Watch the Regents Meetings of July 21, 2022

We continue with out discussion of what happened at the Regents last week, albeit a week late in the case of this post. Links to the recordings are provided below, since the Regents delete their recordings after one year.

At the second day of the Regents meetings last week, public comments included undocumented students and SB 1141 (in-state tuition and other matters),* fossil fuels, the proposed Munger Hall at UC-Santa Barbara, abortion, etc., at affiliated Catholic hospitals, and labor relations matters. 

After various statements by student leaders and the chair of the UC Staff Association, the Regents voted to replace Anne Shaw - who has now retired as Chief of Staff to the Regents - with an interim chief: Tricia Lyall. (The Chief of Staff is the person you see at meetings who calls the roll, etc.)

There was considerable discussion of increasing enrollment. As we noted in a posting yesterday, one option is the creation of satellite campuses for those that are space-constrained.** In particular, there was discussion of UCLA by Chancellor Block; UCLA is definitely among the space-constrained campuses. In his presentation on how UCLA plans to expand enrollment, Block listed:

-Making the summer session into a real summer quarter, albeit with modifications in recognition there would be need to modify the quarter through such measures as online courses and scheduling at off-hours.

-Adding a satellite campus.

-Creating internships in the LA area.

-A "program" - but not a satellite campus - in downtown LA.

Later in the discussion, he was asked by Regents Chair Leib (who was Zooming in because of COVID), where the satellite for UCLA might be located. He mentioned Santa Clarita - where there are already archives - and San Pedro (the Port of LA) and perhaps the AltaSea project (mentioned by Leib) - but said the buildings at AltaSea are in bad shape.

When yours truly Googled AltaSea, he found a lot of puffery (with pretty pictures of buildings that don't seem in bad shape), some kind of connection between AltaSea and USC, and no clear information on what the AltaSea organization really is, who or what is paying for it, etc.

Since UCLA's plans may be of special interest to blog readers, below is a video of 1) Block's presentation to the Regents on enrollment expansion, and 2) the Leib-Block interchange on a UCLA satellite campus.

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7RrOXWHExM.

There was finally discussion of COVID and, in particular, COVID policy at UC-San Diego. It was said that expert opinion is now that herd immunity cannot be achieved because the immunity given either by actual infection or vaccination wears off too quickly. 

Links to the videos of the July 21st sessions are below:

Full program: https://archive.org/details/3-board-7-21-2022.

Board: https://archive.org/details/3-board-7-21-2022/3-Board+7-21-2022.mp4.

Health Services, Governance, Board: https://archive.org/details/3-board-7-21-2022/3-Health+Services+Committee%2C+Governance+Committee%2C+Board.mp4.

Note: The scheduled joint meeting of Academic and Student Affairs Committee and Finance and Capital Strategies Committee was postponed to a later meeting.

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*SB 1141 is at https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB1141 and refers to CSU and the community colleges. It does not directly affect UC, but has features that may facilitate transfers to UC.

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**http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/07/satellite-uc-campuses.html.

Note: Prof. David Saltzberg of Physics and Astronomy won our name-that-satellite contest yesterday with the correct answer: Telstar. Telstar was the first satellite that could transmit live TV pictures, allowing instant communication from abroad for 18 minutes when it passed overhead. (It was not geostationary so pictures were transmitted only in that interval.) Telstar was such a wonder that there was a major demonstration of it on US and European TV with images of the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower shown live. For the history:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgplIWibv4Q/

A hit record - Telstar - was one result of this public interest:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZybJPO3WYs.

Because the hit record was instrumental, someone added words and various versions under the name "Magic Star" also became popular. Here is one such recording:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xkl8x3PBe9A.