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.
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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:
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Finance and Capital Strategies at:
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The general website for May 14:
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