Our weekly look at new claims for unemployment insurance in California to see if there are signs of recession again reveals - nothing. No signs here.
As always, the latest claims data are at https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf.
Sunday, April 30, 2023
Special Libraries at Berkeley: Going! Going! Gone? - Part 3 (occupation)
The item below is from CBSNews and dated April 24. Is the occupation of the anthropology library still going on? No mention - one way or the other - of it has appeared in the Daily Cal. So I assume it is still happening.
A group of University of California at Berkeley students is in its fourth day of an open-ended occupation of the school's anthropology library in an effort to thwart plans for its closure. The students say they will live amid the stacks 24 hours a day until the administration reverses plans to close the George and Mary Foster Anthropology Library as part of its "long-term space plan."
"We have met with the chancellor, we have tried every single bureaucratic channel," said protest organizer Jesus Gutierrez, an anthropology Ph.D. candidate.
"What is at stake here are the values and principles of the university and the resources of the curated collection," Gutierrez said.
The students say UC Berkeley administration has been trying to close the library since 2012, but a similar student-led occupation kept the doors open. Then, in February, the university proposed closing the anthropology library along with two other small specialty libraries for math statistics and for physics and astronomy and merging them with other, larger libraries.
"Regarding the Anthropology library's closure, we, too, wish the library could remain open, but that is not an option at this point," campus spokesperson Janet Gilmore said in an email...
Full story at https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/berkeley-students-continue-occupation-of-anthropology-library/.
Saturday, April 29, 2023
Another Reminder to Avoid Wilshire (& use Sunset)
Wilshire Bl near Malcolm Av - Street Investigations
Summary: Metro contractors will investigate the street on Wilshire Bl between Glendon Av and Malcolm Av from April 25 to May 5
When: Date: April 25 to May 5
Work Hours: 9am to 3:30pm, Monday to Friday
Traffic Control: Center lane reductions on Wilshire Bl between Glendon Av and Manning Av.
- Parking will be restricted in the work zones.
- Left hand turns may be restricted.
- Driveway access will be maintained.
- Utility services will be maintained.
Full notice at https://cloud.sfmc.metro.net/Wilshire_Malcolm_StreetInvestigations.
A New Form of (Academic) Identity Theft to Worry About - Part 2
...Since our story was published, we’ve learned a little more about the journal that published the article, the African Journal of Political Science. Jephias Mapuva, a professor at the Bindura University of Science Education in Zimbabwe, who is listed as the editor in chief of the journal, told us in an email that he is “not associated with the journal in any way.”
“It came to me as a surprise that I am listed as an Editor-In-Chief,” he wrote. He also copied an email address for the journal publisher, International Scholars Journal, and asked for his name to be removed from the website:
THIS IS HIGHLY DISAPPOINTING and an inconvenience on my profile.
The journal’s editorial board also includes a couple of engineering professors and a “Commercial Manager of Multifarious Projects Group” in India. As commenters on our original story pointed out, another African Journal of Political Science exists with the same ISSN listed on the International Scholars Journals website. Its information page states the publication is an open-access journal that does not charge article processing fees, and is an outlet of the African Association of Political Science. The journal seems to have restarted publishing last year, after halting in 2004. The International Scholars Journals publication has put out issues continuously since 2007.
Siphamandla Zondi, a professor of politics and international relations at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, who is listed as editor in chief of the African Journal of Political Science not affiliated with International Scholars Journals, has not responded to our request for comment. International Scholars Journals is included on Jeffrey Beall’s list of “potentially predatory journals and publishers,” other commenters noted. Beall, a librarian at the University of Colorado, Denver, took down the list in 2017, but archived versions remain online.
Commenter Chung-Chuan Lo shared a link to an account of another academic’s encounter with the alleged African Journal of Political Science. She described what happened after submitting a commentary, at the journal’s invitation:
Then the hustle for money started. The price was initially over 1000 euros. Obscene. Then they called me (!), they kept emailing, they would not hear my (several) requests to withdraw the article, and they are still emailing. This is frankly abusive. Oh, and they tried to charge a withdrawal fee, before deciding to keep the article. This sort of harassement qualifies the operation as fraudulent and engaging in spearphishing.
As for why the journal published an article attributed to someone who didn’t write it, several commenters speculated that the publisher was attempting to fill issues with copy and apply a veneer of respectability with the name of a legitimate academic. We’ve previously reported on similar attempts using the names of famous authors including Walt Whitman and Charlotte Brontë.
Full story at https://retractionwatch.com/2023/04/26/frankly-abusive-more-questions-about-the-journal-that-stole-an-authors-identity/.
===
*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2023/04/a-new-form-of-academic-identity-theft.html.
This Time They Won't Throw In the Towell
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| Towell |
The reconstruction began in November and will continue through early next year, following UCLA’s seismic safety review procedure. Skanska USA Building Inc. won the bid for the $17 million construction contract, according to the Construction Journal.
Construction on the second floor has closed the area. Other remodeling work also blocks the main outdoor passageway to Powell from Kerckhoff Hall, forcing students to take detours, such as one through Janss Steps.
Powell was first built in 1929, receiving additions to strengthen the building seismically in 1957. In January 1994, the magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake damaged the ceiling of the main reading room in the library. Now, steel beams will be placed on the ceiling to increase the structural security of the building, according to the UCLA Library website. The beams will not be visible once construction is complete, according to the website...
The construction is necessary, but it takes away from students by restricting their access to the library, said Melanie Cabrera, a second-year public affairs student who works security at the library...
Full story at https://dailybruin.com/2023/04/27/powell-library-to-remain-under-construction-for-seismic-safety-till-early-2024.
Last time there was a seismic upgrade, a Temporary Powell (Towell) was erected. Apparently, no such grand plan was made for this time. See:
https://newsroom.ucla.edu/magazine/temporary-powell-library-towell.
Friday, April 28, 2023
Getting Everyone On Board With Higher Ed Policy Also Matters - Part 3
California Community College leaders have indicated they plan to move forward with approving bachelor’s degree programs at their institutions, despite a request from state lawmakers to pause in response to objections from the California State University system... Legislation signed into law last October, Assembly Bill 927, made permanent a set of 15 pilot baccalaureate programs at community colleges and allows new four-year programs at these institutions. Community colleges can apply to offer up to 30 new baccalaureate programs annually if the programs don’t duplicate existing programs at universities in the state.
Assemblymember Mike Fong, who chairs the Assembly higher education committee, and State Senator Josh Newman, who chairs the Senate education committee, wrote a letter to the chancellor’s office last week asking the community college system to halt the current cycle of applications to “discuss a better resolution process for disputes” and “better define program duplication,” Cal Matters first reported. The request came after California State University system leaders complained that the chancellor’s office approved an applied fire management program at Feather River College, despite their objections that it resembled programs their campuses offer...
Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2023/04/28/california-2-year-colleges-wont-pause-approving-4-year-programs.
Clearly, we don't have anything that could be called a "process" to sort things out. So far, the governor has not shown an interest in setting any kind of process in motion.
UCOP Needs to Make the Call to Protect Survivor Health Insurance
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| Don't be afraid, UCOP. Make the call. |
However, a particularly egregious problem has been cancellation of health insurance of survivors. When a retiree dies, his/her survivor's health insurance is supposed to continue. But apparently what often happens is that when the primary retiree dies, his/her policy is cancelled and with it the policy of the survivor. Note that we are talking about an elderly population likely to be under treatment. Disruption of coverage could have major implications.
At a joint meeting of CUCRA and CUCEA last Wednesday, it was revealedthat what occurs is that the insurance company becomes aware of the death and cancels both policies.
Yours truly chairs a union-management committee that looks after health insurance for certain employees and retirees of LA Metro. I can tell you that this cancellation problem is unique to UC. It does not happen elsewhere. It does not happen with CalPERS.
What would fix the problem is a phone call from UCOP to the insurance carriers telling them not to do it. Insurance carriers cover the people that the employer tells them to cover. As long as they are paid for the coverage, the carriers will do whatever they are instructed to do. This is an absurd situation! It has nothing to do with labor shortages at RASC or computer glitches. Someone at UCOP needs to pick up the phone and fix the situation now. UCOP...PICK...UP...THE...PHONE.
By the way, the CUCRA-CUCEA meeting was via Zoom and recorded with the consent of all parties. If the situation above seems unbelievable to you, here is the audio of the survivor-cancellation revelation:
Thursday, April 27, 2023
The governor joins the People's Park litigation
Gov. Gavin Newsom asked the state Supreme Court on Wednesday to let UC Berkeley take over the historic People’s Park and build housing there for more than 1,000 students and 100 homeless people, challenging a lower-court decision that the university had failed to consider alternative housing sites or the impact on local residents of noise from students’ parties.
“Solving the housing crisis is one of the Governor’s top priorities, and the State is making substantial progress,” but the lower court’s ruling “threatens to disrupt that progress, opening a door for opponents of housing development to delay or block essential new projects,” Newsom said in a filing with the court. He is represented by Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office and private counsel.
The University of California and the city of Berkeley have also asked the state’s high court to grant review and overturn the Feb. 24 decision by the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco that would put the project on hold while the UC Board of Regents conducted a new environmental study on alternative housing sites and measures to control excessive noise. The governor is president of the Regents...
Full story at https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/newsom-berkeley-peoples-park-17920749.php.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch:
Also from the San Francisco Chronicle: For 54 years, People’s Park, a scraggly 2.8-acre patch of land a block off Telegraph Avenue on Berkeley’s south side, has been the site of violent clashes between police and protesters, unsuccessful development plans and legal disputes. But on Sunday, it was the scene of a birthday party, a mellow gathering with music, lots and lots of speeches, and about 100 people — from students to longtime activists and protesters — enjoying the spring sunshine. In addition to celebrating the more than five decades that People’s Park has remained undeveloped, Sunday’s festivities served to keep the fight of preserving the park as open space alive and to honor the park’s vibrant history. “For 54 years, the park has been a part of Berkeley,” said Harvey Smith, a park historian with the People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group. “It’s been a wonderful place. And it needs to stay that way.”...
Full story at https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/people-s-park-berkeley-birthday-17909834.php.
Heaps
From the LA Times: Disgraced ex-UCLA gynecologist James Heaps was sentenced to 11 years in prison Wednesday, nearly two years after he was indicted for sexually abusing his patients while working at the university. Heaps, 66, has been in custody since October, when a jury found him guilty of three counts of sexual battery by fraud and two counts of sexual penetration of two patients.
Heaps, a retired cancer specialist, appeared in a Burbank courtroom Wednesday wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, neat goatee and glasses. He did not testify or make any statements after he was sentenced by Judge Michael D. Carter...
Related: Faithful blog readers will remember this item from our coverage of the Regents meeting of March 15:
...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.
Source: https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2023/03/watch-march-15th-afternoon-session-of.html.
Student Discord
Inside Higher Ed runs a piece on student use of Discord, the online platform that was used to leak classified documents. Excerpts:
...Discord was originally designed as an online hangout where gamers talked with each other while playing multiplayer online games. Users access the app on a computer, smartphone or gaming console. In closed, themed online communities, users communicate by text, voice, video and screen sharing...
Discord users skew young. Approximately 38 percent of its web users and nearly half of its Android app users are between 18 and 24 years old, according to Similarweb. Most (79 percent) are male...
How Do Students Use Discord?
Many college students use Discord for the same reasons that they use other social media platforms—for expressing themselves, connecting with others and building social networks. That may confer benefits, including valuable support for those who are marginalized. But it may also confer risks, including some that are unique to academic settings. “Discord can be used for sharing exam questions and responses,” Megan McNamara, a lecturer in sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said of the potential for academic dishonesty. “There are also instances where students use Discord to bash instructors … It’s not a supervised place, so it becomes a little bit Wild West.”
But McNamara believes Discord offers students more benefits than harms. On the platform, students can collaborate, seek assistance and get to know each other in an instructor-free space. That can be especially valuable for building community in online courses. For those reasons, McNamara publicizes links to Discord servers that students set up for her classes. She has a personal policy, however, of not joining students’ servers. “Some instructors join,” Aaron Zachmeier, associate director for instructional design at UC Santa Cruz, said. “Some don’t. Some join at the invitation of their students.” ...
Meanwhile, students also have preferences about professors’ presence on the platform. “Professors should not create a Discord sever for their classes without first consulting students,” Tony Phan Vo, a student at California State University, Fullerton, wrote this academic year in the institution’s student newspaper, The Daily Titan. Student sources who were quoted in the article dubbed the presence of a professor in a course Discord server “strange” and “weird.” The gist of their sentiment was that Discord servers offer students space to talk away from faculty members. That said, the author acknowledged the potential for students to use the platform to facilitate cheating.
Brianna Dym, a lecturer in computer science at the University of Maine at Orono, does not join students’ Discord servers. However, because her research focuses on online communities, she is uniquely positioned to understand their use. In addition to forming curricular and extracurricular server groups, students often use Discord to send and spread messages about spontaneous gatherings or events on campus. But as with other social media, the app can have a dark side. “Those exact features that do these great things can also lead to catastrophe when used for evil,” Dym said. For example, during a recent Pride Month—June—some Discord servers that added rainbows to their icons noted a sharp increase in anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric.
But Dym, who identifies as part of the LGBTQ+ community, is encouraged by steps the company took to address concerns, which was the topic of a recent paper she co-wrote in the Journal of Online Trust and Safety. Most social media platforms either address concerns in a top-down fashion or leave users to fend for themselves, Dym said. Discord, however, has experimented with training volunteer moderators to address concerns within their communities. The nuanced approach is important to users who do not want the company to monitor them, Dym said. Communities that received the support reported better outcomes in addressing concerning behavior.
“The servers operate like little fiefdoms,” Dym said. “You have the person who founded the server, and they have supreme administrator controls unless they relinquish them. Then you can appoint other administrators who have other powers.”
But preserving the good and preventing the bad is an ongoing challenge, especially given Discord’s massive user base. Also, determining when speech on the platform crosses a line can be challenging. “A Roman Empire history Discord server might be about the history of the Roman Empire, or it might eventually slip into weird alternative history facts,” Dym said.
Though Discord servers may be unofficial components of a college course, students may report violations of college policies they witness on the site to college employees. For that reason, McNamara reminds new students that their behavior on Discord should align with the university’s expectations...
Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/tech-innovation/digital-teaching-learning/2023/04/26/discord-leaking-military-files-and-exam.
A New Form of (Academic) Identity Theft to Worry About
Apparently, dubious journals are not above faking/plagiarizing articles for content and then putting an academic's name on them. From Retraction Watch:
A professor found her name on an article she didn’t write. Then it got worse
Anca Turcu was going over her publication stats a few weeks ago, as she does every year to apply for research awards and update her CV, when she found an “unpleasant surprise.” Turcu, a senior lecturer in the University of Central Florida’s School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs, was listed as the sole author of an article entitled “Impact of government intervention measures on recycling of waste equipment in China,” which had been published in the African Journal of Political Science in February 2022. She hadn’t written the paper, which had nothing to do with her research on diasporas and voting. But that wasn’t the worst of it.
As Retraction Watch looked into the case, we found something “very upsetting,” in Turcu’s words. The article with her name on it appeared to paraphrase, sentence by sentence, a paper that had been published in another journal a few months prior. “Not only are they faking a publication in my name, but they are adding my name to something they have plagiarized?” Turcu asked. “This is absolutely terrible! What is it with these people?”
The earlier article’s title was nearly identical, and it had appeared online in the Elsevier journal Energy Policy in November 2021. It has been cited ten times since, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. The one with Turcu’s name on it was received at the journal in January 2022.
We emailed the authors of the Energy Policy paper, who are affiliated with Tongji University in Shanghai, to ask if they were aware of the plagiarism, but they didn’t reply. We also emailed Stephen D. Thomas, senior and coordinating editor of the journal and a professor at the University of Greenwich in London, and got an out of office response.
The African Journal of Political Science is published by International Scholars Journals (ISJ).The journal’s website states this policy on plagiarism:
The editors of ISJ take a very serious stance against any evidence of plagiarism including self-plagiarism in manuscripts submitted to them. Every reasonable effort will be made to investigate any allegations of plagiarism brought to their attention, as well as instances that come up during the peer review process.
We notified Jephias Mapuva, the editor in chief of the journal and a professor at the Bindura University of Science Education in Zimbabwe, of the plagiarism, and the fact that Turcu was not involved with the paper that had her name on it. He has not responded to our email.
Our email to the address listed on the paper as Turcu’s, which does not belong to her, bounced back.
ISJ states on its website that it “is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and abides by its Code of Conduct and aims to adhere to its Best Practice Guidelines.” We could not find the publisher in COPE’s member directory.
The experience has prompted Turcu to wonder:
Why the heck me??? I have nothing to do with that subject matter, never saw that article before, what on earth made them do this? I do not think I’ve ever interacted with anyone from this fake journal, or anyone who wrote the legitimate article, so… I am really at a loss.
Wednesday, April 26, 2023
Enquiring Minds Want to Know...
...more about why the refurbished Faculty Club is having problems. Leaks in the new roof, abrupt departure of key personnel, staff shortage. Seems like a lot of mishaps. Faculty Club pay is pretty good, particularly since UC benefits are part of the package. But there is a lack of sufficient staff??? Maybe more explanation is needed. Just a thought from an enquiring mind...
Pre-Retirement Webinars for Faculty & Staff in May
Active faculty and staff who are contemplating retirement may be interested in the webinars below:
===
Preparing for Retirement
For UCRP members who are planning to retire within the next five years including active members and vested inactive members of UCRP. We will cover topics such as understanding UCRP pension benefits, retirement savings and retiree health coverage.
Date: Tuesday, May 2, 2023
Time: 10:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Register:
https://fmr.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_2PZsUIS7QRGnxIV-UF5juw#/registration
===
Retiree Health Benefits
This webinar is intended for those considering retirement from UC within the next 4-12 months. We will review in detail the eligibility rules for retiree health coverage, your health plan options including Medicare coordination, how to determine your premiums and commonly asked questions.
Date: Wednesday, May 17, 2023
Time: 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Register:
https://fmr.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_dy5cD_-ORKm5mRiuNbj3VQ#/registration
===
The UC Retirement Process – Step by Step
For UCRP members who are planning to retire within the next 4-12 months. We will explain everything you need to know about the retirement process, including required forms, important deadlines and helpful resources.
Date: Wednesday, May 10, 2023
Time: 5:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Register:
https://fmr.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_kh7jOKBGSlC1Rg7K3tkIDw#/registration
===
Date: Thursday, May 25, 2023
Time: 10:00a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
Register:
https://fmr.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_kh7jOKBGSlC1Rg7K3tkIDw#/registration
===
Tuesday, April 25, 2023
Webinar for Academic Senate Members on Effects of Student-Worker Strike
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| Different Senate |
If you didn't receive the email and are a Senate member, get in touch with the office of EVC Hunt.
BREIT Affair Highlights Need for Outside Investment Auditor at Investment Committee Meetings
The bailout investment of $4.5 billion in UC pension
and endowment funds in the Blackstone Real Estate Investment Trust (BREIT)
keeps being noticed. UC received a “guarantee” of a 11.25% return in exchange
for the bailout. As this blog has pointed out in prior posts, there is a
too-cozy relationship between the Regents Investment Committee and the UC chief
investment officer.* The former generally doesn’t ask probing and critical
questions and seems to accept the investment strategies that are presented with nice slides
and explanations. Only one Regent member of the Committee so far has hinted at having any qualms about the BREIT investment.**
A lot of the coverage of this matter has focused on
landlord-tenant relations, rent increases, etc., involving BREIT residential properties.
Because of protests at the Regents by union and tenant groups, much of the
coverage in the news media has focused on those demonstrations and those issues
rather than on investment strategy. When we began focusing on the financial
side of the BREIT story – the financial risk/reward element and the legal risk –
it appears that someone mysteriously complained to Blogger about a post from
2018 on the chief investment officer. We appealed the complaint – which was
ridiculous since the old post in question was taken from a national news source –
and the complaint was rejected.
From The Lever of April 24, 2023:
As the world’s largest private equity firm faces
potential losses from a cloudy real estate market, its executives blocked
jittery investors from withdrawing their money from one of its real estate
funds, while insisting that rent increases and evictions will bolster returns. Now,
the Blackstone Group’s real estate investment trust has received a
multibillion-dollar bailout from a source whose employees and students are
already suffering through the housing crisis: California’s public university
system.
Just months after Blackstone’s real estate investment
trust purchased America’s largest owner of private student housing, the same
trust received a $4.5 billion infusion from the University of California’s
Board of regents, two of whom have close ties to the company. The investment
rewards the financial firm only a few years after the company and its
executives spent $5.6 million to kill California ballot initiatives that would
have expanded rent control in the state…
The latest episode revolves around the Blackstone
Real Estate Income Trust, or BREIT. In August 2022, BREIT purchased 69 percent
of American Campus Communities (ACC), the country’s largest student housing
company, in a $12.8 billion deal. ACC’s business model is built around rent
revenues; in January 2022 the company’s CEO boasted that it was “experiencing
the most substantial fundamental tailwinds we've seen in many years” thanks in
part to soaring rents. ACC has apartments at the University of California,
Berkeley, and the University of California, Irvine.
Five months after this acquisition, the UC Regents
pumped $4.5 billion into BREIT. Around the same time, Blackstone spent more
than $150,000 in the final quarter of 2022 on lobbying UC for more investment
dollars, doubling the amount it spent the previous quarter. In December, Nadeem
Meghji, Blackstone’s head of real estate for the Americas, told CNBC in
December that UC’s unprecedented bailout of BREIT “changed the narrative”
around the fund…
Real estate investment trusts are pools of
investor-backed cash that purchase real estate.. While pension funds routinely
invest in both REITs and private equity real estate, it is extremely uncommon
to have a pension effectively do a bailout of a fund facing massive redemption
requests…
Blackstone’s BREIT differs substantially from the $1.3
trillion real estate investment trust, or REIT, market. Nearly all REITs are
publicly traded, which means that investors can cash out their money at will.
This is not the case with BREIT, which allows Blackstone to suspend redemptions…
BREIT’s approach has lately faced turbulence. Because the fund
is substantially indebted -– it carries $90 billion in debt on $140 billion in
total assets — even small downturns like the recent economic decline put the
fund in jeopardy, since both gains and losses are magnified because of high
leverage.
What’s
more, BREIT has a small but significant portion of its holdings in the office
and retail sector, which have been battered in the post-pandemic economy. Earlier
this month, a separate Blackstone entity sold two office towers in Orange
County, California, for 36 percent less than it paid for them nine years ago.
One of the main
decision-makers behind the plan to pump billions of UC dollars into Blackstone
was Richard Sherman, chair of the UC Investment Committee, who has strong
connections to the investment firm. On January 3, Sherman announced in a
Blackstone press release, “This type of large, opportunistic investment
effectively leverages the UC’s more than $150 billion portfolio to benefit the
600,000 students, faculty, staff, and pensioners from our 10 campuses and six
academic health centers.”
Sherman, who heads up music mogul David Geffen’s
investment office, collaborated with Blackstone on the 2012 buyout of music
publisher EMI. What’s more, the late Blackstone co-founder Pete Peterson
purchased his New York penthouse from Geffen in 2007.
An additional member of the eleven-person Investment
Committee, Mark Robinson, also has ties to Blackstone. Robinson is a partner at
investment banking firm Centerview Partners, which advised Blackstone on a $2.2
billion acquisition in 2021.
On behalf of the Regents, the investment was launched
by Jagdeep Singh Bachher, UC’s Chief Investment Officer — who has been accused
of making investments in response to pressure from individual Regents with
conflicts of interest in the past. In 2018, he invested an unprecedented $240
million into a fund meant for high-net-worth individuals headed by the former
chair of the Regents’ Investment Committee, Paul Wachter.
In response to uproar over UC’s investment in Blackstone, Bachher played it
off as a zero-sum game of capitalism.
“The job of this team day in and day out is to pick
assets that are going to be accretive to future generations and future
retirees,” Bachher said at a Regents meeting in March. “And to do that... I
have to make some capitalistic decisions. And that decision around
Blackstone... was purely an investment decision for the benefit of the UC...
and to help the needs of our pensioners and our endowment.”
But a Lever review of UC’s performance under
Bachher’s leadership shows that his “capitalistic“ investment decisions have
resulted in the university’s pension and endowment funds massively trailing a
plain vanilla index fund of stocks and bonds.
Had the pension fund pursued a lower-risk index fund
strategy for the last decade — the kind advocated by Warren Buffett — it would
now boast $32 billion more in its coffers, or 40 percent more than its current
value. Likewise, the university’s endowment fund would have an additional $6.4
billion in its coffers, or 36 percent increase of its current value…
In response to a request for comment from The Lever,
the university spokesperson stated that a substantial portion of the UC’s
investment approach was in index funds. They did not answer questions about
poor fund performance under Bachher’s leadership, and Bachher declined an
interview with The Lever…
Full story at https://www.levernews.com/the-university-of-california-bails-out-eviction-happy-private-equity/.
So, what is the lesson from the BREIT affair? The Regents are the trustees of the pension, endowment, and other UC funds. They need to be asking probing questions about investment strategies and performance. The Investment Committee needs an independent outside auditor. Such an auditor, not the chief investment officer, would determine the benchmarks against which performance would be measured. A proper meeting would have the outside auditor making the basic presentation – not the chief investment officer and his staff. The chief investment officer could then respond. Absent a disinterested outside voice, what we typically get now is a clubby event, punctuated from time to time by union dissents or public comment protests.
We’re not calling for anyone to be rude at the meetings.
We are calling for a more arms-length distance between the
Regent-trustees and the chief investment officer and for an outside audit to be
the focus of each meeting.
===
*http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2023/04/losses-and-gains-responses.html.
Use the search engine on this blog and search for “BREIT” for full past coverage.
**http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2023/03/hernandez-approaches-right-question-on.html.
Monday, April 24, 2023
2022-23 Panunzio Awards
UC Irvine and UC San Francisco Professors Honored with 2022-2023 Constantine Panunzio Distinguished Emeriti Award:
The 2022-2023 Constantine Panunzio Distinguished Emeriti Award honoring Emeriti Professors in the University of California system has been awarded to Professor Emeritus of Chicano/Latino Studies Raul Fernandez (UC Irvine) and Professor Emerita of Nursing Charlene Harrington (UC San Francisco).
UC Emeriti Professors Fernandez and Harrington are the fiftieth and fifty-first recipients of the Constantine Panunzio Award. Both awardees have especially long and notable records of research, teaching, and service to the University of California, their disciplines, and their communities. The late Dr. Panunzio, a Professor of Sociology at UCLA for many years, has been described as the architect of the UC Retirement System and was particularly active in improving pensions and stipends for his fellow Emeriti.* The award bearing his name was established in 1983 and includes a $5,000 prize.
Raul Fernandez, UC Irvine, Professor Emeritus of Chicano/Latino Studies, who retired in 2012, is highly recognized for his scholarship on the economic and cultural transactions between the U.S. and Latin America. That simple description, however, does not do justice to a singular scholarly odyssey that started with the study of rehabilitation for heroin addicts through analysis of the Mexican-American border region, to Latin American History, and then to the field for which his now best known, Latin American Jazz. His ground-breaking research on Afro-Caribbean music and dance has brought welcome attention to the cultural contributions of the Afro-Latino diaspora and fostered an understanding of the crucial role that Afro-Cuban culture has played in the evolution of modern music here and around the world through jazz. That work provided an important foundation for the creation of the UC-CUBA Academic Initiative, a multi-campus research program in 2006. Since its inception, the Initiative has been a seedbed for new scholarships, graduate training, and publications. He acted as Director of UC-CUBA from 2012-2015 and continues to serve as Executive Secretary. During retirement, Professor Fernandez continues in an active role in his department, on campus and systemwide, including serving as Chair, Department of Chicano Latino Studies, as a member of the School of Social Sciences Executive Committee, and on the UC Presidents’ Postdoctoral Fellowship Program’s selection committees. He serves as the faculty liaison for the Chicano/Latino Staff Association at UCI, has mentored scholars, taught courses, and sits on doctoral committees across multiple disciplines such as Anthropology, History, Literature, Political Science, Sociology, and Spanish – including interdisciplinary Humanities at UC Merced and UCLA. Since retirement, he has published more than 15 scholarly articles, review essays, and reports, as well as a book, OntologÃa del son, La Habana: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 2021, a major collection of 20 articles in Spanish, on Cuban music and musicians. Given this exceptional record of productivity and service, UCI recognized his contributions in 2018 with the UC Irvine Outstanding Emeritus Award.
Charlene Harrington, UC San Francisco, Professor Emerita of Nursing, retired in 2008. Since that time, Dr. Harrington has maintained an exceptional level of scholarly productivity and service in the field of nursing home care. Throughout her career, she has been an energetic and expert advocate for nursing and long-term care facilities whose problems came dramatically and tragically to everyone’s attention during the COVID pandemic. Her long research program on quality of care, staffing and regulation enabled her to apply her expertise to a severe local, national and international problem, and to offer expert testimony on these issues before various governmental agencies. Her efforts have focused on measures that directly improve the lives of residents, including better training standards for nurses, public reporting of nursing home quality, and greater transparency for consumers about care expectations and price. Notably, her research and advocacy contributed to the President of the United States’ plan for “Protecting Seniors by Improving Safety and Quality of Care in the Nation’s Nursing Homes.” Her research continues to be funded by a wide range of organizations including the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, the Healthcare Financing Administration, the National Institute on Aging, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Commonwealth Fund, the California Health Care Foundation, and the Kaiser Family Foundation. Besides her service as a public advocate for nursing home care, she has also served on several editorial boards such as Policy, Politics & Nursing Practice and Journal of Aging and Social Policy. On the UCSF campus, she has remained active in the Emeriti Association and has been an informal mentor to students in her department while also providing guest lectures on a variety of topics related to her research. Additionally, she has published numerous peer-reviewed papers, book chapters, book reviews, and reports, as well as co-edited books. Not surprisingly, Dr Harrington has also been asked to lecture, teach, and mentor around the world.
Please join all of us on the Committee in congratulating Emeriti Professors Raul Fernandez and Charlene Harrington on receiving the 2022-2023 Constantine Panunzio Distinguished Emeriti Award.
Sincerely,
Michael S. Levine
Chair, Constantine Panunzio Distinguished Emeriti Award Selection Committee
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*Constantine Panunzio (1884-1964) was born in Molfetta, Italy. He arrived in the United States in 1902, and after some difficult years as a struggling immigrant, he entered Kent's Hill Academy in Maine. He received his A.B. from Wesleyan University in 1911 and a M.A. in 1912. He then enrolled in the Boston University School of Theology and earned the S.T.B. in 1914. He served as pastor in several Methodist churches in Massachusetts and he was superintendent of Social Service House, Boston, from 1915-1917; from 1917 to 1918 he served as general organizer of the YMCA on the Italian front during World War I. In 1925 he earned the Ph.D. degree at the Brookings Graduate School of Economics and Government, and was appointed assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1931, where he remained until he retired as professor of sociology in 1951.
His published works include three books and two research monographs. In 1931-33, Panunzio was president of the Pacific South-western Academy; in 1934-35, president of the Pacific Sociological Society. In 1939, he participated in the founding of the Mazzini Society; in 1940 he was designated by the New York World's Fair Committee as among the foreign-born who have made outstanding contributions to American culture. In 1961 he received the Wesleyan University Distinguished Alumnus award.
In the last dozen years of his life, Dr. Panunzio was instrumental in bringing about a substantial increase in the stipends of colleagues already retired at the University of California, in improving the retirement system at UC, and in discovering what the situation was for other retirees at institutions throughout the United States by launching a nationwide emeriti census in 1954. He died on August 6, 1964.
From Gordon H. Ball, et. al, "Constantine Maria Panunzio, Anthropology and Sociology: Los Angeles," in University of California: In Memoriam, April 1966.
From the guide to the Constantine Panunzio Collection of Material on Japanese American Internment, ca. 1853-1945, (bulk 1942-1943), (University of California, Los Angeles. Library. Department of Special Collections.)
New Partnership Agreement
Founded in 2019 by Leslie Cornfeld, a former federal civil rights prosecutor and later an advisor to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and two U.S. Secretaries of Education, Ed Equity Lab has quickly become one of the nation’s leading models for preparing low-income and underrepresented minority students to enroll and succeed in college. It’s helping fill the college pipeline with talented students who might have otherwise never believed they could succeed at college. The Lab follows a simple plan, a first-ever national model: deliver and support college credit-bearing courses taught by faculty from a network of leading colleges and universities in teacher-led high school classrooms, at no cost to students.
Here’s how it works. School districts serving low-income students are invited to participate, and they offer the opportunity to principals in Title 1 high schools. Principals pick the high school teachers who assist the college faculty in offering the course, and they also select the students - typically about 25 per course. Many Ed Equity Lab high schools offer multiple courses – meaning students can graduate with a semester or more of transferable credits under their belts, resulting in substantial tuition savings...
Commenting on his university’s new partnership with the Ed Equity Lab, University of California president Michael V. Drake said, “The University of California is committed to expanding access to higher education for students of all backgrounds. We are proud to collaborate with the National Education Equity Lab to further that goal - and reach more students than ever before.”
Sunday, April 23, 2023
Be Careful Where Algorithms Place Your FB Ads
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| Different shades of green. |
Scrolling down my Facebook feed, I came across the post on the left for the movie Soylent Green. The key point of the movie was that people were unknowingly eating recycled dead bodies. The next item in the feed as I scrolled down was this Bruin Bus ad emphasizing Green transit. Although you could say that all recycling is in some way "green," the UCLA Transportation folks probably would not like their version of green to be associated with cannibalism. Just a random Sunday morning observation...
Our Weekly Excursion to Nowhere
We continue our so-far-fruitless weekly look for signs of a recession in the data on California weekly claims for unemployment insurance. Yet, despite the continuing headlines about layoffs in tech firms, the numbers show nothing in particular happening. And it happened again in the latest data on the week ending Apri 15th as the chart above shows.
As always, the latest claims data are at https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf.
Still, we will continue merrily on our way to nowhere each week until maybe we get somewhere:
Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50JYTTCfAKo.
A Reminder on Nine
From time to time, we have noted that the controversies that arise from Title IX as it has been applied to allegations of sexual harassment and assault tend to be misdirected.* They often involve getting into the weeds of such matters as standards of proof rather than the process itself. If you truly want due process - the kind of due process that will stand up in court challenges - there has to be a separation of the person(s) who investigate and prosecute and the person(s) who decide.
Almost all union contracts - including those found at universities such as UC - contain grievance-and-arbitration clauses. The grievance process typically involves a series of steps within the management structure for appealing, say, a case of discipline against an employee. If the matter isn't settled within those steps (most cases are settled within the steps), the issue goes to a neutral outside arbitrator. The arbitrator holds a hearing - one less formal that in an external court - in which evidence is presented by both sides, witnesses are heard and cross-examined, and then decided by the arbitrator. There are many variations of this process. But the most important element is that an outside neutral is the ultimate decision maker.
What happens when there isn't an outside neutral and prosecution and decision are instead combined. Essentially, the chances for due process are diminished. Here's an actual story related to this blog. I will somewhat disguise it for reasons that will be apparent. Back on May 8, 2019, I got a phone message from a student at a UC campus who had been "convicted" under the Title IX procedures at that campus.** This blog had reproduced parts of a news article about the case. When the student took the case to an external court, not only was the decision overturned due to lack of due process, but the student was found to be factually innocent by the court. Nevertheless, if you searched the student's name on the internet, the various news articles about his original internal conviction popped up.
The student had succeeded in getting the name deleted from the news articles that remained online. But the blog and its pdf versions that are posted quarterly still remained. I deleted the name from the blog itself. It took more work to delete it from the pdf versions. Even then, it is really not possible to remove something from the internet entirely. For example, the "Wayback Machine" on archive.org will show the internet as it existed in the past.
Some folks seem to argue that there can't be false accusations when it comes to sexual harassment and assault. This is demonstrably not so, as a very recent case at Stanford illustrates. From the Mercury News of April 17-18, 2023:
A former Stanford University employee was arraigned Monday on charges that she repeatedly lied about being viciously raped as part of a revenge plot against a co-worker — fabricated claims that sparked widespread panic about a sexual predator stalking women across the campus. Jennifer Ann Gries, of Santa Clara, appeared solemn and did not speak Monday while making her first appearance in court on two felony counts of perjury and two misdemeanor counts of making a false crime report. She was ordered to return to enter a plea on June 21; in the meantime, she allowed to remain free on supervised release. Prosecutors say Gries, who worked for housing services at the university, lied about being raped to in a vendetta against a co-worker, who she felt had romantically spurned her...
The reports stoked widespread panic at the specter of a rapist escaping capture and roaming the Stanford University campus. One student group, Sexual Violence Free Stanford, led a campus march... calling for more counseling support for survivors, better training for incoming students and the swift removal of students and staff who commit sexual assault...
Full story at https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/04/17/stanford-university-employee-arraigned-on-charges-of-lying-about-rapes-that-shook-campus/.
The case above is an extreme false accusation as was the case of the student who requested his name be removed from the various formats of this blog. But it is not unusual for witnesses to mis-remember, misinterpret, selectively remember, etc. That is why due process is needed. And due process needs to include a separation of prosecution and decision-maker as the starting place. The grievance-and-arbitration processes found in union-management contracts are generally deferred to by external courts when tested there precisely because they provide due process through neutral arbitrators.*** Many universities, including UC, have union-represented employees and use these standard grievance-and-arbitration procedures without controversy. The model has long existed. There is more to be said about providing due process but its provision starts with a neutral decision maker as the final step.
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*Use the search engine on this blog to search for "Title IX" for past blog postings on this subject.
**I can be specific about the date because I get voicemail from my UCLA phone on Google-Voice which retained the recorded message. I happened to be going through more recent messages and came across this old one.
***There are U.S. Supreme Court cases going back to the 1950s directing lower courts to defer to labor-management arbitration procedures.
Saturday, April 22, 2023
AI at Berkeley's Law School
University of California Berkeley law school rolls out AI policy ahead of final exams
By Karen Sloan, 4-20-23
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Summary
- School allows some uses of generative AI, bars others
- Policy is meant to provide clarity around rapidly evolving technology
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The University of California, Berkeley School of Law is among the first law schools to adopt a formal policy on student use of generative artificial intelligence such as ChatGPT. The policy, rolled out April 14, allows students to use AI technology to conduct research* or correct grammar.** But it may not be used on exams or to compose any submitted assignments. And it can’t be employed in any way that constitutes plagiarism, which Berkeley defines as repackaging the ideas of others.***
The policy means that law students would be in violation of the school’s honor code if they used ChatGPT or a similar program to draft their classwork and merely reworded the text before turning it in, said professor Chris Hoofnagle, who worked with two other faculty members to develop the policy over the past month.****
The new policy is a default. Individual professors may deviate from the rules if they provide written notice to students in advance. “The approach of finals made us realize that we had to say something,” Hoofnagle said. “We want to make sure we have clear guidelines so that students don’t inadvertently attract an honor code violation.”
The November introduction of ChatGPT and subsequent large language models that generate sophisticated, human-like responses based on requests from users and mountains of data, has prompted significant handwringing among educators who fear students will use the programs to cheat. But others say generative AI has the potential to improve student learning when used appropriately.
Hoofnagle said he was not aware of any other law schools that have yet adopted formal policies regarding generative artificial intelligence. The Association of American Law Schools is not tracking such policies, a spokesman said Thursday. Representatives for the law schools at Yale, Stanford and Harvard did not immediately respond to requests on whether they have or are developing policies on generative AI. Berkeley sought to find a balance that allowed some but not all uses, Hoofnagle said, noting that eventually major legal search tools such as Westlaw and Lexis will incorporate that technology. “The reality is that generative artificial intelligence is going to be in everything, so it will be impossible to tell students they can’t use it,” he said.
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*Before AI became a big topic, any search for information in Google or other similar search engines involved a degree of AI. Not clear how this provision changes anything.
**Word processors such as Word have for many years had grammar and spelling correction options built in. Not clear how this provision changes anything.
***If an AI program writes something, just who are the "others" whose work is being repackaged?
****While this provision is clear enough, the question is whether it can be enforced. As we have noted in prior posts, there are no current programs that can reliably detect AI. Moreover, lawyers are supposed to represent their clients as best they can. If an AI program can draft a persuasive brief for a client, why wouldn't a lawyer want to use it. The main problem at this point is that such programs may include misinformation when they write something. Thus, ultimately a lawyer who used AI would have a professional duty to check the validity of what such a draft contained. In effect: "draft, but verify."
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Bottom line: We are just at the beginning of coming up with sensible rules for AI in higher ed. And we're not there yet.
Friday, April 21, 2023
Getting Everyone On Board With Higher Ed Policy Also Matters - Part 2 (told you so)
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| Pat Brown signs law implementing Master Plan for Higher Education (1960) |
Now comes CalMatters with a story of what happens when you operate without a plan that has the support of the various stakeholders, legislature, and governor. We told you so:
As two California higher education systems continue to feud, lawmakers have entered the equation... The matter at hand — the 1,300-student Feather River College in rural Plumas County offering a bachelor’s degree in applied fire management — has become a lightning rod issue, sparking delays and anger on both sides. “I was quite frankly shocked and disheartened,” said California State University Interim Chancellor Jolene Koester at a trustees’ meeting, claiming that the community college system had “acted unilaterally” and out of accordance with the law by approving the bachelor’s degree program at Feather River. At the same meeting, Koester stressed that each component of the state’s higher education system — the 116 community colleges, 23 California State Universities campuses, and 10 University of California campuses — play a distinct role...
Full story at https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2023/04/california-community-college-fire/.
UC, in the case above, is seemingly uninvolved. But just as the community colleges encroach on CSU's traditional sphere, CSU will continue to encroach on UC's supposed sphere of graduate education.
Old timers will recall that apart from the Master Plan, the state also once had a California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC) to sort things out among the segments. It ended when Jerry Brown zeroed it out in the state budget.**
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The Only One from UC
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| Blumenthal |
It recently issue a statement signed by ex-presidents of colleges and universities in defense of free speech on campus in the face of various legislative and other attempts to curtail it.** Only one ex-chancellor from a UC signed: George Blumenthal, chancellor of UC-Santa Cruz from 2006 until 2019. In contrast, several former CSU presidents signed.
Just taking note.
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Thursday, April 20, 2023
UES History
Clarence A. Dykstra, UCLA Provost, and first-grader Jeannie Morgan break ground for University Elementary School at UCLA, February 3, 1949.
Source: https://digital.library.ucla.edu/catalog/ark:/21198/zz0015qkf4.
Take Your Journal Editorship Job and Shove It
On Monday, every editor at NeuroImage and the NeuroImage: Reports companion journal—over 40 people—resigned.
They’re starting their own journal, taking themselves, the Twitter profile they were using and (almost) the same name. They plan to publish their new Imaging Neuroscience with MIT Press. Elsevier says it has over 2,800 other journals. But the en masse exit is part of continuing backlash against the business model of the world’s largest scientific journal publishers...
Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/research/2023/04/20/exodus-elsevier-neuroscience-journal.
Increasing Enrollment at Santa Cruz
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| How many can be squeezed in? |
UC-Santa Cruz, for example, has been in a dispute with its local authorities over increased enrollment. That particular dispute may (or may not) be moving towards a settlement. But there will be others. For the state of affairs at Santa Cruz, see below from Lookout Santa Cruz:
City of Santa Cruz, UCSC in talks to possibly end lawsuits over enrollment and housing plans
BY HILLARY OJEDA, 4-18-23
Quick Take
UC Santa Cruz and the City of Santa Cruz have been embroiled in a lawsuit since February 2022 over UCSC’s plan to boost enrollment by an additional 8,500 students by 2040. The Long Range Development Plan, approved in 2021, set off a wave of lawsuits from the city and the county over potential worsening impacts on the region’s housing market. But now, Santa Cruz Mayor Fred Keeley says the two sides are in talks to end the LRDP lawsuit and a second, separate lawsuit related to water access on campus.
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The City of Santa Cruz is in talks with UC Santa Cruz to potentially end a long-running dispute over enrollment growth and housing. UCSC and the City of Santa Cruz have been involved in a lawsuit since February 2022 over the university’s Long Range Development Plan (LRDP). The plan lays out UCSC’s vision of growth, including enrolling an additional 8,500 students by 2040, bringing the total student population to 28,000. The University of California Board of Regents approved the plan in 2021, setting off a wave of lawsuits from the city and the county over potential worsening impacts on the region’s housing inventory, among other repercussions.
But now, Santa Cruz Mayor Fred Keeley says, the two sides are in talks to end the LRDP lawsuit and an additional lawsuit related to water access. Keeley said that over the past month or so — including two conversations in the past week — he’s spoken in person and over the phone with UCSC Chancellor Cynthia Larive and two UC regents about meeting outside of court to come to an agreement. “The chancellor and I talked on [April 10] for what I would call a shape-of-the-table discussion, as opposed to a substantive discussion about the issues involved,” Keeley said. “She is interested in having a campus-level meeting with her and their legal counsel, myself and the appropriate staff from the city and that we sit down for — I suspect more than one meeting — where we can talk with each other on the couple of pieces of litigation outside of the courts.” Keeley said their first formal meeting will be the morning of May 12.
UCSC spokesperson Scott Hernandez-Jason said the campus is interested in resolving both lawsuits. “We are interested in continuing meetings with the city to explore agreements about our LRDP and water access that might be reached outside the courts,” he wrote to Lookout last week. At the UC regents meeting last month, Keeley publicly supported the UCSC’s Student Housing West project and also publicly commented that the city wanted to reach an agreement outside of litigation. City Attorney Anthony P. Condotti described Keeley’s gesture at that meeting as the city extending an “olive branch.”
“My opinion is litigation is a sign of failure, not a sign of success,” Keeley told Lookout earlier this month. “And if it’s possible, if the regents want to, if the [UC] Office of the President wants to — it was a sincere offer from the city — we would like to see if we can make something happen. If the answer’s no, then the litigation moves along.” ...
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*http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2023/04/getting-everyone-on-board-with-higher.html.
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