
In a closed
session of the Committee on Finance on Sept. 18, the Regents will be discussing
various legal cases. One related to UCLA
is PEOPLE v. LOFCHIE – Appeal of
Dismissal – Felony ; Criminal Charges for Violation of Government Code Section
1090 – Los Angeles. This was a ridiculous
case filed against a faculty member at one time by the local DA who is no
longer in office. It appeared to be done
with last spring but apparently the new DA can’t let go of this and another
case against a faculty member from the old regime. See our last post on this matter: http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2013/04/lofchie-case-dismissed.html.
The Regents are also discussing a case
in which UC shared patent rights with a firm that many in the high-tech world
viewed as a patent troll. A patent claim
by the firm against big name companies such as Google was invalidated by a
court decision. See http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9240968/Patent_firm_Eolas_loses_appeal_in_Web_patents_lawsuit.
The
Committee on Educational Policy seems to be considering some kind of
crowdsourcing way of raising funds for scholarships: Finding
new and creative ways to grow private support for student scholarships has
taken on increasing importance in recent years. With Regental support and
working collaboratively across UC’s campuses, UC Office of the President
External Relations has led the development of Promise for Education, an
innovative, new crowdfunding effort designed to provide additional scholarship
funds for need-based undergraduate scholarships for California students across
the system. Senior Vice President Dooley will provide an update on the
program’s launch and anticipated participation. Source: http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/sept13/e1.pdf.
In an open
session of the Committee on Finance, there will be consideration of a proposal
to integrate employees of Children’s Hospital-Oakland with the UC pension due
to a merger of that hospital and UC-SF. The impact is reported to be “small” on the
pension. One is reminded, however, of
the merger and then un-merger with Stanford hospital. The complications of merging and unmerging
were not small. According to the
document, the merger in this case is not final and not due until the end of
February. Not clear, therefore, why this
has to be on the September agenda. See http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/sept13/f8.pdf.
The Sept. 19
meeting appears to be a tour of Lawrence Livermore Lab, not a regular
discussion session.
Note that we
seem to be in an interim period between UC presidents. At least on the agenda, neither Yudof nor
Napolitano is listed as a participant.
The Agenda:
Tuesday,
September 17
1:00 pm Committee
on Health Services (Regents only session)
1:20 pm Committee
of the Whole (public comment session)
1:40 pm Committee
on Health Services (open session)
3:15 pm Committee
on Grounds and Buildings (Regents only session)
3:30 pm Committee
on Grounds and Buildings (open session)
Wednesday,
September 18
8:30 am Committee
on Finance (Regents only session)
9:15 am Committee
on Compensation (Regents only session)
9:30 am Board
(Regents only session)
9:35 am Committee
on Compensation (closed session)
9:50 am Committee
of the Whole (open session - includes public comment session)
10:30 am Committee
on Educational Policy (open session)
11:50 am Committee
on Compensation (open session)
12:15 Lunch
1:15 pm Committee
on Finance (open session)
3:00 pm Committee
on Compliance and Audit (open session)
3:20 pm Committee
on Governance (open session)
3:45 pm Board
(open session)
Thursday,
September 19
9:30 am Committee
on Oversight of the DOE Laboratories (open session - includes public comment)
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