The Governance meeting - open component - briefly approved some executive pay matters.
Public Engagement and Development had various topics. The most interesting was a presentation on the activities of the UC Free Speech Center which was created under former UC president Napolitano. This segment begins at around minute 11:30 at the appropriate link below and runs for about 40 minutes, followed by some Q&A.
The presentation on the general concept of free speech, particularly as it applies to government entities such as UC. Basically, the presentation came out against such concepts as broad anti-bias speech codes, heckler's vetoes, and similar developments. The presentation also went into the related, but not identical, concept of academic freedom. It was noted that this concept protected relevant speech in classrooms by instructors and suggested making it clear in external comment on controversial issues that what was being said was not an official view of the university. The presentation did not get into the issue of required DEI statements for candidates for hiring and promotions, a subject currently under litigation.
At Compliance and Audit, the most interesting part dealt with compliance by faculty and staff of various training requirements concerning matters such as ethics, sexual harassment, and cybersecurity. Compliance rates overall on the broad topics were generally in the 83 to 94% range, but with variations by campus. Various Regents were upset that the numbers weren't higher and wanted penalties. The charts presented bifurcated the response rates by staff and supervisors/faculty, the latter being an amorphous division.
There was grumbling that harsher penalties were not imposed for those who didn't complete their trainings. And there was a demand to break out faculty from supervisors. It should be noted that when the Regents hear "faculty," they think of ladder faculty. The large army of other instructors, many of whom are part time and/or part year, does not come to mind. But getting people who may teach part time for a quarter or semester to undertake the various trainings may be an issue.
In any case, at no point did any Regents ask if the various trainings actually produce the desired behavioral results. What evidence do we have on that issue? Even where trainings are required by state law, it would be nice to have some evidence. Is behavior now more ethical? Is there less sexual harassment? Are computer systems more secure? (It might be noted that the big data breaches that have occurred in recent years seem to be the result of flawed system rather than of individual users.)
There was also a report pursuant to AB 481 which requires review of "military" type equipment by campus police. (Drones, for example, are considered to be "military.")
You can watch the various sessions of the afternoon of Sept. 20th at the links below:
Governance:
Public Engagement and Development:
Compliance and Audit:
General website address:
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