Asked and Answered for 2023

Given the economic uncertainties in the coming new year, yours truly asked the chatbot, ChatGPT, about strategies to be followed for UC's portion of the state budget. Here's what it said:

What should the University of California due to maximize its budget from the State of California in the event of a recession in 2023?

It is difficult to predict exactly what actions the University of California (UC) should take to maximize its budget in the event of a recession in 2023, as there are many variables at play. However, here are a few potential strategies that the UC could consider:

1) Advocate for increased state funding: The UC can work to lobby the state government for increased funding during the recession, highlighting the importance of higher education and the role that the UC plays in driving economic and social mobility in the state.

2) Explore alternative sources of funding: The UC could consider seeking out alternative sources of funding, such as grants and donations from private foundations or corporations.

3) Manage expenses carefully: In order to stretch its budget further, the UC could consider implementing cost-saving measures, such as reducing non-essential spending, streamlining administrative processes, and optimizing energy use.

4) Increase enrollment: The UC could consider increasing enrollment in order to generate more revenue through tuition and fees. This could involve expanding online programs or recruiting more out-of-state and international students, who often pay higher tuition rates.

5) Partner with other institutions: The UC could consider partnering with other institutions, such as community colleges or private universities, in order to share resources and minimize costs.

Ultimately, the most effective strategy will depend on the specific circumstances of the recession and the priorities of the UC and the state government.

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To hear a computer read the text above, click on the link below:

https://ia601402.us.archive.org/25/items/big-ten/chatbot%20budget.mp3

Tweet: Despite the Lawsuit to Block It, UC-Hastings Name Change Will Occur Tomorrow

 

Click on image to clarify.

Source: https://twitter.com/CapitalAccounts/status/1608982182437195777.

For background on the lawsuit, go to:

http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/11/boutrous-dhillon-and-hastings.html.

===

Hastings

For background on the law changing the name, go to:

http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-end-of-hastings-beginning-of-uc-law.html.

Data on the 33,423 UCLA Undergraduates: Fall 2022

 

Click on table or chart to enlarge and clarify.

Source: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/about-us/information-center/fall-enrollment-glance.

Note the 6-to-4 female/male ratio.

People's Park is Back

Remember the People's Park affair last summer when UC-Berkeley attempted to convert part of the park to student housing? After confrontations - see the video below - the project was stopped and later halted by a court order. The latest developments are reported by the San Francisco Chronicle:

The University of California has committed $312 million to turn Berkeley’s historic People’s Park into housing for about 1,100 students and more than 100 of the homeless people who regularly camp on the 2.8-acre site. The project has won approval from officials in Berkeley, after UC agreed to cover the city’s added costs for police and fire services, and from an Alameda County judge, who said it complies with environmental laws. But while UC Berkeley now provides housing for only 23% of its students, by far the lowest rate in the state system, the project has drawn protests, including from neighborhood groups who want the park preserved as an open space and argue that the university has less-disruptive options to build housing elsewhere. And now a state appeals court, in a preliminary review, says UC Berkeley may have to consider other plans.

The university’s environmental impact report, which concluded that the housing and other planned construction would not cause needless damage, failed to analyze other potential housing sites “that would spare the park from demolition,” the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco said in a tentative ruling on the neighborhood groups’ appeal, which is scheduled for oral arguments on Jan. 12. “There is plenty of evidence that alternative sites exist — the development plan identifies several other university-owned properties as potential student housing sites,” the court wrote.

The court also said the environmental report did not consider some of the impacts of adding 1,100 students to a crowded neighborhood over the next 15 years, including “displacement of existing residents on an area that already suffers from a severe housing shortage,” and more late-night parties and other gatherings on city blocks that have reported a “persistent problem with student-generated noise.” The ruling, if endorsed by the court after the hearing, would halt the project and require the university to conduct a new environmental study.

The tentative ruling, an unusual action by an appellate panel in advance of a hearing, was signed by Presiding Justice Teri Jackson in the name of the court, whose other regular members are Justices Mark Simons and Gordon Burns. Jackson noted that the ruling was “subject to revision” in the court’s final decision, which is due within 90 days of the hearing and could be appealed to the state Supreme Court...

Full story at https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/UC-Berkeley-housing-at-People-s-Park-could-be-17681790.php.

Note that the legislature could step in - as it did with regard to a Berkeley enrollment increase that was blocked by environmental litigation - and override whatever the court eventually says. Whether that scenario would play out in this case is iffy. Enrollment and student housing are related, but not the same thing.  

===

People's Park Video:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i67VCYsNkQ.

===

To hear the text above, click on the link below:

https://ia601402.us.archive.org/25/items/big-ten/tentative%20ruling.mp3

Strike Repercussions: Let's Wait and See

Scene from "American Dream." (See text.)

Sometimes, when big events occur, it's a good idea to take a deep breath before making an instant analysis. Shortly after the student worker contract was ratified, a number of articles appeared emphasizing division within the union locals. Unlike the earlier settlement covering postdocs and researchers, the larger remaining contracts were not ratified with overwhelming votes. Reports appeared in the news media noting dissent on some campuses. Excerpt from SFGATE:

As University of California graduate student union leaders and supporters celebrated... the ratification of a new labor agreement that ended a historic strike, the vote also exposed a sharp divide among campuses. The agreement was approved by separate units of United Auto Workers — with SRU-UAW representing graduate student researchers and UAW 2865 representing teaching assistants, tutors and other student academic workers. Overall, about 68% of graduate student researchers voted in favor of the agreement to secure their first UC contract while about 61% of teaching assistants and other student academic workers voted to approve the agreement.

But teaching assistants and other academic workers at the University of California, Merced, the University of California, Santa Cruz and the University of California, Santa Barbara overwhelmingly rejected the proposed contract while majorities at the UC system’s other campuses voted to approve it. Graduate student researchers at Santa Cruz and Merced also voted against the agreement. At UC Santa Cruz, only about 20% of workers voted in favor of the contracts. At Merced, it was about a quarter of workers...

Full story at https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Vote-by-UC-graduate-student-workers-to-ratify-17676372.php.

Exactly how the internal dissent within the union will play out simply remains to be seen. Yours truly was reminded, however, of tensions within a union back in the 1980s where dissenters split off and went their own way, figuring that they could do better than what their bargaining team had proposed. At a Hormel meatpacking plant where SPAM - the stuff that comes in cans, not computers - was produced, the local there separated from the parent union and went its own way with ultimately unhappy results.

You can see the split occurring the first link below. Below that you can see the full story in the documentary American Dream:

https://archive.org/details/labor-classes/184-Worker+vs+union+leader+perception+of+bargaining+strength.mp4

https://archive.org/details/americandream_201908

Assuming that the strike in fact fully ends at the dissenting campuses - and there are no signs at this point of some kind of wildcat action occurring on those campuses - the differing views will be mediated through internal union political processes. We will have to wait and see how those processes work out. We also don't know how UC or the campuses will respond in terms of the hiring of TAs in the future from state budget funds. We don't know how faculty who raise research grants will respond in terms of the hiring of RAs. We don't know what the general climate of day-to-day labor relations will now be within UC as contract disputes and grievances arise.

In short, the contract is ratified; the repercussions have yet to be felt. Collective bargaining is an ongoing relationship. It doesn't end with a settlement.

===

To hear the text above, click on the link below:

https://ia601402.us.archive.org/25/items/big-ten/wait%20and%20see.mp3

Intersession: Time to Fix

456 Landfair Avenue

The Bruin is reporting unfortunate conditions in some UCLA-owned student apartments. Let's hope during intersession, the needed repairs were made. Excerpt:

...Standing at 456 Landfair Ave., Westwood Chateau looks like a typical university apartment: a brown and tan stucco building, rising four stories tall behind a few mid-sized trees. The property was built in 1986 and last renovated 12 years ago... Students often choose Westwood Chateau because of its proximity to campus and roomier apartments, residents said. But these perks have not made up for the issues they have experienced living in the building.

The Daily Bruin spoke with 11 current residents of Westwood Chateau who alleged multiple health and safety issues in their apartments including toxic mold, cockroaches and scalding shower water temperatures, as well as a pattern of unresponsiveness to residents’ concerns on the part of UCLA Housing. 

“It’s been pretty awful so far,” said Chesca Legaspi, a fourth-year computational and systems biology student. “It’s so dirty and grimy.” ...

Full story at https://dailybruin.com/2022/12/19/straight-up-dangerous-students-in-westwood-chateau-allege-unsafe-conditions. 

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To hear the text above, click on the link below:

https://ia601402.us.archive.org/25/items/big-ten/landfair.mp3

Something for the Quiet Time

Not a lot goes on during the winter break at the university. Yours truly was on campus yesterday to get some things from his office and encountered hardly a soul. But there are educational opportunities available. Although we cover the UCLA Anderson Forecast when it holds its quarterly conferences, you may be unaware that the Forecast also has interim programs available on YouTube - interviews with notable individuals. For example, you might be interested in the interview with UC-Berkeley Professor J. Bradford DeLong on Slouching Towards Utopia, a recent book reviewing the 20th century and why it did not achieve what was technically possible. You can find the link below:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nozPp_t7ytY.

===

To hear the text above [but not the YouTube interview], click on the link below:

https://ia601402.us.archive.org/25/items/big-ten/slouching.mp3

Compare and Contrast/Apples for Mom

Compare and Contrast [click to clarify]

If you're doing any faculty recruitment of folks from the Midwest or Northeast, strike now while the iron is hot here, and cold there. Use yours truly's formula: Put them up at a beachfront hotel in Santa Monica with an ocean view. Drive them to UCLA on San Vicente Boulevard (coral trees) to Sunset Boulevard (views of Bel Air). But do NOT under any circumstances talk about house prices anywhere near these locations! 

And at the link below is another winter's radio tale from Jean Shepherd, circa early 1930s, about the weather elsewhere - in this case Hammond, Indiana. This one, unlike the posting yesterday, does not appear in the movie, A Christmas Story. You'll hear it here, first.

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdZeMgTkRVI.

===

To hear the text above (but not the radio story), click on the link below:

https://ia601402.us.archive.org/25/items/big-ten/weather.mp3.

It pays to have a med school

The federal government accounts for over half of the R&D expenditures in higher ed. And health research accounts for over half of that source. Below is a ranking of higher ed institutions by R&D expenditures:

30 institutions reporting the largest FY 2021 R&D expenditures in all fields: FYs 2019–21 

Click on table to enlarge and clarify.

a Johns Hopkins University includes the Applied Physics Laboratory, with $1,950 million in total R&D expenditures in FY 2021.

b University of Maryland includes expenditures from University of Maryland, Baltimore and University of Maryland, College Park campuses. In FY 2019, the two campuses began reporting as one research unit to reflect their new strategic partnership. 

Source: https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf23303.

Another Holiday-Appropriate Posting

Yesterday, we posted an inspirational tale. Today, we also post a link appropriate to the season.

The 1983 movie, A Christmas Story, became a something of a cult film and is often streamed or played around this time of year. Indeed, some kind of sequel is due out. Often not known is that the movie is a compilation of stories told on the radio in New York by Jean Shepherd. 

So here are links to the original radio version of one scene in the film, the tongue on the telephone pole.

Part 1:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flPekoGPGd0.

============

Part 2:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zk-anf8u-aE.

Systemwide EVP for UC Health Byington stepping down in June

From the Sacramento Bee of December 21st: Dr. Carrie Byington will step down next year from her post as UC Health chief, having led the University of California’s six academic medical centers and 20 health professional schools as they met the initial and ongoing challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. She assumed her position as executive vice president over the division on Oct. 31, 2019, just two months before the respiratory illness took root. She is a pediatrician and had expertise in pediatric infectious diseases that proved invaluable, said UC President Michael V. Drake.

“Fortunately for us her infectious disease and pediatric expertise proved invaluable throughout the pandemic,” Drake said. “She established the UC Health COVID-19 Coordinating Committee which brought together hundreds of faculty researchers, clinicians, and administrators to tackle challenges from testing and monitoring modeling and return-to-campus protocols, to vaccine distribution management, hospital crisis standards of care, and long-COVID treatment.

“This was an amazing body of work. It made a real, tangible difference for us and the people of California and beyond.”

Drake said he will begin a national search for Byington’s successor in January...

Full story at https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/health-and-medicine/article270290422.html.

According to the systemwide website, Byington will continue through the end of the fiscal year. See https://ucnet.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/2022/12/a-message-from-president-drake-about-dr.-carrie-byington-stepping-down-as-evp-of-uc-health.html.

Although the announcement from UCOP is dated December 5, yours truly confesses to have missed it at the time. Apparently, so did the Bee.

====

To hear the text above, please click on the link below:

https://ia601402.us.archive.org/25/items/big-ten/byington.mp3

And finally, a bit of cheer...

And finally, 

         a bit of cheer 

                     for our last posting 

                                                                                              of today:

 

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5mF2TCyS-o.

Nothing Happening

Our weekly look at new weekly claims for California unemployment insurance as a guide to the direction of the economy reveals - nothing. No real change since last week. We're still awaiting the recession that may or may not come. As we have noted in prior posts, the UCLA Anderson Forecast said that maybe it will and maybe it won't.*

As always, new claims data are at https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf.

===

*http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/12/recession-maybe-maybe-not-part-2.html.

Strike News: Additional Developments - Part 12 - IT'S OVER!

The student-worker strike is now officially over after the ratification vote that took place this week. From the LA Times:

University of California graduate student workers on Friday ratified a new labor agreement with big wage gains, support for child care and new protections against bullying and harassment, ending a historic strike that upended fall term finals and has reverberated nationally. In separate votes, two bargaining units of United Auto Workers approved the tentative agreement reached last week with the 10-campus university system — six weeks after 48,000 teaching assistants, tutors, researchers and postdoctoral scholars collectively walked off their jobs in the nation’s largest strike of academic workers.

SRU-UAW’s 17,000 graduate student researchers backed the agreement with 68.4% on a vote of 10,057 to 4,640, securing their first UC contract after forming a union last year. UAW 2865, which represents 19,000 teaching assistants, tutors and other student academic workers, approved the agreement with 61.6% of the votes, 11,386 to 7,097...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-12-23/uc-grad-student-workers-ratify-labor-agreement-end-historic-strike-with-big-wage-gains.

Note that these figures indicate a participation rate in the voting of about 92%.

The official announcement from UC reads in part:

Graduate student researchers and academic student workers at the University of California voted this week to approve new contracts, ending their six-week strike today (Dec. 23). Under the terms of the new contracts, these workers will be among the best supported in public higher education in the country. 

“The University of California welcomes the ratification of these agreements with our valued graduate student employees. The University believed that the assistance of a third-party mediator would help the parties reach agreement, which is why we are so grateful that the union accepted our invitation to mediation and partnered with us in selecting Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg to serve as the mediator,” said Letitia Silas, executive director of systemwide labor relations. “As a result of this collaboration, the parties were ultimately able to reach tentative agreements on the contracts as a whole in just a few days following months of negotiations. The University of California has negotiated several fair labor agreements over the last year with our represented employees. Today’s ratification demonstrates yet again the University’s strong commitment to providing every one of our hardworking employees with competitive compensation and benefit packages that honor their many contributions to our institution, to our community, and to the state of California.”

The new contracts go into effect immediately and will be in place through May 31, 2025...

Full news release at https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/press-room/university-california-graduate-student-workers-end-strike-ratify-three-year-contracts.

Events such as the strike have repercussions. Yours truly has been told that there has been renewed interest in faculty representation. You can join the UCLA Faculty Association at https://uclafa.org/join/. Note that state labor law - following private sector labor law - protects all forms of concerted activity, even apart from formal collective bargaining. Advocacy by faculty groups on behalf of faculty is legally protected. In addition, the longstanding issue of having a faculty regent rather than just an Academic Senate representative also may be raised. 

As we have noted in prior posts, the Regents at recent meetings generally avoided mention of the strike, particularly when informed of the dollar costs of the original demands by the UC president, estimates that were not out of line with numbers from the union side. At the forthcoming January meetings, there may be a fuller discussion of the costs of the actual settlement, particularly because the governor's budget will be out in early January. The governor was apparently instrumental in having Sacramento Mayor Steinberg act as mediator. What he may have said to Steinberg about the state budget outlook for UC is, of course, unknown. It is doubtful, however, that he suggested that the budget for 2023-24 would be bountiful, given the uncertain economic outlook.

The budgetary costs of the strike settlement fall both on the state portion of the UC budget and on funding coming from research grants raised by faculty, particularly on campuses such as UCLA with medical schools. Grant funding does not automatically adjust to higher salary costs. In addition, delays in meeting timelines specified within such grants that the strike may have caused can be problematic for faculty with major grants. In short, the impact of the strike has what might loosely be described as a north campus/south campus divide.

Unlike the previous settlement with postdocs and researchers, the vote in favor of ratification was not overwhelming. There are significant minorities within both local unions who feel the settlement was inadequate. Thus, frictions within the unions may have internal political consequences.

Finally, faculty pay increases in the coming academic and fiscal year will inevitably be compared with increases achieved for student workers by the strike as well as the general rates of inflation. The bottom line is that the strike and its settlement will have ongoing repercussions.

===

*http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/11/student-worker-strike-drags-on.html.

===

To hear the text above, click on the link below:

https://ia601402.us.archive.org/25/items/big-ten/end%20of%20strike.mp3

Complex Systems - Part 3

As faithful blog readers will know, yours truly has been highlighting an IT problem that developed in late September and which wasn't fully resolved apparently until yesterday. We reproduce the entire sequence of emails on the subject from past blog posts to make a point. That point is that complex systems are just that - complicated. And in emergencies, such as the Big One earthquake that will someday arrive, they will fail. In such an event, your cellphone won't work. Anything related to the internet won't work. The VoIP system that is replacing the old landline phone system at UCLA won't work - regardless of the assurances you may have heard. The power will be off, as it was in the Northridge quake (which did not, however, disable the old landline phone system). 

UCLA used to have a low-powered AM radio station for emergency announcements which seems to have been abandoned. That station, so long as it had back-up power - which presumably it did, would have worked for emergency information. Note that radios - often crank operated - are commonly part of earthquake kits. Most cars also have battery-powered radios. So, why was the station abandoned?

It's all something to think about in the rubble when the Big One happens or now while you enjoy your holiday break. Here is the promised sequence:

Excerpt from first email dated September 27:

There is currently an issue with UCLA’s wireless network that is impacting the entire UCLA campus. Central Campus IT is aware of the issue and is working toward a resolution. More information will be provided as soon as it becomes available.

Excerpt from second email dated September 28:

UCLA Central Campus IT is still working with engineers to identify and resolve the intermittent connectivity issues with the campus wireless network. More information will be provided as soon as it becomes available. Thank you for your patience.

Excerpt from third email dated September 29:

Update from UCLA Central Campus IT:

eduroam IP address shortage

Members of the UCLA community reported that they were unable to connect to the eduroam network. Network Services identified that the eduroam IP address space was reaching capacity. We have expanded the IP address space to resolve this issue.

MyUCLA access on the campus residential network (i.e. The Hill)

Members of the campus residential community reported that the UCLA_WEB or UCLA_WIFI networks were experiencing difficulty when loading ucla.edu websites. A resolution has been applied and UCLA_WEB and UCLA_WIFI networks should now be able to access all ucla.edu websites.

Intermittent campus wireless network connectivity

Members of the UCLA community reported an issue on the campus wireless network where users are able to successfully connect to the wireless network and appear as connected on their device, but after a period of time websites will stop loading. The outage period has been observed as three to four minutes but can sometimes be longer. IT Services is currently testing the network to identify the root cause and resolve this issue.

Please report current campus wireless network issues (specifically date/time of outage, building/room, and the time of the class e.g. 11:00 a.m. to 11:50 a.m.) to IT Services.

Excerpt from fourth email dated September 30:

Update from UCLA Central Campus IT:

Intermittent Campus Wireless Network Connectivity

Members of the UCLA community reported an issue on the campus wireless network where users are able to successfully connect to the wireless network and appear as connected on their device, but after a period of time websites will stop loading. The outage period has been observed as three to four minutes but can sometimes be longer. Our wireless network manufacturer, Aruba, has confirmed the current issue is limited to Apple devices with the M1 processor, and there are currently no workarounds from the network side. Aruba is working with Apple toward a resolution and will continue to be involved in active troubleshooting until this issue is resolved. IT Services is also actively working to determine workarounds or mitigation measures that can be implemented.

Based on our systems logs, we can estimate that as many as 10% of campus wireless users are impacted; however, the issue remains intermittent for those users. 

Excerpt from fifth email dated October 5:

Updates from UCLA Central Campus IT:

Apple Wireless Connectivity

Following our daily call with Apple and Aruba, Apple is continuing to review logs that have been provided to them. They will also be sending an engineer to campus on Thursday to collect data to distribute to Apple engineering. Apple has informed us we should have a response from them within 24 hours. Thank you for your patience as IT Services works to resolve these issues. Please report current campus wireless network issues (specifically date/time of outage, building/room, and the time of the class e.g. 11:00 a.m. to 11:50 a.m.) to IT Services using the Wireless Network Issues Form. 

Thank you for your patience as IT Services works to resolve these issues. Please report current campus wireless network issues (specifically date/time of outage, building/room, and the time of the class e.g. 11:00 a.m. to 11:50 a.m.) to IT Services using the Wireless Network Issues Form.

Excerpt from sixth email dated October 10:

Update from UCLA Central Campus IT:

Intermittent Campus Wireless Network Connectivity

We would like to report a potential workaround to the connectivity issues. Initial testing with Bluetooth disabled seems to have relieved the wireless connectivity issue. We also noticed an increase in bandwidth with the Bluetooth radio disabled. ITS is continuing to test this but is recommending disabling Bluetooth as a workaround until a permanent solution is available.

Thank you for your patience as IT Services works to resolve these issues. Please report current campus wireless network issues (specifically date/time of outage, building/room, and the time of the class, e.g. 11:00 a.m. to 11:50 a.m.) to IT Services using the Wireless Network Issues Form.

Excerpt from seventh email dated November 17:

Thank you for your patience. Below is a summary from UCLA Central Campus IT.

Intermittent Campus Wireless Network Connectivity

Apple has confirmed that the problem is on their end.  They're working on developing a fix to push into the next code release for Ventura (13.1).

Apple has had several engineers on campus over the last few weeks testing different firmware builds / beta releases side-by-side with vanilla 13.0 as a baseline.

Apple has not shared any detailed information about the problem to date.  Engineers we've been in direct contact with have been forthcoming about what they know.  It's not clear if Apple will share root cause information or not.

Apple has pushed what they believe is a fix into one of the 13.1 beta releases (beta 2, 22C5044e) and has had positive results testing that release on campus.  Our testing shows overall performance improvements, but some testers have reported that there are still occasionally dropouts.

Until Apple has provided a permanent resolution for the issue, IT Services recommends disabling Bluetooth and set Airdrop to “Allow me to be discovered by: No One”.

Excerpt from eighth email dated December 2:

Update from UCLA Central Campus IT:

Apple Engineering has released an updated Beta Seed to address the peer-to-peer issue affecting Wi-Fi connectivity for Apple MacBook M1/M2 devices and Apple Mobiles devices.  IT Services will be assisting Apple with rigorous testing next week to provide testing results.  As we await a permanent resolution, Apple is still recommending the following workaround for Apple devices:

Disable Bluetooth

Set Airdrop to "Allow me to be discovered by: No One"

Step-by-step instructions for updating these settings can be found within our Knowledgebase.

Excerpt from ninth email dated December 12

Happy holidays and I hope you have a wonderful break.

Below is an update from UCLA Central Campus IT:

Apple has promoted the latest macOS Beta to a Release Candidate, addressing the peer-to-peer issue affecting Wi-Fi connectivity for Apple MacBook M1/M2 devices and Apple Mobiles devices.  All testing with both the Beta and Release Candidate has been positive and IT Services, Apple, and other campus entities have not been able to reproduce the issue.  We will provide another update once we are notified of an official release of macOS 13.1.

Please note, we have been made aware that the official resolution will only be addressed in macOS Ventura.

And finally, excerpt from email dated December 22:

Dear Bruin Community:

Thank you for your patience as we’ve worked through issues affecting campus Wi-Fi connectivity on some Apple devices.

IT Services is pleased to share that Apple has confirmed the release of an update to address the peer-to-peer issue affecting Wi-Fi connectivity for Apple MacBook M1/M2 devices and Apple Mobile devices. We apologize that it has taken so long to provide resolution on this issue with Apple. 

To resolve the issue, you will need to update your device as follows:

• Update your Mac to macOS Ventura 13.1.

• Update your iPhone or iPad to iOS/iPadOS 16.2.

If you are unable to update to macOS Ventura 13.1 or iOS/iPadOS 16.2 due to software or hardware incompatibility, you can install Security Updates for your current OS to address the Wi-Fi connectivity issue. 

For more details regarding Operating System versions that address the Wi-Fi connectivity issue or assistance with updating your device, please contact the IT Support Center.

===

To hear the text above in a computer generated voice that will struggle with some of the jargon, click on the link below:

https://ia601402.us.archive.org/25/items/big-ten/final%20resolution.mp3

Recession? Maybe; Maybe Not? - Part 2

We reported on the UCLA Anderson Forecast in an earlier post.* There were some audio-visual technical problem in the original Forecast online program. But these issues seem now to have been corrected and the conference can be seen at the link below:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi2KbLk0YO0.

===

*http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/12/recession-maybe-maybe-not.html.

Public Service Announcement from Yours Truly

You know this is a scam, right? E in EDD with a tilda. Odd word usage. Weird web address. Lots of these text messages about cancelling bank accounts, credit cards, etc., seem to be floating around these days. If you answer such messages, prepare to lose your life savings. Or better still, just delete them.

Words to the Wise (are still not coming from Stanford)

On Tuesday, we posted about Stanford's Bad Word list.* As we noted, the very long list of words and phrases to avoid simply served to play into the stereotype of academia gone off the rails. (I checked the list and use of the phrase "off the rails" is apparently OK.) As we also noted, although the Bad Word list was initially available to anyone on a Stanford website, when it began to circulate and attracted first social media - then main stream news media - attention, it was put behind a password. By that time, the Wall Street Journal had re-posted it at an open website for all to see - and mock.**

With the public relations situation slipping out of control, apparently Stanford executives went into a "war room" (Whoops! -  I should have said "situation room" because "war room" entails "unnecessary use of violent language" according to the list) to figure out what to do. They fixated on "American" being listed as a Bad Word and came up with a response, announced with a tweet yesterday:

Source: https://twitter.com/stanford/status/1605709699395223552.

The tweet leads you to the statement reproduced below:

Update on Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative in Stanford’s IT Community

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2022

Over the last couple of days, there has been much discussion of a website that provides advice for the IT community at Stanford about word choices in Stanford websites and code. This message seeks to provide clarification about some of the issues discussed.

First and importantly, the website does not represent university policy. It also does not represent mandates or requirements. The website was created by, and intended for discussion within, the IT community at Stanford. It provides “suggested alternatives” for various terms, and reasons why those terms could be problematic in certain uses. Its aspiration, and the reason for its development, is to support an inclusive community.

We have particularly heard concerns about the guide’s treatment of the term “American.” We understand and appreciate those concerns. To be very clear, not only is the use of the term “American” not banned at Stanford, it is absolutely welcomed. The intent of this particular entry on the EHLI website was to provide perspective on how the term may be imprecise in some specific uses, and to show that in some cases the alternate term “US citizen” may be more precise and appropriate. But, we clearly missed the mark in this presentation.

This guide for the university’s IT community is undergoing continual review. The spirit behind it, from the beginning, has been to be responsive to feedback and to consider adjustments based on that feedback. We value the input we have been hearing, from a variety of perspectives, and will be reviewing it thoroughly and making adjustments to the guide.

Sincerely,

Steve Gallagher

Chief Information Officer

Stanford University

Source: https://itcommunity.stanford.edu/news/update-elimination-harmful-language-initiative-stanfords-it-community.

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Again, the problem here - although not really for a wealthy private university such as Stanford - is that by playing into the stereotype of academia being composed of a) "snowflakes," and b) a center of Orwellian "newspeak" thought and language control - it damages an entire sector of society. The damage comes at a time - as we pointed out earlier - when public approval is falling. Many higher ed institutions are not as wealthy as Stanford and/or are located in states where the climate for academia is more difficult than it is in California. 

When you cut through to the main point of the announcement - that "the website does not represent university policy" - you get to the main problem. The simple fact of life is that anything posted on an official university website, even with disclaimers, will likely be perceived by the general public as "university policy."  

Modern technology makes it possible for folks who have thoughts about language or anything else to post them on various social media sites, just as in the past (or now), one might write a letter to the editor, an op ed, or give a talk at a conference. If Stanford's "IT community" had held its discussions in forums other than on the Stanford website, the discussions might have still been criticized by outside commentators. But the damage to academia as a whole would have been much more limited.

What Stanford's chief information officer could have done would be to apologize that some internal musings of individuals about language usage were posted in a place and in a way that made them seem more than what they were. 

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*http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/12/words-to-wise-didnt-come-from-stanford.html.

**https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/stanfordlanguage.pdf.

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To hear the text above, click on the link below: 

https://ia601402.us.archive.org/25/items/big-ten/more%20on%20words.mp3

The Saga of UC-Santa Barbara's Dormzilla Continues

We have been following the saga of the Munger Monster Dorm at Santa Barbara: "Dormzilla":

http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/11/shortening.html

http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/08/more-on-munger-monster-dorm.html

http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/06/remember-santa-barbaras-monster-dorm.html

http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/02/it-may-be-hard-to-remember.html

and many more. For the latest, we have video - with appropriate Godzilla music:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53qlO9TH8gg.

Strike News: Additional Developments - Part 11 (Intercampus Frictions)

We are in the midst of the ratification vote on the proposed contract to settle the student-worker strike. The voting will conclude this week. If ratified, the strike will end. If not, bargaining would resume, although there is no guarantee that such bargaining would lead to a settlement. Since the bargaining team for the union is strongly recommending a "yes" vote, a rejection by the membership would undermine that team. 

However, there is some dissent, apparently based on intercampus tensions. From the Santa Cruz Lookout:

UC Santa Cruz academic worker union leadership is urging members to reject a tentative agreement between the University of California and the union representing 36,000 academic workers systemwide. The majority of bargaining team members of two units (teaching assistants/graders/tutors and student researchers) represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW) voted Friday to accept the UC’s offer — one week into mediation coordinated by Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg. However, all of the members and alternates of the bargaining teams from UC Santa Cruz, as well as the UC Merced and UC Santa Barbara campuses, in addition to members from UC San Diego and UC Riverside, voted against the deal.

Those members and team alternates, who are launching a campaign to vote “no,” wrote in a statement that they oppose the agreement because the base pay and child care subsidies aren’t enough for all workers and a long-haul strike is still needed... UCSC union leaders say another concern is that the agreement includes higher pay for union members at UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC San Francisco than those at UCSC and other campuses...

The base wage proposals for UAW 2865 apply to all 10 campuses but Berkeley, Los Angeles and San Francisco... were offered slightly higher increases... 

(Jess) Fournier (an alternate bargaining-team member of UAW 2865) said the disparity is concerning and that Steinberg didn’t provide clarity as to why those campuses received higher pay. “It’s not linked to the cost of living and I think that’s very important to know — clearly Santa Cruz should be there if this is about being a high-cost campus,”... “Ultimately what we feel is that this is the UC trying to offer unequal pay for equal work to the higher-prestige, flagship campuses of S.F., Berkeley and L.A.” ...

Full story at https://lookout.co/santacruz/ucsc-cabrillo/story/2022-12-20/university-california-strike-following-tentative-agreement-between-academic-workers-and-uc-uc-santa-cruz-union-leaders-encourage-no-vote.

We will see...

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To hear the text above, click on the link below:

https://ia801402.us.archive.org/25/items/big-ten/frictions.mp3

Words to the Wise (Didn't Come from Stanford)

 

Stanford posted something call the "Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative" on its website. It was available to anyone with the link. Essentially, it was a list - a very, very, very long list - of forbidden words. Just to give you a flavor of it, the phrase "trigger warning" is listed as a Bad Thing because "the phrase can cause stress about what's to follow. Additionally, one can never know what may or may not trigger a particular person." You are instead to substitute "content note." (Oddly, the use of "trigger" as a verb is OK despite it's gun-related image.) See below:

Click on image above to clarify.

When yours truly first saw the list this past Sunday, he first thought it might be a Sasha Baron Cohen-type joke, a parody, something like the fictional Professor Dr. Nira Cain-N’Degeocello, ostensibly from Reed College, who arrives on a bicycle wearing an NPR T-shirt and beads.* 

Dr. Nira Cain-N’Degeocello

Apparently, Stanford's bad word list goes back several years but the link began to circulate recently after a posting [at https://itcommunity.stanford.edu/ehli] on an official Stanford website. Once it began to circulate and attract external critical commentary, Stanford quickly put it behind a password. However, as might be expected, by then, the Wall Street Journal had captured the bad word list and re-posted it for anyone to see:

https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/stanfordlanguage.pdf. 

As you might also expect, it came with an editorial (that got picked up in other news sources):

Parodists have it rough these days, since so much of modern life and culture resembles the Babylon Bee.** The latest evidence is that Stanford University administrators in May published an index of forbidden words to be eliminated from the school’s websites and computer code, and provided inclusive replacements to help re-educate the benighted.

Call yourself an “American”? Please don’t. Better to say “U.S. citizen,” per the bias hunters, lest you slight the rest of the Americas. “Immigrant” is also out, with “person who has immigrated” as the approved alternative. It’s the iron law of academic writing: Why use one word when four will do?

You can’t “master” your subject at Stanford any longer; in case you hadn’t heard, the school instructs that “historically, masters enslaved people.” And don’t dare design a “blind study,” which “unintentionally perpetuates that disability is somehow abnormal or negative, furthering an ableist culture.” Blind studies are good and useful, but never mind; “masked study” is to be preferred. Follow the science.

“Gangbusters” is banned because the index says it “invokes the notion of police action against ‘gangs’ in a positive light, which may have racial undertones.” Not to beat a dead horse (a phrase that the index says “normalizes violence against animals”), but you used to have to get a graduate degree in the humanities to write something that stupid.

The Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative is a “multi-phase” project of Stanford’s IT leaders. The list took “18 months of collaboration with stakeholder groups” to produce, the university tells us. We can’t imagine what’s next, except that it will surely involve more make-work for more administrators, whose proliferation has driven much of the rise in college tuition and student debt. For 16,937 students, Stanford lists 2,288 faculty and 15,750 administrative staff.

The list was prefaced with (to use another forbidden word) a trigger warning: “This website contains language that is offensive or harmful. Please engage with this website at your own pace.”

Evidently it was all too much for some at the school to handle. On Monday, after the index came to light on social media, Stanford hid it from public view. Without a password, you wouldn’t know that “stupid” made the list.

Source: https://archive.vn/YJWo7#selection-279.0-547.222.

Here's the basic problem. The Stanford bad word list feeds every stereotype on the right of academic "wokeness." Maybe that image doesn't matter for wealthy private institutions such as Stanford. Maybe that image doesn't matter for UC in politically "blue" California. But it matters for many other public institutions in other locations and it matters for many private higher ed institutions without Stanford's wealth. There has been much attention paid of late to declining public confidence in higher ed, doubts about the worth of a college degree, etc., with a sharp divide on political lines:

Public confidence in higher education’s ability to lead America in a positive direction has sunk steeply in recent years, falling 14 percentage points just since 2020. Two years ago, more than two-thirds of Americans said colleges were having a positive effect on the country, according to a survey conducted by New America. In the most recent version of the survey, released Tuesday, barely half agreed. As with other recent public-opinion polling, New America’s findings reveal a yawning partisan gap. While nearly three-quarters of Democrats saw higher education’s contributions in a positive light, just 37 percent of Republicans did...

Full story at https://www.chronicle.com/article/americans-confidence-in-higher-ed-drops-sharply.

Of course, folks are free to put up lists of bad words - or anything else that flickers through their minds - as individuals. But when such items appear on official university websites, they create ripple effects, negative externalities. Words do matter, particularly those that seem to speak for a major university and which are inevitably seen as representing all of higher education. Think before you post on official university websites.

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*(Sasha) Baron Cohen in the TV series "Who Is America?" kept Reed in the dark and apparently went to semi-great lengths to create a digital footprint... ahead of his interviews. The professor’s Twitter bio identifies him as “Dr. Nira Cain-N’Degeocello, Proud Democrat. Lecturer on Gender Studies at Reed College. Co-Principal at Wildfields Poly-Ed. Stay at home Male Mom.” And according to Amazon, Cain is the self-published author of Being Food: Living Life in the Food Chain, Immoral Toddlers, The Freedom Illusion and The Third Gender: A Collection of Essays. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/07/16/talk-show-host-says-sacha-baron-cohen-posed-reed-professor-new-show-american. To see a clip: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doHkeXK8BXs.

**A parody fake news website: https://babylonbee.com/.

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To hear the text above, click on the link below:

https://ia601402.us.archive.org/25/items/big-ten/bad%20words.mp3

New Department

From a recent UCLA news release:

As they look ahead to the end of their senior years, both Desirae Barragan (Gabrieleno Band of Mission Indians) and Lorraine Mazzetti (Rincon Band of Luiseño Indians) have a lot to be proud of — including the news that UCLA’s American Indian studies interdepartmental program will become a full-fledged department.

“Many generations of Native Bruins, including myself, have provided their voices, energy and advocacy efforts to prove the need to departmentalize American Indian studies,” said Barragan, who is double majoring in American Indian studies and human biology and society. “As a Gabrieleno student studying on my ancestral homelands, it is an absolute privilege to be the first of my tribal community to be graduating from UCLA this spring.”

Said Mazzetti, who is double majoring in American Indian studies and political science: “I’m very excited that American Indian studies is becoming a department. American Indian studies has given me the space to talk about my experiences living on the reservation and to learn about other Native students’ experiences in a single classroom.”

The goal is eventually to increase the Native student, faculty and staff populations while deepening UCLA’s commitment to research and scholarship into Indigenous studies. The change to department status marks a transformation from the program that created one of the world’s first master’s degrees in American Indian studies in 1982 and draws its roots from UCLA’s American Indian Studies Center, which was established in 1969.

“I’ve been the American Indian studies chair off and on for nearly 30 years, and this has been a goal for as long as I can remember. To say I’m delighted would be an understatement,” said Paul Kroskrity, interim chair of American Indian studies and professor of anthropology. “This represents a reprioritization by UCLA and the UC system to do the best job they can for Native American students and the field itself. I’m proud we can build this department in the proper way.” ...

Full release at https://www.college.ucla.edu/2022/12/15/ucla-establishes-department-of-american-indian-studies.

Note: For somewhat related information on the local Native American population, go to the link below:

https://archive.org/details/ucla-emeriti-retirees-afternoon-program-goldberg-on-the-tongva-april-2021.

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To hear the text above, click on the link below:

https://ia601402.us.archive.org/25/items/big-ten/department.mp3

Pause?

Our weekly tracking of new weekly claims for unemployment insurance in California suggests a pause in the slow upward march of new claims (apart from the short Thanksgiving week). We'll keep watching. 

As always, the latest claims data are at https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf.

Strike News: Additional Developments - Part 10 (Ratification Vote)

The two UAW local unions that reached a tentative settlement with UC on Friday have released a more detailed summary of the proposed contract than appeared in earlier news accounts. We reproduce some of it below:

On December 16th, the Academic Student Employee [ASE] & Student Researcher bargaining teams have voted to tentatively agree to UC’s mediated proposals and to recommend them to the membership for a ratification vote...

After ten months of bargaining and five weeks of striking, workers have finally secured agreements that contain record-setting wage increases – the largest-ever increases for any unionized higher-education workers. If ratified, this contract would make us the highest paid graduate student workers at any public university in the country.

The agreements also contain breakthroughs in new areas like the first-ever contractual transit benefits at UC, the first-ever inclusion of NRST [nonresident supplemental tuition] and dependent healthcare after years of demanding both, and industry-standard-setting protections against abusive conduct.

Highlights from the Tentative Agreement are as follows:

Wages: ...2023 and 2024 increases, with 55-80% increases for ASEs and 25-80% increases for GSRs [Graduate Student Researchers] by 2024.

Childcare: A 27% increase to childcare subsidies, increasing from $1,100/quarter ($1,650/semester) to $1,350/quarter ($2,025/semester) in Winter 2023; to $1,400/quarter ($2,100/semester) in 2024.

Dependent Healthcare: first-ever remission of dependent healthcare through UC academic worker contracts, limited to single-parents or single-income households that fall above the free Medi-Cal coverage threshold... 

Paid Leave and Time Off: 8 weeks of fully paid parental leave for birthing and non-birthing parents, 8 weeks of disability or medical related leave, and additional guaranteed paid time off for GSRs. This is up from 6 weeks for birthing parents and 4 weeks for non-birthing parents and all other cases.

Fee Remission: A new waiver of 100% of all campus fees, which can be up to $1,617 per year; Codifying the 3-year post-candidacy NRST waiver in the contract, so that it cannot be threatened or taken away. This would be the first ever NRST-related contract language, and would make this waiver enforceable through our grievance procedure. 

Immigration: Protections for re-employment related to work authorization issues and guaranteed immigration-related leaves.

Non-Discrimination and Anti-Bullying: First-ever protections from discrimination and harassment at work for GSRs with guaranteed interim measures; industry standard-setting protections from bullying and abusive conduct in the workplace, also with guaranteed interim measures while investigations are ongoing... 

Access Needs: First-ever contractual protections to improve accessibility for GSRs and improved rights for meeting ASEs’ access needs via interim accommodations and a worker committee to establish proactive accessibility measures, including centralized funding... 

Health and Safety and Workers Compensation: GSRs now have protections against unhealthy or unsafe work environments, the right to refuse unsafe work, and the right to benefit from Workers Compensation; ASEs maintained their strong rights to a healthy and safe workplace.

Parking and Transit: First-ever guaranteed transit benefits in the contract, including a commitment from UC to provide fully-funded transit passes at all campuses, and transit benefits of up to $50/month at campuses that do not yet have passes.

Appointment Security: GSRs have guaranteed appointments that cannot be taken away, and ASEs maintained their strong appointment security rights.

Job Security: GSRs would have protections from unjust discipline and layoffs for the first time, and ASEs maintained their strong job security protections.

Workload: ASEs maintained strong workload protections and GSRs won protections from work beyond their appointments and an expedited process to resolve workload disputes.

Recognition and Classifications: Every campus can now use higher paid TA job titles, meaning more opportunities for higher salaries. GSRs, Fellows and Trainees maintained their hard-fought recognition agreement. Old ASE misclassifications are no longer permitted.

Union Rights: Improved union security with a streamlined process for joining the union during onboarding processes

Grievance and Arbitration: An improved process to address the University’s procedural objections to grievances for ASEs and the first-ever enforceable recourse for GSRs in workplace disputes.

Full item with links to explainers at https://www.fairucnow.org/ta-summary/.

Will the proposed contract be ratified? There are definitely some folks grumbling about the pay component on Twitter. However, the local unions seem to be actively promoting the deal. There is always the danger of raising expectations beyond the bargaining possibilities available. On the other hand, the fact that the postdocs and researchers have already concluded and ratified their deal with UC sets a precedent. Apparently, most strikers have continued to receive pay, thanks in part to UC's clunky payroll system. But presumably, UC will eventually figure out how to turn off its payroll machine. And, we are now in a dead period - intersession - so a contract rejection would likely not result in anything new anytime soon. All of these considerations suggest that ratification is likely. 

We also have noted that there was a flurry of interest at the Regents about purchasing or building apartment houses near campuses that could be rented at below-market rates, thus directly addressing the high costs of housing at particular campuses.* That discussion was not explicitly related to the strike - but it does suggest a possible longer-term strategy for dealing with living costs.

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*http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/12/strike-news-additional-developments_11.html; http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/11/watch-regents-afternoon-meeting-of-nov.html.

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To hear the text above, click on the link below: 

https://ia601402.us.archive.org/25/items/big-ten/contract%20components.mp3