UCLA Faculty Association: Watch the Regents Meeting of Nov. 17, 2022 (includes Big 10)

Friday, November 18, 2022

Watch the Regents Meeting of Nov. 17, 2022 (includes Big 10)

When it came to the Big 10 decision, the Regents chose Burr over Jefferson.

We previously posted about the morning meeting of the Regents of Nov. 16. Since there was much focus on the idea that on Nov. 17, the Regents would make some kind of decision about UCLA's planned move to the Big 10, we will jump ahead to that meeting, and leave the afternoon of Nov. 16 to a later posting. Links to the segments of Nov. 17 can be found below. As always, we preserve recordings of Regents meetings since the Regents, for no apparent reason, delete them after one year.

The full board met in two separate sessions. The first contained a public comments period. Topics raised by speakers including nonunion UC pay, campus safety plans, the student worker strike, affordable housing, medical school partnerships, affordable drugs for low-income countries, a four-year housing guarantee for students, the Big 10 move, abortion, rape kits on campus, and campus greenhouse gas emissions. Later, in their presentations to the Regents undergraduate and graduate student leaders raised the strike issue.

So we now get to the Big 10 issue discussed in the second segment of the full board after a closed session. Of course, we don't know what the Regents were told in the closed session. But it is likely that they were reminded that UCLA Chancellor Block, a fully-authorized agent of the Regents, had made a deal to move to the Big 10. Any attempt to void the deal - which the Regents could do - would raise the potential for lawsuits that would entail big bucks.

In what may be a leak from the closed session, although it is not reported as such, the LA Times indicated that UCLA pushed for a decision now rather than (another) delay:

...Despite UCLA’s push for clarity, the University of California Board of Regents declined Thursday to settle questions surrounding the Bruins’ move to the Big Ten and instead plans to finalize a decision at a Dec. 14 special meeting. UCLA officials were pushing for a decision with football signing day next month and looming logistical issues they need to resolve well in advance of the Bruins’ potentially playing their first games as members of the Big Ten in 2024...*

As a result, when the Regents came back into session, they followed the advice of Aaron Burr - shown above - to delay in the hope that maybe new information would somehow appear - as opposed to the advice of Thomas Jefferson - also shown above - to do whatever they were going to do now. In short, procrastination won the day.

President Drake effusively thanked Governor Newsom - who has gone on to other things and didn't appear at the meeting - for raising the Big 10 issue. He talked about the idea that UCLA would be enhancing services to athletes if it got the money from the Big 10 deal and seemed to say that would be a Good Thing. He said that at a special meeting on December 14, the Regents would "finalize" those plans for services - which suggested that reversing the UCLA decision was not going to happen. There was then a review of a survey of student athletes - for which there was a one-fifth response rate - about what they thought about the move to the Big 10. Many respondents were not sure what they thought. But they did see some advantages in more money for resources, more national exposure, etc.

Chancellor Block outlined $10 million from the added revenue that would be used for academic support, nutrition, mental health, and travel by charter jets. Athletic Director Martin Jarmond said that apart from the survey, there were focus groups via Zoom and in person that provided support for the move.

It was pointed out that while the graduation rates for most sports were in the range of other students, the football and men's basketball rates were notably lower. Of course, these two are the sports around which the move to the Big 10 revolves.

Block said that if the current financial problems of student athletics continue, that is, if UCLA didn't move to the Big 10, there would have to be reductions in the number of sports supported and cuts in services to athletes.

Berkeley Chancellor Crist, on the other hand, decried the growing commercialization and professionalization of college sports and said having more conferences would slow down that trend. Both chancellors were on good behavior and did not directly confront each other.

In short, we must now await the special December 14th meeting.

Following the Big 10 discussion, there was a presentation on campus safety plans which basically involved campus policing and various policy changes aimed to provide alternatives to traditional police methods. A discussion of policies regarding sexual assault and harassment was delayed until January.

After the full board's second session, there was a joint session of Academic and Student Affairs and Finance and Capital Strategies. Most of the discussion there was devoted to UC-San Diego's strategic plan. A discussion of the multi-year budgetary compact was delayed until January.

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*https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-11-17/ucla-exit-from-pac-12-to-big-ten-debated-by-uc-regents.

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