The afternoon meeting of the Regents
on March 20th partly picked up material delayed from the morning due to a
disturbance at the morning meeting. Regent chair Leib took note of antisemitic
incidents as did President Drake in remarks. Faculty rep Steintrager expressed
concerns about the issues of the chancellor selection process and debate about
online degrees in which there was a clash between the Regents and the Academic
Senate. He indicated that faculty might turn to unionization if the Academic
Senate was continually overridden. There was then a disturbance causing the
room to be cleared.
When the meeting turned to item J1
(departmental political statements) when the meeting resumed, Regent Sures -
who had developed the revised version noted it was an action item but that he
would be willing to have it reviewed as a discussion item if that were
necessary. The revised version essentially took the version from the January
meetings and incorporated the 2022 guidelines of the Academic Senate (which
have largely been ignored). But the guidelines would be mandates under J1.
Steintrager wanted to have the new version sent back to the Senate. UCLA Dean
of Humanities Alex Stern described some steps already taken by UCLA. President
Drake said the new version was not yet ready for adoption. Ultimately, the
options boiled down to adopting J1 or delaying decision to the May meeting and
having a Senate review of the new version within that time period. The latter
approach was adopted.
At Finance and Capital Strategies,
there was reluctant approval of a seismic upgrade project at the UC-Davis
hospital whose costs rose dramatically, leading to the firing of the team in charge
and new management being brought in. In response to questions, it was reported
at there would be legal action taken to try and recover some of the overrun.
Other projects were approved without considerable debate. In response to a
question about UC-Merced finances from a student rep, Regent Pérez made the point that student tuition
covers the cost of student education and is not used for additional projects.
(There is more to be said about that assertion, largely over the difference
between marginal and average. The average cost includes a certain amount of
overhead which is also needed for non-teaching functions.)
As always, we preserve the meeting
since the Regents have no policy regarding recording retention. The general
link for the afteroon session is at:
Discussion of J1 is at:
and
Finance and Capital Strategies is
at:
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