During the public comments session of Nov. 15th, topics included incompletes for disabled students, sexual assault services, antisemitism, employment by UC of undocumented students, funding implications of the student-worker strike settlement, pro-Palestine, UC-Merced medical facilities, CalPIRG and climate change, math preparation for UC, CalWorks, opposition to DEI programs, gun divestment, UCLA's move to the Big-Ten, basic needs of graduate students, staff pay, and opposition to increased pension contributions.
There followed statements by UC Chair Leib and UC President Drake concerning recent campus events surrounding the Israel-Gaza War which we have previously noted on this blog.* Drake also noted improved evacuation procedures for disabled student. Faculty representative Steintrager spoke about faculty pay (including opposition to employee pension contributions), and the Israel-Gaza War and related free speech issues vs. responsibilities.
In Finance and Capital Strategies, UCLA's plan for a high-rise dormitory project was changed to have fewer triples and more doubles, based on objections at a prior Regents' meeting. The ratio will now be 20% vs. 80%, respectively. When the pension actuarial study was discussed, it was noted that the plan's funding ratio is roughly 80%. The president's proposal was to increase the employer contribution but not the employee contribution. The former would go up by 0.5% per year so that over eight years, the employer contribution would rise from 14% to 18%. There would also be about $3 billion in transfers from STIP to the plan. With all of that, plan funding would rise to 100% over 20 years. Three Regents abstained in the final committee vote but the plan was adopted as the recommendation. The abstainers were concerned about doing something in particular for low-wage workers if the employee contribution was raised. It was noted that other state employees contribute 50% of the normal cost whereas UC employees contribute less.
One concern, based on some regental comments at prior meetings was that those who earned pension credits during the two-decade pension holiday would somehow be blamed and penalized for that holiday. Of course, it was the Regents who implemented the holiday, originally because of a state budget crisis in the early 1990s and pension overfunding at that time. Subsequently, with pay below the comparison-8, there was reluctance to create a further de facto pay cut with pension contributions. Ultimately, it was the Regents - again - who delayed the end of the pension contribution holiday due to the budget crisis resulting from the Great Recession of 2008. Bottom line; the discussion could have turned nasty but ultimately did not.
The committee also approved a medical facility for UC-Merced. If we consider Berkeley and UC-SF as a unit, only Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara seem content not to have a med school.
In Academic and Student Affairs, there was a report on issues and legislation relating to community college transfers to UC and a hydrogen energy project. It was noted that graduate student enrollment has not kept pace with undergraduate enrollment. Perhaps the most controversial item was the math preparation standard for undergraduate admission. Mainly, however, the discussion focused on the process by which decisions will be made by a Senate working group.
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As always, we preserve recordings of Regents meetings since the Regents have no policy on duration of preservation.
The Nov. 15th board session is at:
https://archive.org/download/board-11-15-23am/Board%2011-15-23am.mp4.
Finance and Capital Strategies is at:
Academic and Student Affairs is at:
The general website for the morning session is at:
https://archive.org/details/board-11-15-23am.
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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2023/11/uc-regents-chair-leib-uc-president.html.
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