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Monday, November 22, 2021

Watch the Regents Session of Nov. 18, 2021

Our prior post noted the announcement at the Regents meeting last Thursday, Nov. 18, that boosters would be required at UC. The full board meeting of that day is discussed below:

At the public comments session, remarks were delivered on staff pay, fossil fuel, labor issues, the transfer process, nurse staffing, student regent-designate voting, the Hawaiian telescope, request for a City of Riverside service fee, and UC-Riverside's long-range development plan. 

The Daily Cal describes the rest of the meeting below. Note that the discussion of not using an alternative test for admissions is at 1:29 (hour one; minute 29) to 2:03 (hour two; minute 3) in the bottom link on this posting:

Executive Vice President of UC Health Carrie Byington reported that 99.15% of UC students and 97.2% of UC employees are currently fully vaccinated, in compliance with the systemwide vaccine mandate. When asked about suggestions for students travelling during the upcoming Thanksgiving break, Byington advised campuses to strengthen testing infrastructure and ensure the testing of all students upon their return to campus.

The regents also discussed the findings of the Presidential Working Group on Artificial Intelligence, a group established to create responsible principles for and assess the potential risks of using AI in the university’s operations.

The university received a record number of applications this past year, leading to conversations about potentially using AI in the admissions process, according to Brandie Nonnecke, founding director of UC Berkeley’s CITRIS Policy Lab. However, Nonnecke provided a “cautionary tale,” in which an AI system used in the University of Texas at Austin admissions office was found to be discriminatory against applicants from underrepresented groups, as the algorithm based its decisions on historical datasets that had ingrained biases. The working group recommended a series of principles to be institutionalized, including transparency, reliability, nondiscrimination and shared benefit and prosperity.

The last discussion item in the regents’ morning session surrounded the elimination of the standardized testing requirement in UC admissions. In January 2021, President Drake requested that the Academic Senate investigate the potential use of the Smarter Balanced assessment in place of the ACT and SAT, which were used in previous years. The Academic Senate’s Smarter Balanced Study Group concluded it does not recommend the Smarter Balanced assessment to be used in the UC undergraduate admissions process, according to Mary Gauvain, co-chair of the group and chair of the UC Academic Senate. “Converting (the Smarter Balanced Assessment) from a low stakes to high stakes assessment would lead to the development of testing centers, which would exacerbate inequity,” Gauvain said during the meeting. President Drake noted the recent surge of applicants from more diverse backgrounds, which he attributed to the elimination of the standardized test requirement. Student Regent Alexis Atsilvsgi Zaragoza added that the UC is becoming a national leader and an example for other universities in terms of admission requirements.

At the following joint session of the Academic and Student Affairs Committee and the Finance and Capital Strategies Committee, UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood presented to the UC Board of Regents a detailed look at how the UCSF campus is aligning its long-term institutional goals with its financial plan. During the presentation, Hawgood highlighted the campus’ three major capital projects, its success in philanthropy, its community investment program and a new educational partnership with UC Merced. The presentation was part of a series in which the regents will look closely at one campus at a time. “I think there’s lots to celebrate and lots to look forward to,” Regent Lark Park said at the end of the meeting.

As always, we preserve the recording of the meeting since the Regents deletes their recordings after one year for no apparent reason. You can see the meeting at:

https://archive.org/details/regents-board-11-18-21.

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