Listen to the Regents' Afternoon Sessions of Sept. 16, 2020

We'll now go back to the Regents meeting of last Wednesday afternoon (Sept. 16) which featured meetings of the Governance Committee, Academic and Students Affairs, and Finance and Capital Strategies.

The Governance Committee was a routine approval of various items heard in closed session, notably pay for the chief investment officer. In Academic and Student Affairs, there was initial discussion of racial issues and then the meeting largely turned to discussion of the impact of the coronavirus crisis on student learning. 

There was a cautionary note by one regent about the Learning Management Systems (LMS) offered by various commercial providers. A suggestion was made that if UC, CSU, and the community colleges bargained in coordination with such a provider, more leverage could be had. (Exactly how much value such systems add was not evaluated.) 

Finally, there was related discussion of the A-G course requirements for entrance into UC in high school. UC has a program, which includes an online component, called UC Scout which is supposed to supplement or aid offerings by school districts.

In Finance and Capital Strategies, some projects were given routine approval. However, a dorm project at UC-San Diego - the theater district project - ran into trouble, with Regents' questions somewhat reminiscent of what went on when UCLA proposed its Grand Hotel.  Apparently, the project is located near the La Jolla Playhouse. There were questions about financing including about the general financial condition of the campus. Documents given to the Regents included confusing exhibits with tables which didn't seem to add up. Concerns were raised about the potential litigation from neighborhood groups that were opposed. 

Committee chair Makarechian said he could not vote for the project, given current documentation. He suggested that clearer documentation be provided at the next meeting of the Regents in November. UC-SD's chancellor said that if the approval was delayed by two months, the project would be set back a year. That assertion was debated. Finally, it was agreed that the campus and UCOP should come back to the next day's meeting with a figure of what it would cost to keep the project intact until November and it would be approved.

Another UC-SD ran into trouble as well. It involved the creation of a shell corporation that would allow a UC-SD extension building to benefit from a federal tax credit. Several Regents found the device to be an unseemly gimmick and abstained. However, the endorsement by the committee passed.

You can hear the various committee meetings at the link below:

https://archive.org/details/governance-committee-academic-and-student-affairs-committee-9-16-20

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We again note 1) a change in the Blogger system does not allow embedding of a player, although the link above will take you to the site of the recordings, and 2) we provide audios of the meetings because the Regents preserve their recordings for only one year. There is no apparent reason why they cannot preserve them indefinitely. The one time yours truly inquired about the one-year policy he was told that the Regent do it because CSU does it. (Perhaps CSU does it because the Regents do it.)