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Saturday, March 18, 2023

Watch the March 15th Afternoon Session of the Regents

We are catching up with the Regents sessions of last week. As always, we preserve the recordings of the Regents since they are otherwise deleted for no apparent reason after one year. We previously covered the morning sessions of March 15th.* The Regents' afternoon sessions of March 15th featured meetings of the Academic and Student Affairs Committee and the Finance and Capital Strategies Committee. Excerpt from the Daily Cal:

During the Finance and Capital Strategies Committee session, preliminary funding for the Ridge Walk North Living and Learning Neighborhood at UCSD was approved, part of their goal to provide four-year guaranteed housing at least 20% below market price for students. Additionally, financing for proposed housing units at UCSC were approved by the committee. The units, known as the Hagar and Heller developments, were contested in public comment the last time they were brought to the floor — however, no public comments were made during this committee session. “The need for student housing resonates within our campus and resonates within the Santa Cruz community,” said UCSC Chancellor Cynthia Larive. “We are in a new phase of relationships between UC Santa Cruz and the surrounding community.”

Presentations from UC Davis’ School of Veterinary Medicine, UC Berkeley’s School of Optometry and UCLA’s School of Nursing followed, requesting further funding for high school and undergraduate outreach, need-based financial aid and diversifying faculty and student body. The California Community College and UC Task Force presented to the Board of Regents at the Academic and Student Affairs Committee meeting. [Note from yours truly: There was some discussion of what the definition of "need based" entailed and a request to come back with a more detailed explanation.]

Notably, Eric Van Dusen, Outreach and Tech Lead in Data Science Undergraduate Studies at UC Berkeley, discussed a new UC Transfer Pathway. The new pathway is for the undergraduate data science major, which has seen massive growth since it was introduced to Berkeley in 2018. The Academic Council Special Committee on Transfer Issues, or ACSCOTI, is working to push an introductory data science curriculum in California Community Colleges in hopes of making the program more accommodating for transfer DS students — who made up only 18% of 2022’s graduating class of 677, according to Van Dusen.

“At Berkeley, we support transfer students who have found their way to the data science major, providing a separate seminar with academic and career counseling focusing on the specific needs of transfer students who are often first-gen and low-income students, likely navigating multiple responsibilities while acclimating to a four-year campus,” Van Dusen said.

Full story at https://www.dailycal.org/2023/03/15/uc-regents-discuss-plans-to-mitigate-housing-crises-worker-wages-pass-measures-in-march-meeting.

Apart from the items described above for Finance and Capital Strategies, various changes were put forward regarding the employee savings programs to comply with changes in federal law. UC created a "captive" insurance company for various risks and a status report was presented. It was noted that the UCLA-Heaps case created a cash flow issue for the university because UC carried the entire risk. There were repeated references to the "profit" the captive insurance company accrued excluding Heaps. But, of course, you can't exclude Heaps if you are talking about risk; it happened. So, it's not clear why you would exclude it. The question is, was UC better off - given all actual events - with its captive approach than it would have been if it relied on the commercial insurance market. The response was that it is difficult to obtain sexual misconduct insurance commercially. Whether it is impossible, however, is the question. And it was not fully answered.

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Links to the recordings of the meetings can be found below:

Academic and Students Affairs:

https://archive.org/download/board-joint-meeting-academic-and-student-affairs-finance-and-capital-strategies-committees/Academic%20and%20Student%20Affairs%20Committee.mp4

Finance and Capital Strategies:

https://ia601609.us.archive.org/5/items/board-joint-meeting-academic-and-student-affairs-finance-and-capital-strategies-committees/Finance%20and%20Capital%20Strategies%20Committee.mp4

Link to the entire (morning and afternoon) March 15th meetings:

https://archive.org/details/board-joint-meeting-academic-and-student-affairs-finance-and-capital-strategies-committees.

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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2023/03/watch-regents-morning-session-of-march.html.

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