Vulnerability to Pressure - Part 2

Above is an updated (fall 2024) and more complete chart for UC international enrollment from the San Francisco Chronicle. From the same article:

With tens of thousands of students from other countries studying at University of California campuses, UC officials say they are “very concerned” about President Donald Trump’s targeting of international enrollment, which could put a dent in colleges' budgets, slow research and harm the state economy.  On Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the Trump administration will “aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students.” Also this week, Trump paused new student visa interviews, and he dangled the idea of a 15% cap on international enrollment.  

About 41,000 international students study at UC’s 10 campuses, about 13% of systemwide  enrollment. Nearly a third of UC graduate students, 31%, are from another country, while 9% of undergraduates are from outside the U.S. China accounts for the greatest share of international students at UC by far — 43%...

International students don’t qualify for federal student aid, so the vast majority pay full tuition. That’s a lucrative source of revenue for many universities, especially UC campuses, where taxpayers and the university help subsidize the tuition of state residents. Nonresidents pay three times the in-state rate. But the research university system says it also depends upon foreign students for a robust exchange of ideas — academic and cultural. “The University of California is very concerned about the U.S. State Department’s action to pause new interview appointments for applicants for student and exchange visas and the direct impact it will have on our international students, scholars and faculty,” UC officials said through a spokesperson...

Full story at https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/trump-uc-international-students-risk-20349600.php.

New UC-Riverside Chancellor

University of California President Michael V. Drake, M.D., announced... the selection of Dr. S. Jack Hu, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost at the University of Georgia, as UC Riverside’s next chancellor. The UC Board of Regents approved the appointment during a special meeting held at the UC Student & Policy Center in Sacramento.

In Dr. Hu, UC Riverside welcomes a leader with nearly 40 years of experience in higher education. He joined the University of Georgia as provost in 2019, following an illustrious tenure at the University of Michigan, where he began his academic journey as a graduate student in 1985, ultimately rising to serve as the university’s vice president for research. Dr. Hu will begin serving as UC Riverside’s chancellor on July 15.

“Over his distinguished career at leading public research institutions, Dr. Hu has championed innovation and academic initiatives that have increased opportunities for students and faculty and have positively impacted their lives and the communities they serve,” said President Drake. “UC Riverside has established itself as a global leader in providing world-class scholarship. Dr. Hu has the academic acumen and collaborative mindset to move the campus forward with integrity and purpose.”

Dr. Hu has served as the University of Georgia’s senior vice president for academic affairs and provost since July 2019. In this role, he leads the academic enterprise by overseeing instruction, research, public service and outreach, information technology, and the 19 schools and colleges at the university. Since Dr. Hu began serving as provost, the University of Georgia has invested in multiple rounds of interdisciplinary faculty hires and increased its research and development expenditures year-over-year, exceeding $620 million in 2024. This significant investment in research has helped the University of Georgia maintain its status as a top U.S. university for research-to-market products every year over the previous decade, ranking first in 2024. Dr. Hu also serves as a UGA Foundation Distinguished Professor at the College of Engineering. 

“I am honored to join this outstanding University whose mission is to transform lives through discovery, dissemination and application of knowledge,” said Chancellor-designate Hu. “As a nationally recognized institution for academic excellence and social mobility and an engine for innovation and economic opportunity in the state, nation, and world, UC Riverside has immense potential ahead that I believe will put the campus at the forefront of shaping the future of higher education. Leading the campus into its next chapter of preeminence and realizing its ambitions is an exciting opportunity for which I am deeply grateful.”

As vice president for research at the University of Michigan, Dr. Hu oversaw a $1.5 billion research enterprise across the university’s campuses in Ann Arbor, Dearborn, and Flint. In 2015, the university launched “MCity” as a public-private partnership to support innovation and testing of connected and automated vehicles. He also led the development of several international initiatives to support education and research. At the University of Georgia, Dr. Hu made strategic investments in electric mobility-related research projects a priority, working with several automobile companies with manufacturing facilities in the state and hosting regular summits that convened leaders of government, academia and industry. Faculty hiring initiatives in precision agriculture, Parkinson’s research, data science and artificial intelligence led to research centers and institutes in these areas to support and sustain interdisciplinary collaborations. In addition, Dr. Hu created the Humanities Council to support faculty research, scholarship and collaboration. The provost office also sponsors the annual Spotlight on the Arts festival in partnership with the UGA Arts Council as an annual celebration of the literary, visual and performing arts.

“On behalf of the UC Board of Regents, we are proud to welcome Dr. Hu as UC Riverside’s next chancellor,” said Janet Reilly, UC Board of Regents Chair and member of the search advisory committee. “Dr. Hu’s reputation as a results-oriented team player makes him the ideal partner to bolster UC Riverside’s impact on students and the region through robust research, economic development, and community engagement.”

Dr. Hu has dedicated his career to strengthening undergraduate and graduate education and promoting student success. While at the University of Georgia, he worked to expand experiential and engaged learning opportunities through research, internships and study abroad. Notably, his tenure concludes with the University of Georgia being one of only nine public universities in the U.S. with a six-year graduation rate of at least 90 percent. Graduate enrollment has also increased by more than 20 percent since 2019.

An area of focus for Dr. Hu has been increasing collaboration between the University of Georgia and rural communities in the state. Dr. Hu helped create the Rural Engagement Workshop for Academic Faculty as a means of expanding faculty understanding of rural needs to better develop research-focused partnerships. Since the program launched in 2021, workshop alumni have secured nearly $12.5 million in funding as a direct result of the projects they started in the program. The program also won the National Award of Excellence in the Innovation category from the University Economic Development Association.

“In Provost Hu we have found an energetic leader with an unwavering commitment to academic excellence, student achievement, and community engagement,” said Steven W. Cheung, M.D., chair of the Faculty Academic Senate. “His extensive experience supporting the interests of students and faculty for the betterment of universities and communities across the country gives me great confidence that he will advance UC Riverside to its next great chapter of impact and growth.”

Dr. Hu is renowned for his engineering research, with much of his work focused on the quality and productivity of manufacturing systems. As a researcher, he has secured $46 million in external funding from federal agencies and industry to support research conducted by students, faculty and staff in his laboratory. In 2011, he joined then-President Barack Obama’s Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, a national initiative by the president to unite industry, universities and the federal government to strengthen American manufacturing. Dr. Hu is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and an elected fellow of four professional societies. He is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the William T. Ennor Manufacturing Technology Award and the DeVor/Kapoor Manufacturing Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Gold Medal from Society of Manufacturing Engineers, and several best paper awards.

Dr. Hu will become UC Riverside’s 10th chancellor, following the retirement of Chancellor Kim A. Wilcox. Appointed in 2013, Chancellor Wilcox has overseen tremendous growth at UC Riverside. Under his leadership the campus has added schools of medicine and public policy, increased overall enrollment more than 25 percent, and raised the campus’s four-year graduation rate by 18 percent. In 2023, UC Riverside was invited to join the Association of American Universities (AAU), a 10-year goal of Chancellor Wilcox, establishing the school as one of America’s leading research universities. Chancellor Wilcox will remain in his role as chancellor through July 14 to ensure a smooth leadership transition.

“I’m overjoyed that the selection committee has chosen Dr. Hu, one of our nation’s foremost academic researchers and leaders, to take the helm at UC Riverside,” said Chancellor Wilcox. “Dr. Hu has proven himself to be a thoughtful and collaborative leader who cares deeply about the faculty and students he leads and the communities he serves. With decades of academic leadership, his ability to translate vision into action positions the University for a promising future.”

Born in Hunan Province, China, Dr. Hu earned his bachelor’s degree from Tianjin University. Following his undergraduate studies, he moved to Michigan, where he earned both master’s and doctoral degrees in mechanical engineering.

Off campus, Dr. Hu’s interests include Chinese literature and Chinese calligraphy, which he practiced regularly during winters in Ann Arbor. His wife, Jun Du, is a pianist with a degree from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music.

The UC Board of Regents approved Dr. Hu’s annual salary at $824,000.

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Full news release at https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/press-room/university-california-president-michael-v-drake-md-names-new-uc-riverside-chancellor.

Terrell

From Politico: The head of the federal antisemitism task force that has helmed the controversial crackdown on universities in recent months says his team plans to intensify its actions in the wake of the shooting that left two Israeli Embassy staffers dead in downtown Washington. Leo Terrell, a former Democrat and Fox News contributor-turned Department of Justice senior counsel in the civil rights division, is the little-known figure behind the Trump administration’s efforts to target 10 academic institutions across the country over claims of antisemitism...

Harvard isn’t the only school facing the administration’s ire. Terrell’s task force in February announced a list of 10 institutions that it planned to investigate for allegedly allowing antisemitism on their campuses. In addition to Harvard, the universities include: Columbia; George Washington; Johns Hopkins; New York University; Northwestern; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of Minnesota; and the University of Southern California...

Full profile at https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/23/leo-terrell-trump-universities-harvard-00368352.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge - Part 12

From the Harvard Crimson: At the Harvard Kennedy School, the Trump administration’s attempt to revoke Harvard’s eligibility to enroll international students — temporarily blocked in court — could eliminate nearly 60 percent of the student body.

HKS is Harvard’s most international school, and the proportion of international students there has grown over recent years, reaching a record high of 59 percent in 2024. The announcement that international students might have to transfer or face deportation sent shockwaves across the Kennedy School — as students feared being displaced and faculty worried that the Kennedy School’s identity as a global center for public policy scholarship could hang in the balance...

After Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced on Thursday that the administration had revoked Harvard’s Student Exchange and Visitor Program certification, which allows it to enroll international students, Harvard swiftly sued to block the order. A federal judge granted a temporary restraining order within hours...

At a school dedicated to studying public policy and solving global problems, HKS Economics professor Jason Furman ’92 said international students are “absolutely central” – especially in the classroom. He teaches an international economics class where he said the majority of his students come from abroad.

Full story at https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/5/27/hks-reacts-to-trump-demands/.

From the NY Times:

A federal judge on Thursday said she would issue an order temporarily blocking the Trump administration from enforcing a ban on international students at Harvard. The judge voiced concerns that the government was attempting to prevent foreign students from enrolling despite her earlier order blocking the administration’s planned actions. The Trump administration had attempted to forestall the judge’s decision by sending a last-minute notice offering the university an additional 30 days to respond to its demands just hours before squaring off against Harvard’s lawyers in federal court. But Judge Allison D. Burroughs said she wanted to issue an injunction anyway, repeating concerns that student visas were being delayed or rescinded...

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/05/29/us/harvard-trump?campaign_id=190&emc=edit_ufn_20250529#harvard-international-students-trumps.

Vulnerability to Pressure

From the NY Times: 

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/23/upshot/harvard-trump-international-students.html 

Note that the UCs that are listed are all below 20%. In part, these lower percentages are due to pressure from the legislature to reserve slots for in-state students.

Coming someday

From the LA Daily News: ...After much anticipation, LA Metro presented the cost estimates for the first time at its recent online informational meeting on the project that would connect the two biggest suburban regions of Los Angeles. It offers an alternative to driving the congested 405 Freeway between West LA and Van Nuys/Sherman Oaks and roads and freeways between the Valley and UCLA. The first monorail alternative would cost $15.4 billion but does not include a station at UCLA. Passengers must ride a bus from the from D Line (Purple)’s Westwood/VA Station to UCLA. Alternative 3, also a monorail, includes a 3.4-mile monorail tunnel that provides a one-seat ride to UCLA by way of an underground monorail station located beneath the UCLA Luskin Center. It would cost $20.8 billion.

Alternative 4, mostly underground rail but includes four aerial stations in the San Fernando Valley, comes in at $20 billion, while the others, alternatives 5 and 6 are all underground rail and would cost $24.2 billion and $24.4 billion, respectively. All would have underground stations at UCLA...

Full story at https://www.dailynews.com/2025/05/23/la-metro-releases-costs-for-sepulveda-pass-project-alternatives-sets-more-informational-meetings/.

Budget Kabuki - Part 2 (Thank you but...)

From the Sacramento Bee: When Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled his first budget proposal of the year in January, California’s public university systems were looking at an 8% budget cut... Now [in the May Revise], Newsom has proposed a smaller budget cut: 3%...

While university leaders, employees and students are grateful for the reprieve, they’re asking to be exempt completely from California’s cost saving measures at a fragile time for higher education... 

Labor groups and university administrators are normally on the opposite sides of the bargaining table, but the two parties stood side by side on Wednesday to call on the Legislature to reject the proposed budget cuts as UC prepares to potentially lose hundreds of millions of dollars in federal research funding. “For more than three decades, UC and UAW have worked together and that partnership continues today,” said Kathleen Fullerton, the associate vice president of state government relations for UC’s Office of the President...

Full story at https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article307371996.html.

Health Negotiations

From the Sacramento Bee: The University of California Health system is approaching the deadline to reach a contract with Blue Shield of California, to keep care in-network for a large group of patients, including many state workers. Some patients received notices that their UC providers may go out-of-network, should the health system and insurer fail to reach a deal. Both parties said they are continuing to negotiate, and want to reach a new agreement before the current contract expires on June 30...

As stressful as such situations are for patients, experts say they may be more common now, because there are economic pressures on both hospitals and insurers to drive a hard bargain...

Blue Shield of California said it will continue to negotiate with the UC Health system. The insurer said it wants to reach a deal that keeps UC Health providers in-network at reasonable, sustainable prices...

Full story at https://www.sacbee.com/news/business/article307095801.html.

As the story suggests, it is not unusual for such negotiations to come down to the wire before resolution. And a reminder that UC's own health plans include Anthem Blue Cross, not Blue Shield.

Visitors

Proposed revisions for visiting appointments [excerpt]:

The proposed substantive revisions are intended to clarify the appropriate use of the visiting title, remove the carve out for Visiting Assistant Professor Programs in Mathematics, and to remove the prohibition against appointees in a visiting title participating in a compensation plan.

Key Policy Revisions

The following key revisions are proposed:

• Substantive revisions to clarify Visiting appointments at the assistant rank are only appropriate if the visitor is on leave from an academic or research position at another education institution.

• Technical revision to remove the three-year carve out for Visiting Assistant Professor Programs in Mathematics due to the creation of the Math Fellow title.*

• Technical revision to remove language which prohibits Visiting appointees from participating in a Health Sciences or other special compensation plan because it conflicts with language in APM - 670, Health Sciences Compensation Plan (APM - 670-14-a-6).

Comments are due by July 16.

Source: https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/systemwide-senate-review-apm-230.pdf.

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*Note: Math Fellows: As visiting assistant professors in mathematics join the postdoctoral scholars bargaining unit, there is support for changing their job title to “Math Fellow.” APP [Academic Personnel and Programs] has asked campus academic personnel offices to work with divisional Senates to seek exceptions to Senate Regulation 750.B to allow Math Fellows to serve as the instructor of record in courses. Senate faculty can serve as instructors of record in the interim, and the Academic Personnel Manual (APM) does not need to be modified to facilitate these changes because it does not explicitly list all covered titles.

Source: https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/committees/council/council-11-20-23-minutes.pdf.

Math Fellows: Visiting assistant professors in mathematics will join the postdoctoral scholars bargaining unit under the title “Math Fellow.” APP has asked individual campuses to collaborate with their divisional Senates to permit Math Fellows to serve as the instructor of record in courses until systemwide Senate Regulation 750.B can be revised. 

Source: https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/committees/council/council-12-13-23-minutes.pdf.

The (Seemingly) Endless Story - Part 4

The story of Harvard and Prof. Francesca Gino continues. As blog readers will know, Prof. Gino was an expert in research on dishonesty who was accused of manipulating data, i.e., dishonesty. We last revisited this story last October.*

From Poets and Quants via Yahoo News: For what many believe is the first time in its long history, Harvard University has stripped a one-time superstar professor at Harvard Business School of tenure. The decision, announced in a closed-door meeting with business faculty this past week, officially puts to an end [Francesca] Gino’s lifetime employment protections at HBS. Tenure revocation represents the most severe discipline a university can impose. For Gino, the university decision is a potentially career ending decision unless she can provide evidence that the data at issue was not intentionally falsified. Even if she is able to accomplish her innocence in her $25 million lawsuit against Harvard, this is a huge hit to her career and reputation.

It has been nearly two years since Harvard’s Office of the President notified Gino on July 28 of 2023 that it had begun the process of reviewing her tenure over allegations of research misconduct. The tenure review was initiated by HBS Dean Srikant Datar who by then had put Gino on an unpaid administrative leave, banned her from campus, revoked her named professorship, and prevented the professor from publishing on Harvard Business School platforms. Gino’s loss of tenure represents the first time Harvard University has forcibly stripped a tenured faculty member’s position since the 1940s, when the American Association of University Professors formalized tenure rules. Tenured faculty have long been considered invincible. More often than not, professors who are under pressure from a university administration voluntarily surrender their tenure or simply retire...

Neither the university nor the business school made a public announcement of the move. It was first disclosed by GBH News and confirmed by a university spokesperson. Gino, who has vehemently denied that she did anything wrong, has not commented publicly on the decision. Previously, Gino has asserted that she has never “falsified data or engaged in research misconduct of any kind.” Her last LinkedIn post two weeks ago was a promotion of sorts for her book, Rebel Talent. A website, Francesca v Harvard, devoted to her lawsuit has not been recently updated...

Full story at https://www.yahoo.com/news/harvard-strips-tenure-hbs-superstar-131336945.html.

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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2024/10/the-seemingly-endless-story-part-3.html. For earlier posts, type "Gino" into the search option for this blog.

Coming Soon to a Campus Near You

From the LA Times: A Justice Department official spearheading President Trump’s battle against Harvard University — which has led to multiple lawsuits and the school losing billions in federal funding — says the administration intends to take the University of California to court over alleged antisemitism.

Leo Terrell, senior counsel for the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, is heading a multiagency task force on combating antisemitism and said in a Tuesday Fox News interview that there will be “massive lawsuits against [the] UC system” and other colleges “on the East Coast, on the West Coast, in the Midwest.” ...

“We have been, and plan to continue, cooperating with the administration. Antisemitism has no place at UC or anywhere else in society,” said Rachel Zaentz, senior director of strategic and critical communications. “The university remains entirely focused on strengthening our programs and policies to root out antisemitism and all forms of discrimination.” UC has not released information about whether the task force has visited campuses or what information it has requested from UCLA and UC Berkeley...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-05-27/trump-lawyer-harvard-battle-leo-terrell-sue-uc-antisemitism.

Systemwide Academic Freedom Congress

Notice from UCOP:

Systemwide Academic Freedom Congress

June 2, 2025, Virtual via Zoom

We invite you to attend the Systemwide Academic Freedom Congress, co-sponsored by the Office of the UC Provost, the UC Academic Senate's Committee on Academic Freedom, and the UC National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement for a full day of discussions on the origins of academic freedom, its enduring presence, and contemporary controversies that surround this foundational concept.

This event is open to all UC staff and faculty members.

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Source: https://www.ucop.edu/systemwide-academic-congress/index.html

Note: Registration is at the link above. You may have trouble. If you do, send email to jennifer.tang@ucop.edu

Agenda: https://www.ucop.edu/systemwide-academic-congress/agenda/index.html 

Speakers: https://www.ucop.edu/systemwide-academic-congress/speakers/index.html

Budget Kabuki

As we have noted in our discussion of the recent Regents meetings, which happened to occur at the same time the governor's May Revise was unveiled, there was a lot of thanking the governor for reducing the UC budget cut from 8% in January to 3%.

There is much stylized dancing that occurs when it comes to UC and the state budget.

You can look at the January proposal as the opening bid in a negotiation, not just with UC, but with the legislature. Did the governor really think that minus 8% was going to be acceptable to the legislature, particularly since it violates the so-called "compact" to the point where ad hoc tuition increases might have been on the table? Probably not? Can the governor really promise that the legislature in the future will get us back to the compact track? Not really.

Does the Kabuki dance nonetheless require UC to thank the governor for minus 3%? It does, not by law but by tradition. So that's what happened.

We just happen to have one (from back in the day)

From the Wall St. Journal: When this year’s college graduates first arrived on campus, there was no such thing as ChatGPT. They had to use their own brains for math homework, econ problem sets, coding projects, Spanish exercises, biology research, term papers on the Civil War and the Shakespeare essay that made them want to gouge their eyes out. Now they can just use artificial intelligence. 

Students outsourcing their assignments to AI and cheating their way through college has become so rampant, so quickly, that it has created a market for a product that helps professors ChatGPT-proof school. As it turns out, that product already exists. In fact, you’ve probably used it. You might even dread it. It’s called a blue book. 

The mere thought of that exam booklet with a blue cover and blank pages is enough to make generations of college kids clam up—and make their hands cramp up. But inexpensive pamphlets of stapled paper have become a surprisingly valuable tool for teachers at a time when they need all the help they can get... 

Full story at https://www.wsj.com/business/chatgpt-ai-cheating-college-blue-books-5e3014a6. 

Spillover from Harvard Coming to UC

The attempt by the feds to block international students from enrolling at Harvard - even though blocked by court action - will have spillover effects on UC and other universities. From Politico:

The Trump administration is weighing requiring all foreign students applying to study in the United States to undergo social media vetting — a significant expansion of previous such efforts, according to a cable obtained by POLITICO.

In preparation for such required vetting, the administration is ordering U.S. Embassies and consular sections to pause scheduling new interviews for such student visa applicants, according to the cable, dated Tuesday and signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

If the administration carries out the plan, it could severely slow down student visa processing. It also could hurt many universities who rely heavily on foreign students to boost their financial coffers...

Full story at https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/27/trump-team-orders-stop-to-new-student-visa-interviews-as-it-weighs-expanding-social-media-vetting-00370501.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge - Part 11

From the NY Times: The Trump administration is set to cancel the federal government’s remaining federal contracts with Harvard University — worth an estimated $100 million, according to a letter that is being sent to federal agencies on Tuesday. The letter also instructs agencies to “find alternative vendors” for future services.

The additional planned cuts, outlined in a draft of the letter obtained by The New York Times, represented what an administration official called a complete severance of the government’s longstanding business relationship with Harvard... The latest letter, dated May 27 from the U.S. General Services Administration, is expected to be delivered Tuesday morning to federal agencies, according to an administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the official had not been authorized to discuss internal communications...

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/05/27/us/trump-news?campaign_id=190&emc=edit_ufn_20250527.

Letter below: [Click on images to clarify.]

Source: https://dn721605.ca.archive.org/0/items/2-final-hjaa-report.-the-soil-beneath-the-encampments/Harvard%20-%20Cancel%20of%20all%20fedl%20contracts%205-27-2025.pdf.

Watch the Regents Meeting of May 15, 2025

The third day of the Regents meetings of May - at least the public portion - was largely devoted to public comments, a lengthy presentation on Lawrence Livermore National Lab, approvals of committee reports of the previous two days, and a short open session of the Governance Committee to approve a contract with a UC-San Diego basketball coach. 

Public comments included concerns about federal funding cuts for a STEM diversity training program, staff pay, undocumented student support, adverse impact on workers of UC-San Francisco's takeover of Children's Hospital-Oakland, anti-Israel remarks, union relations and negotiations for "frontline" workers, NSF grant cuts, civil liberties, anti-Hawaiian telescope (TMT), civil liberties, and needed repairs of Hilltop housing (at UC-Santa Cruz). Following the comments, there was a disruption over union issues and the Regents moved to another room.*

When the meeting resumed, Chair Reilly endorsed the expansion of UC-Riverside's medical program. As noted above, there was a presentation on the activities of Lawrence Livermore. (Yours truly - who is old and remembers the Cold War - has to note that once upon a time, the activities of what were then called the nuclear labs - because they dealt with The Bomb - was a matter of controversy. Somehow, the calls for "military" divestment nowadays don't seem to be linked to UC's role at Lawrence Livermore or Los Alamos. We seem to have, as they say, moved on.) 

Stipends for advisors to the Health Services Committee were approved. Regent Leib on behalf of Academic and Student Affairs noted that the proposal for speeded-up faculty discipline would be presented at the July meeting. He also added there would be a related proposal for a process for students to complain if instructors pushed political viewpoints unrelated to class content in courses. And he mentioned the BOARS admissions controversy with the legislature. Notably, Regent (and Lieutenant Governor) Kounalakis - who is officially the presiding officer of the state senate - voted "no" on the report. Regent Makarechian again abstained on the report from Finance and Capital Strategies, presumably over the pension funding issue.

Apart from the short Governance meeting mentioned above, the rest of the Board's open session was devoted to ceremonial resolutions and statements regarding departing Regents and chancellors and, of course, President Drake.

As always, we preserve Regents meetings indefinitely since the Regents have no fixed policy on recording retentions.

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*According to the Daily Bruin, over twenty people were arrested. See:

https://dailybruin.com/2025/05/23/over-20-labor-demonstrators-arrested-during-uc-regents-public-comment-sit-in.

Note: The Regents immediately moved to another room, suggesting that there had been some planning for the demonstration with another room available. Usually, when such protests occur, the existing room is cleared.

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You can see the May 15th meeting at the links below:

Full board at:

https://ia800303.us.archive.org/5/items/governance-committee-board/Board%205-15-2025.mp4

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Governance at:

https://ia800303.us.archive.org/5/items/governance-committee-board/Governance%20Committee%2C%20Board.mp4

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General link for May 15: https://archive.org/details/governance-committee-board.

Animal Tales

Various animals have come and gone at UCLA, although it's not clear they would all have gotten along.

The (late) Powell Cat is profiled below:

https://bruinlife.com/powell-cat-uclas-unofficial-mascot/

Now we have (or had) Baraaack Rooster:

https://dailybruin.com/2025/05/24/co-op-residents-defend-rooster-dropped-off-in-nearby-lot-despite-disturbances

If you answer, hold on to your wallet

From an email received by yours truly:

The LAO on the longer-term state budget outlook

From the Legislative Analyst's Office: 

...Federal Budget Changes Likely to Create Additional Fiscal and Policy Pressure. The House of Representatives recently passed H.R. 1: One Big Beautiful Bill Act. If passed by the Senate and signed by the President, the legislation would make a variety of changes to federal spending. The impacts on the state budget generally fall into two categories: (1) direct General Fund costs and (2) reductions in federal funding that create state budget pressure. Changes with direct General Fund costs include many changes to Medicaid and food assistance. These have the potential to directly increase state General Fund costs in Medi-Cal and CalFresh by billions of dollars annually. In addition, some of the changes included in the bill would create budget pressure to the extent the state considers creating “state-only” programs for individuals no longer eligible for federal-state partnership programs. Other areas that could create state budget pressure include reductions to federal support for drinking water projects, zero-emission vehicles, and flood protection. The May Revision appropriately excludes the potential fiscal impacts of pending federal actions, as these effects remain uncertain. We encourage the Legislature to keep these potential fiscal pressures in mind, however, as it crafts the final budget package.

Future Budget Problems Likely to Become More Difficult to Solve. This May Revision marks the third consecutive year the Legislature has needed to close a budget shortfall. While the Governor’s proposal makes some progress toward narrowing the state’s persistent multiyear gaps, both our office and DOF project continued multiyear deficits. These shortfalls will become increasingly difficult to resolve over time, as the state has already relied on the least disruptive solutions—such as reducing one-time and temporary spending, drawing down reserves, and increasing borrowing—although notably the state still has $11 billion in reserves under the May Revision proposals. To balance the budget going forward, the Legislature will likely need to adopt additional solutions that increase ongoing revenues or reduce ongoing spending—both of which involve the most difficult and consequential trade-offs for policymakers. Further, although there is a possibility that revenue growth could ease future deficits, it is equally likely that the budget problem will grow larger than our forecast suggests. In short, the Legislature faces a challenging budget landscape in the years ahead.

Full report at https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5052.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge - Part 10

From the NY Times - Reporter Jess Bidgood (JB) talks with reporter Michael S. Schmidt (MS):

JB: ...A judge temporarily blocked this Trump effort to bar international students from Harvard. Is that good news for Harvard? Is this over?

MS: It’s not over at all. For now, it allows foreign students to continue to attend Harvard. But what it doesn’t remove is the question of what’s going to happen. If you’re an international student at Harvard, are you going to be like, “OK, cool, I’ll just go to school in the fall, and I’ll be checking the federal docket to see if the restraining order is still in place”? I’d imagine that for international students, this makes the prospect of attending Harvard feel deeply uncertain — even unappealing. Where would the university find itself, even if it wins?

Even if Harvard runs the table in court, it’s still persona non grata with the Trump administration, and that means that it’s going to continue to face investigations, including from the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Trump has stripped extensive federal funding from Harvard. Let’s say a judge gives back all of that money for this year. Half of the university’s research budget comes from the federal government. Where is Harvard going to get the money in the year after that, and the year after that? If you’re a researcher, do you want to be doing research at a school where your funding is in question? ...

JB: What’s happening at Harvard behind the scenes?

MS: Harvard officials have privately determined they are in a major, major, major crisis with very few, if any, good off ramps. If you’re a law firm and you get hit with an executive order, you can go to court and get a restraining order. You can go back to work and things are semi-normal. Harvard is much more complicated than that.

JB: Is there anything happening behind the scenes to de-escalate this?

MS: Harvard’s board, as far as we know, won’t let the university go back to the table. The board members don’t trust that you can negotiate with Trump. And the things that Trump keeps hitting Harvard with are so destructive. How could you go back to the table?

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/23/us/politics/trump-harvard-international-students.html.

Departures

The NY Times ran a piece profiling US students applying to undergraduate and graduate programs abroad due to the current chaos in higher ed:

...Kyle Kotanchek, 21, is graduating in June from the University of California Los Angeles with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in material science and engineering. He had been considering attending the University of Chicago this fall for his Ph.D. program to research battery materials. He had also applied to some schools in Europe.

Soon after the acceptances rolled in, changes in research funding and turbulence in the economy made him concerned about the future of his industry. He was also worried that the most well-known company for his career in the United States is Tesla, which is owned by Elon Musk, Mr. Trump’s close adviser.

Then one of his fears became a reality: Northwestern deferred his acceptance because of funding concerns. An adviser at the University of Chicago emailed him shortly after and said he should commit quickly or risk being deferred there, too. The choice between staying in the United States or going abroad became easier, and Mr. Kotanchek chose to accept a pay cut for a Ph.D. program at the University of Cambridge.

“I see just the global tide turning in such a way where the U.S. is no longer going to be as reliable,” Mr. Kotanchek said, adding that he had also chosen Cambridge in order to to open up his job opportunities to the global market where there are more companies focused on batteries...

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/21/us/us-students-international-university-enrollment.html.

Watch the Regents Meeting of May 14, 2025

On the second day of the May Regents meetings - May 14 - the session began with public comments at the full Board. Topics included union negotiations with resident physicians, support for UC-Riverside's med program, PhD student support, undocumented student support, concerns over takeover of Children's Hospital-Oakland by UC-San Francisco, opposition to the Hawaiian telescope (TMT), state budget issues, academic freedom, support for a community garden at UC-Riverside, anti-Israel divestment, food insecurity, litigation by researchers over federal cuts, DEI programs, international student safety, basic needs, poor quality of construction at UC-Santa Cruz, and nurse union negotiations.

Regent Chair Reilly referenced the state budget in her remarks and the hiring of James B. Milliken as the new UC president. President Drake had nice words about the governor and legislature with regard to the May Revise budget. He referenced federal grant cuts and visa revocations but said most of the latter had been restored. Senate Chair Cheung supported the pension funding delays (about which we have blogged previously). He supported "bridge" funding to make up for federal research grant cuts.

Much of the interesting discussions in the morning following the open session will not be known due to the closed format. But they likely covered the legal landscape and funding cuts coming out of DC as well as upcoming collective bargaining issues.

At the Governance Committee, alternative housing arrangements for chancellors at Davis and Santa Barbara were approved while their official residences were being reconstructed. There was also a discussion rather than a planned action item for a change in procedures regarding settlements of litigation on malpractice from the health sciences. The idea seemed to be involving both the Health Services Committee and Compliance and Audit in approving such settlements with an eye toward prevention. Details of the procedure are now planned for the July meeting.

Compliance and Audit approved an external audit plan for the year. Regent Makarechian raised the issue of whether the plethora of executive orders coming out of Washington might generate new liabilities and risk for UC and if the proposed cost for the external audit included such risks. It was said that if a "material change" was required in the scope of the audit, the cost would be renegotiated.

At Academic and Student Affairs, various professional tuition requests were approved. There was a lengthy presentation on Quantum Information Science. According to UCLA Chancellor Frenk, the new UCLA Research Park (old Westside Pavilion) facillity would be involved. It was noted that quantum computing could potentially cut the energy usage now being caused by conventional computers handling AI. 

There was also a discussion and preview of recommendations regarding the speeding up of faculty disciplinary procedures being assembled by a Joint administration-Academic Senate working group which will be presented at the July meeting. The proposal involves various deadlines for the various steps in the process. If a delay is caused by an inability of a campus to form a Privilege and Tenure committee to deal with charges, a systemwide standby P&T committee would apparently intervene. (As noted in an earlier post, there is a substantial audio gap in the recording of this discussion which continued into a subsequent discussion of BOARS admissions processes, processes which have created concerns and bills in the legislature.)

At Finance and Capital Strategies, additional funding for planning of the UCLA Research Park was approved. There was then discussion of the budget for UC Agriculture and Natural Resources and construction of two educational structures. The budget for UC ANR is a separate line-item in the state budget. Patent revenues - mainly from new plants - flow back into that budget. The proposal was approved with Regent Elliot voting "no" without explanation.

The May Revise now cuts the UC budget by 3% instead of January's proposed 8%, so there were lots of thank-yous from President Drake to the governor and legislature. (We'll say more about this in a later post.) There will be a report in July with recommendations to improve management efficiency in July. NOTE: An awful lot of important stuff seems to have been deferred to July. UCOP's budget was approved.

The pension funding delay and deferral was approved. Two Regents abstained for the obvious reason. There was also an audio gap in this segment of the recording but it lasted only a couple of minutes.

==

As always, we preserve the recordings of Regents meetings indefinitely - even the ones with audio gaps - because the Regents have no fixed policy on storage duration.

Board meeting including public comments at:

https://ia800101.us.archive.org/14/items/3-board/3-Board.mp4

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Governance and Compliance and Audit at:

https://ia600101.us.archive.org/14/items/3-board/4-Governance%20Committee%2C%20Compliance%20and%20Audit%20Committee.mp4

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Finance and Capital Strategies at:

https://ia800101.us.archive.org/14/items/3-board/6-Finance%20and%20Capital%20Strategies%20Committee%201.mp4

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The general website for May 14:

https://archive.org/details/3-board.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 9

From the NY Times: The Trump administration on Thursday halted Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students, taking aim at a crucial funding source for the nation’s oldest and wealthiest college in a major escalation in the administration’s efforts to pressure the elite school to fall in line with the president’s agenda.

The administration notified Harvard about the decision after a back-and-forth in recent days over the legality of a sprawling records request as part of the Department of Homeland Security’s investigation, according to three people with knowledge of the negotiations. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly...

In a news release confirming the administration’s move, the Department of Homeland Security sent a stark message to Harvard’s international students: “This means Harvard can no longer enroll foreign students, and existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status.”

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/22/us/politics/trump-harvard-international-students.html.

Also from the NY Times: Harvard University sued the Trump administration on Friday, less than 24 hours after the Department of Homeland Security said it would block international students from attending the nation’s oldest university and one of its most prestigious. The administration action, and Harvard’s response, signified a dramatic escalation of the battle between the administration and Harvard. And the university’s forceful and almost immediate response served as evidence that stopping the flow of international students to Harvard, which draws some of the world’s top scholars, would destabilize Harvard’s very existence...

In the new lawsuit, the university accused the Trump administration of exerting “clear retaliation for Harvard exercising its First Amendment rights to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum and the ‘ideology’ of its faculty and students.” ...

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/23/us/harvard-sues-trump-international-students-garber.html.

And finally from the NY Times: A federal judged halted on Friday the Trump administration’s attempts to block international students from attending Harvard University, the nation’s oldest university and one of its most prestigious. Harvard had sued the Trump administration earlier in the day and less than 24 hours after the Department of Homeland Security moved to bar international students. Later Friday morning, at the university’s request, the Boston judge, Allison D. Burroughs, issued a temporary restraining order against the federal edict, agreeing that Harvard had shown that its implementation would cause “immediate and irreparable injury” to the university...

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/23/us/harvard-sues-trump-international-students-garber.html (Updated version of citation above.)

Mind the Gap

Old-timers will immediately remember the image above. For the young-uns, it shows President Nixon's loyal secretary Rose May Woods trying to come up with an explanation for an 18-minute gap in a crucial Watergate scandal audio tape. Maybe, when she answered the phone, she accidentally pressed something that erased part of the tape. Or maybe not.

As it turns out, last week's Regents meetings recording have a gap - this one around 22 minutes - in a crucial tape, too. The Academic and Student Affairs Committee dealt with two controversial issues on May 14th. After last spring's events at UCLA, the issue of why nobody had been disciplined was raised at Regents meetings and a working group of administration representatives and Academic Senate representatives was established to speed up the process.* Of course, all of that raised issues of due process, academic freedom, etc. There was an interim report on the working group's progress at the committee. And it was followed by the issue of BOARS decisions on admissions standards for high schoolers applying to UC, a matter which we have previously discussed.** 

Unfortunately, in the midst of a slide presentation on the former issue, the audio cuts out and the video abruptly cuts to someone doing something with no audio, and then the slide reappears without sound. Go to the one hour and twenty-two minute mark at:

https://ia800101.us.archive.org/14/items/3-board/5-Academic%20and%20Student%20Affairs%20Committee.mp4.

We then see, without sound, various Regents and others having a discussion. The video continues without sound until we are in the middle of a discussion of the latter issue. But there is no sound until the one hour and forty-four minute mark. By that time, whatever presentation on the BOARS matter there was has been made. The discussion is wrapping up. Regent Leib asks if the resolution of the BOARS matter that has been made - and that we have not heard - will satisfy the legislature.

So, maybe Rose Mary knows what happened during the audio gap which we very much mind. But even if she does, she has been dead for twenty years and can't tell us.

---

Note: We'll summarize the rest of the May 14th meeting in a post in the next few days.

===

*See Regent Sures' complaint about the process at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg84osKAXB8.

See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkGHMyjhpm0.

**https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2025/05/cans-of-worms-from-legislature.html.

Will Harvard Continue to Leading the Charge? - Part 8 (one third)

From Inside Higher Ed: In the latest escalation of its fight with Harvard University, the Trump administration is terminating hundreds more research grants to the university and its medical school, The Boston Globe reported. Researchers in a variety of fields received funding-termination notices... from a number of different federal agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Departments of Defense and Energy, the Globe reported. Harvard Medical School alone saw more than 350 grants impacted.

“The scale of what happened is incomprehensible—a bloodbath for research and the wider community,” Brittany Charlton, associate professor at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, told the Globe. “Entire labs are unraveling, and young scientists on training grants may be suddenly adrift. Work that could change lives—or save them—is being brought to a standstill.” The cuts come on top of the $2.2 billion the Trump administration froze in April after Harvard president Alan Garber rejected its sweeping demands for change, and an additional $450 million frozen last week...

[Education Secretary MacMahon indicated] an eagerness to resume negotiations with Harvard, but also made clear the department has additional tools it could deploy to pressure the university to comply, noting that so far only about a third of the university's $9 billion in federal support has been canceled...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2025/05/19/nearly-third-harvards-federal-funds-have-been-canceled.

Flip Flop?

From The Free Press: Just a few years ago, Dr. Santa Ono, the sole finalist for president of the University of Florida, sounded a lot more like New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez than Florida’s Ron DeSantis. “Systemic racism is embedded in every corner of any institution, and so the only way to solve it is to have everyone doing their part . . . looking at themselves inside and asking, ‘What parts of me are racist, and what steps do I have to take to move beyond that?’ ” That’s Ono in a 2021 interview while he was president of the University of British Columbia (UBC), a position he held from 2016 to 2022.

So it’s surprising that members of the Board of Governors of the University of Florida—which, several years before Donald Trump, became involved in eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in education, under Florida governor Ron DeSantis—together with other search committee members, recommended Ono, now president of the University of Michigan, to be the University of Florida’s next president...

A month after starting the top job at the University of Michigan, Ono told students and faculty that the university “cannot be excellent without being diverse in the broadest sense of that word.” In that same address, he announced a $300 million investment in “companies that follow environment, social, and governance (ESG) procedures,” to help “strengthen DEI progress” in communities...

In a recent essay explaining why he’s pursuing the presidency of University of Florida, Ono wrote that he “supported what I believed to be the original intent of DEI,” but, "over time, I saw how DEI became something else—more about ideology, division and bureaucracy, not student success.” That, he said, is why “as president of the University of Michigan, I made the decision to eliminate centralized DEI offices and redirect resources toward academic support and merit-based achievement.” In that same essay, Ono wrote that “universities must serve as platforms for learning, not partisanship or ideological activism.”

In other words: Ono’s ideological journey since 2021, if it is to be believed, involves a core change in his views on the purpose of the university itself. In 2021, he indicated that he was pleased that universities serve as effective incubators for student activism. Four years later and a new job lined up, Ono says “learning” is the mission, not activism...

Full story at https://www.thefp.com/p/is-florida-really-where-woke-goes.

Maybe it's just assimilation:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6vtb48YKHU.

Musing on the history of the athletics deficit

Yesterday, we summarized the Regents meeting of May 13th, which included the Special Committee on Athletics and its review of UCLA and its athletics budget deficit. The LA Times ran a piece on the odd history of athletics finance at UCLA: [excerpt]

In his later years, John Wooden liked to muse about one oddity of his first 12 years as UCLA’s basketball coach. His paychecks were always signed by the student body president. One of those presidents, Rafer Johnson, also played for Wooden, meaning that Johnson in effect could have been considered his coach’s boss. The arrangement stemmed from an ethos that gave UCLA students a large measure of control over their own campus from the 1920s through the late 1950s. The students ran the campus bookstore, the cafeteria and intercollegiate athletics, all of it managed by an organization called Associated Students UCLA that was overseen by a student-majority board of directors.

Change came after a dispute about abandoning the Pacific Coast Conference as the result of a scandal involving payments to players. The University of California regents, irked by the lack of direct authority that the chancellors at UCLA and sister school UC Berkeley had over the intercollegiate athletic programs at each campus, decided that starting in the summer of 1960, the athletic departments at each campus would be university departments reporting directly to their respective chancellor. That move came with the mandate that each athletic program was considered an auxiliary enterprise similar to campus parking and housing, with the expectation that they would be similarly self-sustaining.

This decision came with significant financial fallout for ASUCLA. Previously, the profits from the school’s athletic teams subsidized the losses of the campus bookstore and the cafeteria. Where were the students going to get the money to keep those businesses afloat now? John Sandbrook, who later became assistant chancellor under chancellor Charles Young, told The Times that the decision was made to give the bookstore — still run by ASUCLA — control over the logo rights for UCLA T-shirts, sweatshirts and other merchandise as part of an arrangement that still exists 65 years later. “These legacy decisions got made for reasons that made sense at the time,” Sandbrook said, “but because of inertia never were modified.” ...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/sports/ucla/story/2025-05-14/a-makeup-call-how-ucla-athletic-department-finances-suffered-from-legacy-deals.

Of course, the larger problem is that running a de facto commercial sports operation - which has to support athletic sports that aren't moneymakers - won't be fixed with T-shirt revenue.

See also: https://www.latimes.com/sports/ucla/story/2025-05-13/how-does-this-thing-not-sink-bob-myers-questions-ucla-athletics-finances.

Watch the Regents Meeting of May 13, 2025

The first day of last week's Regents meetings included the Investments Committee, the Special Committee on Athletics, and Health Services. It opened with public comments. Topics included a statement about a UC program involving IT/medical technology in low-income countries, staff pay issues, union relations, anti-Israel demands, various compliants about the takeover of Children's Hospital-Oakland by UC-San Francisco, a UC-Santa Cruz housing development known as Hilltop, support for undocumented students, and support for students who are also parents.

Then Chief Investment Officer Bachhar spoke about recent volatility in financial markets and the need for "liquidity" - which seemed to refer to having less private equity investments as well as cash. At one point in the session, there was an anti-Israel disturbance which led to the room being cleared by security. Bachhar touted a program his office runs teaching students about financial management. He noted that in the voluntary savings programs, there had been a small shift from equities to fixed income and an uptick in interest in TIPs (inflation-adjusted Treasury securities). As we have noted in a prior post, in response to concerns expressed by Regent Makarechian, Bachhar indicated that the proposed delay in pension contributions was inconsistent with faculty demands for 100% funding.

The meeting of the Special Committee on athletics was the last one the committee will have. But a continuing "working group" of the Regents on athletics was announced. Two athletic programs were reviewed: UCLA and UC-Santa Cruz. Both are having financial issues, but UCLA's problem is Big Time: a deficit of $50 million which Chancellor Frenk and Athletics Director Jarmond referred to. Fifty million is not chicken feed, folks and yours truly did not hear a solution. No one commented on UCLA being taxed to benefit Berkeley in the aftermath of UCLA's move to the Big Ten.

It was noted that UCLA will be hosting the Olympics in 2028 although Olympic sports don't bring in revenue. UCLA does note have its own football stadium. There was talk of adding premium seats to the Rose Bowl - which it doesn't own - and to Pauley as a way of raising more revenue. NIL programs set up by UCLA raise funds for athletes - but that doesn't close the gap for the university. Much was made about a 91% graduation rate for athletes.

UCSC also reported financial issues, but of a lesser magnitude.

At Health Services, UC Health's "Strategic Plan" was discussed, although it's not clear you can do much strategizing until there is more clarity from Washington, DC as well as the state. Budget cuts and a ten percent reduction in FTE were mentioned, as well as a hiring "freeze" until January 2026. Some possible substitution of industry support for research to replace federal was mentioned. 

There was also a presentation on UC's "340B Program." As yours truly understands it, this program involves UC getting discounts on drugs from drug companies, but getting reimbursed at the regular price from Medicare and private insurance. The revenue thus created is then used to provide uncompensated care. The program was created by federal law. 

Finally, there was a review of Medicaid (Medi-Cal) payments received by UC and the uncertainty surrounding them coming from DC.

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We preserve the recording of Regents meetings indefinitely since the Regents have no policy on duration of retention. You can see the sessions at the following links:

Investments (including public comments) at:

https://ia600300.us.archive.org/27/items/cio-bachhar-on-deferring-pension-funding-5-13-2025/1-Investments%20Committee.mp4.

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Athletics at:

https://ia600300.us.archive.org/27/items/cio-bachhar-on-deferring-pension-funding-5-13-2025/2-Special%20Committee%20on%20Athletics.mp4.

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Health Services at:

https://ia800300.us.archive.org/27/items/cio-bachhar-on-deferring-pension-funding-5-13-2025/3-Health%20Services%20Committee.mp4/.

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The general website for May 13th is at:

https://archive.org/details/cio-bachhar-on-deferring-pension-funding-5-13-2025.

Inconsistent?

From the NY Times: In February, Ella Stapleton, then a senior at Northeastern University, was reviewing lecture notes from her organizational behavior class when she noticed something odd. Was that a query to ChatGPT from her professor?

Halfway through the document, which her business professor had made for a lesson on models of leadership, was an instruction to ChatGPT to “expand on all areas. Be more detailed and specific.” It was followed by a list of positive and negative leadership traits, each with a prosaic definition and a bullet-pointed example. Ms. Stapleton texted a friend in the class.

“Did you see the notes he put on Canvas?” she wrote, referring to the university’s software platform for hosting course materials. “He made it with ChatGPT.”

“OMG Stop,” the classmate responded. “What the hell?”

Ms. Stapleton decided to do some digging. She reviewed her professor’s slide presentations and discovered other telltale signs of A.I.: distorted text, photos of office workers with extraneous body parts and egregious misspellings. She was not happy. Given the school’s cost and reputation, she expected a top-tier education. This course was required for her business minor; its syllabus forbade “academically dishonest activities,” including the unauthorized use of artificial intelligence or chatbots.

“He’s telling us not to use it, and then he’s using it himself,” she said. Ms. Stapleton filed a formal complaint with Northeastern’s business school, citing the undisclosed use of A.I. as well as other issues she had with his teaching style, and requested reimbursement of tuition for that class...

Katy Pearce, a communication professor at the University of Washington, developed a custom A.I. chatbot by training it on versions of old assignments that she had graded. It can now give students feedback on their writing that mimics her own at any time, day or night. It has been beneficial for students who are otherwise hesitant to ask for help, she said.

“Is there going to be a point in the foreseeable future that much of what graduate student teaching assistants do can be done by A.I.?” she said. “Yeah, absolutely.” What happens then to the pipeline of future professors who would come from the ranks of teaching assistants?

“It will absolutely be an issue,” Dr. Pearce said...

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After filing her complaint at Northeastern, Ms. Stapleton had a series of meetings with officials in the business school. In May, the day after her graduation ceremony, the officials told her that she was not getting her tuition money back...

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/14/technology/chatgpt-college-professors.html.