We continue to catch up with the Regents meetings last week. This post covers the morning sessions of July 17th. The meeting began with public comments dealing with police pay at UC-Merced, consultation with students (which seemed connected with the Israel-Gaza War), current AFSCME negotiations with UC, math requirements for admission to UC, collegiate recovery programs, mentoring by graduate students, contracting procedures, wage theft, concerns about item J2 on department political statements, support for the UC-San Francisco's Children's Hospital project, concerns of Black students, and complaints that UC was not supporting AB 2586, a bill in the legislature which is intended to override the decision by the Regents not to contest a federal ban on hiring undocumented students.
In remarks after public comments, incoming Regents chair Reilly and UC president Drake both alluded to work over the summer for UC to develop new policies with regard to handling students protests and encampments of the type seen last spring. The retirement of UCLA chancellor Block - who was in attendance - was acknowledged. Faculty representative Steintrager said that in his opinion, the biggest long run challenge at UC was the evolution of its labor system which had over time become more dependent on instruction by grad students and non-ladder faculty.
The rest of the meeting consisted of various committee and joint committee meetings approving executive pay matters and the budget for the national labs. Item J2 limiting department political statements which had previously been deferred from meeting to meeting was approved with some abstentions and a dissenting vote. Such statements cannot henceforth appear on department website "landing" pages and must include information on the voting procedures by which such statements were approved. They must also be accompanied with disclaimers indicating the statements were not the official position of the university. Chancellors will ultimately be responsible for enforcement.
As always, we preserve recordings of Regents meetings since the Regents have no policy with regard to retention duration. The morning meetings of July 17th can be found at:
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