Watch the Regents Morning Session of March 15, 2023

As we have been doing for years, we preserve the recordings of the Regents meetings since the Regents, for no particular reason, delete them after one year. The meeting schedule for March 15th was rearranged somewhat from the preliminary agenda. It opened with public comments on caste discrimination, support for student housing projects and other construction projects at various campuses, climate policy, UC hiring of undocumented students, and transfer policy. Also discussed were post-doc layoffs, Blackstone, staff pay, librarian pay, custodian pay, and healthcare layoffs.

Regent Chair Leib, in his remarks, referred to creation of a task force to explore new funding sources for UC at the state and federal levels. This task force, presumably, is the byproduct of the recent student-worker strike, which added to UC costs.

President Drake, in his remarks, referred to the ongoing (and stalled) People's Park project.

Senate representative Cochran noted that 8% of UC courses were now online and referred to the recent rule change that aimed at preventing undergraduates from taking most or all of their courses online.

At a joint meeting of Academic and Student Affairs and Finance and Capital Strategies, there was a presentation on student aid including public benefits available, food insecurity, and basic needs. Regent Cohen pointed to CalFresh as a source of support and noted that the pandemic seemed to have set things back despite UC efforts to address basic needs. Regent Pérez noted that legislative changes might be needed for some programs. And the student housing issue was discussed.

The Governance Committee held a short open meeting to rubber stamp some executive matters. However, what was interesting was what was NOT discussed. An item to create a committee on athletics - presumably a byproduct of the UCLA/Big Ten matter that consumed much regental time in 2022 - was deleted from the agenda. Why? No one said.

You can watch the sessions described above at the link below:

Board followed by joint meeting of Academic and Student Affairs and Finance and Capital Strategies:

https://ia801609.us.archive.org/5/items/board-joint-meeting-academic-and-student-affairs-finance-and-capital-strategies-committees/Board%2C%20Joint%20Meeting_%20Academic%20and%20Student%20Affairs%20%26%20Finance%20and%20Capital%20Strategies%20Committees.mp4

Governance: 

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

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The entire (morning and afternoon) session is at:

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

(We will cover the afternoon in a later posting.)