The Forecast

The UCLA Anderson Forecast met yesterday on campus to discuss the economic outlook, despite gaps in federal data caused by the government shutdown.

From a news release by the Anderson School: The December 2025 UCLA Anderson Forecast for the United States and California describe a situation with two economic trends currently working in opposition. In some sectors of the economy, ongoing and optimistic investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure and rising income among high-wealth households drive the economy, while tariff-induced inflation, policy-driven uncertainty and a gradually weakening labor market indicate signs of sectoral weakness. The result is an economy expected to soften through the first quarter of 2026 before regaining strength later in the year.

In California, the outlook is further complicated by a bifurcated economy: AI, aerospace and other high-productivity

sectors continue to expand, while construction, non-durable goods, leisure and hospitality, and government-funded services face significant headwinds. Deportations, elevated input costs, and weak job growth prolong an employment recession expected to last into early 2026, even as the state continues to outpace the nation in overall productivity.

On balance, the Forecast does not expect an immediate downturn or an immediate resurgence. Instead, both the nation and the state are poised to muddle through early 2026 before experiencing stronger growth in 2026 and 2027...

Full news release at https://www.anderson.ucla.edu/press-releases/us-economy-slow-through-early-2026-while-california-navigates-two-speed-recovery.

You can see the full forecast conference - which includes discussion of cryptocurrency and private equity - at the link below:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks0Wu0fw3FI.

Straws in the Wind - Part 181

From the Daily Cal: UC Berkeley has indefinitely closed the Multicultural Community Center, a space known to students as the MCC that offers cross-cultural community building, due to “criticism received from a number of campus stakeholders.” The MCC... has been closed since the beginning of summer, and campus administrators have offered no solid return date. Interns at the center — who were initially not informed of the indefinite closure — were told by professional staff that the space would remain closed during conversations with the chancellor’s office regarding its current operating procedures. 

...The center had been used in the past as a meeting and organizing space for pro-Palestinian groups during the 2024 Free Palestine Encampments. Students had also faced pressure from administrators to remove signs from windows in support of progressive causes, to which they complied. 

...“We’re caught up in this antisemitism debate that’s going across all university campuses,” [a] junior intern said. “Because of the signage that was on our walls — even though we were open to let anyone put stuff on our walls — they (decided to) not have the space basically be open for any group, and label the campus as having transgender wellness initiatives, DEI-related initiatives and support for things that could be conflated with antisemitism.” 

...The MCC has been under scrutiny for alleged antisemitism. Interns mentioned that there were multiple instances of students coming into the space to confront interns regarding perceptions of antisemitism...

Full story at https://www.dailycal.org/news/campus/student-life/uc-berkeley-administration-silently-shutters-student-multicultural-space/article_f1141eab-1212-46c0-a749-f5c7e0bf50ed.html.

Partial Restoration

You'd have to be a really faithful reader of this blog and someone with a very good memory to recall our postings from back in 2023 about UC-Berkeley's attempt to close an anthropology library. It resulted in an occupation by students and a promise of some kind of reading room.* Two years later, we have a follow-up:

From the Daily Cal: UC Berkeley’s anthropology department opened the refurbished Constance Chiang Pan Anthropology Reading Room, or CCPARR, through a gift from anthropology and economics alumna Constance Chiang Pan. Due to budget cuts, campus closed the original Anthropology Library as a circulating library in January 2023, which was considered a “big loss” for the campus and department, according to anthropology department chair Sabrina Agarwal... The initial announcement about the library’s closure in 2023 led to a months-long occupation and protest from students and faculty. Eventually, campus and then-Chancellor Carol Christ allowed the department of anthropology to keep the space to create a reading room...

It took almost eight months for the library staff to help retain and reorganize the “invaluable” collection of 20,000 historical anthropological volumes, selection of emeriti books and the UC Berkeley Folklore Archive that was saved by campus’s smaller renovation funds, according to Agarwal. The other 10,000 to 15,000 books were placed in another campus library or can be obtained at the Northern Regional Library Facility, where UC Berkeley archives are stored...

Full story at https://www.dailycal.org/news/campus/following-spring-2023-protests-anthropology-library-reopens-as-constance-chiang-pan-reading-room/article_8d9d0b46-c8e7-4a32-ad05-bfc7240478e8.html. 

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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2023/05/special-libraries-at-berkeley-going.html.

Straws in the Wind - Part 180

From the Cavalier Daily: Some University [of Virginia] faculty have expressed skepticism about the intentions behind Freedom of Information Act requests they have received in recent years from Virginia residents and organizations. While acknowledging the right of individuals and organizations to file FOIA requests to obtain public records — such as course syllabi or emails — some faculty also claim that the law has been weaponized and created a sense of curriculum policing at the University.

According to the Code of Virginia, the Virginia FOIA law ensures access to “public records in the custody of a public body or its officers and employees.” FOIA says that “all public records shall be available for inspection and copying upon request,” unless there is an exemption invoked. Exemptions include certain personnel records, scholastic records, health records or other information which is shared with a public institution under the condition of confidentiality. Any Virginia citizen can file a FOIA request to receive records from a state public body.

...According to Assoc. Sociology Prof. Ian Mullins, recently some FOIA requests have targeted faculty within the College of Arts and Sciences Engagements program. The Engagements program is a yearlong sequence of small, seminar style courses for first-year College students that aims to introduce them to the liberal arts and sciences. Janet Spittler, Engagements program co-director and associate religious studies professor, confirmed via an email statement to The Cavalier Daily that every course in the Engaging Aesthetics Pillar — one of four pillars in the program which focuses on exploring the world through “the lens of human creativity” — has received a FOIA request for its syllabi. Spittler was not able to confirm when these requests were filed, nor whether the requests were limited to the Fall 2025 semester or not.

...Although [Media Studies Prof. Robin Means] Coleman emphasized that individuals and organizations have the right to access these records, and that these rights are crucial for holding public institutions accountable, she also stressed that this right has been abused to target certain offices and faculty at universities across the country. “I'm not opposed in any way to the spirit [or] the principles of what's behind [open records requests],” Coleman said. “The challenge that folks are facing is navigating the weaponization of that really useful tool … It becomes sort of de facto censorship that faculty have to worry about.” ...

Full story at https://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025/11/faculty-question-the-motives-behind-foia-requests-for-course-materials-text-messages.

Note: UC emails, etc., are subject to Public Records requests. You should not assume privacy.

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From the NY Times: A University of Oklahoma student says she is the victim of religious discrimination because a psychology instructor gave her a zero for an essay that cited the Bible and said that “the lie that there are multiple genders” is “demonic.” The complaint by the student, Samantha Fulnecky, follows a series of similar conflicts at colleges around the country over how professors should talk about gender in the classroom, a battle in which each side insists it is protecting academic freedom and First Amendment rights.

The instructor who flunked Ms. Fulnecky on the essay has been placed on administrative leave while the school investigates the episode, according to a statement the University of Oklahoma posted on social media. The instructor is a graduate student at the university. Dozens of professors have lost their jobs or been disciplined in recent months over issues related to political speech, often because of posts on social media. Texas A&M University fired a faculty member who was accused of teaching a course that recognized more than two genders, after a video of her discussing gender in class was posted online.

...The instructor, who was not named in the university’s statement, declined to comment, writing in an email that, “as advised by my lawyer, I will not be making any public statements at this time.” ...

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/us/oklahoma-bible-essay-gender-teasing-zero.html.

In case you were confused...

As we noted in an earlier post, UCLA Health has created its own Medicare Advantage plan for those eligible for Medicare. However, the UCLA plan is NOT an option for those who are eligible for UC retiree health.

Many UC retirees may have received letters such as this one. At least 6 variants have appeared at the mailing address of yours truly. The fact that the letters say UCLA Health on the top and come at the same time that UC has its open enrollment was confusing. This blog warned its readers that if they were recipients of UC retiree health insurance, they should not sign up for the UCLA plan thinking it was an option.* Furthermore, on the reverse side of the letter shown, there is a cautionary note in small print indicating that those under any kind of employer-based group plan should not be enrolling in the UCLA plan. The UCLA plan is for individuals, not groups.

If you somehow signed up anyway despite these warnings, you will want to undo what you did.

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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2025/11/reminder-dont-choose-whats-not-on-menu.html.

I never promised you a Rose Bowl? - Part 3 (Moving on edition)

Excerpt from Ben Bolch, sports columnist, LA Times:

 ...Who’s driving the proposed move to SoFi Stadium and what do the numbers look like? There’s been lots of chatter about chief financial officer Steven Agostini trying to clean up the financial mess you both inherited within the athletic department. I’m assuming there have been extensive calculations about a Rose Bowl payout and how much more money you’d make playing at SoFi Stadium.

But how much of that is SoFi spin and aren’t you worried that a judge could make you pay so much in damages that the whole thing would be a net negative? Yes, you’d presumably get suite revenue at SoFi Stadium, but would anyone want to buy one given what we’ve seen from this football team over the last decade? Shouldn’t you just go back to the Rose Bowl, football helmet in hand, and ask for a lease renegotiation that satisfies both sides?

Are you sure a big enough chunk of the fan base is on board with a move to Inglewood to justify such a jarring and abrupt abandonment of the school’s longtime home? If you indeed left the Rose Bowl, how would you compensate donors who contributed major gifts to the stadium for capital improvements on the premise that the Bruins would be a tenant through the 2043 season? And why would any business entity ever feel comfortable signing a long-term lease with the school again? ...

Full column at https://www.latimes.com/sports/ucla/newsletter/2025-11-24/ucla-unlocked-nov-24.

NOTE: As blog readers will know, the Academic Senate is already unhappy about lack of disclosure of financial information by Murphy Hall. A screw-up in the Rose Bowl/SoFi Stadium matter could end up costing big bucks. What exactly are the projections for staying in the Rose Bowl, moving to SoFi, and for potential legal liability costs? And what about the issue - raised above - about soliciting future donations from those "who contributed major gifts to the [Rose Bowl] for capital improvements on the promise that the Bruins would be a tenant through the 2043 season"? Enquiring minds want to know.

And meanwhile:

From the Bruin (excerpt):

...The City of Pasadena and the [Rose Bowl Operating Company] alleged in their TRO application that UCLA met with SoFi representatives as early as March 2025. They also claimed that UCLA informed the plaintiffs’ council Oct. 18 that it was “moving on” from the Rose Bowl...

Source: https://dailybruin.com/2025/11/29/it-is-our-home-students-react-to-uclas-possible-move-to-sofi-stadium.

Moving on? Seems to be the trend:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKfEDZ8Htjk.

Particularly true when you have no truck with staying:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYrwtpZ8IfY.

Straws in the Wind - Part 179

From Inside Higher Ed: As Duke University navigates a $108 million federal research funding freeze and multiple investigations by the Trump administration, administrators want faculty to avoid talking to the media about institutional operations, The Chronicle, Duke’s student newspaper reported... According to an August email obtained by The Chronicle, Jenny Edmonds, associate dean of communications and marketing at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy, encouraged faculty to “continue to engage with the media to disseminate [their] research as [they] have always done,” while also cautioning that “media attention to institutions of higher education and discussions about institutional responses to policy changes have become more prominent than ever.”

...At an Academic Council meeting in October, Duke’s president, Vincent Price, and council chair, Mark Anthony Neal, commended faculty members for not speaking to a New York Times reporter; the reporter had visited the campus while working on a story about the Trump administration targeting Duke’s diversity, equity and inclusion program...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2025/11/26/duke-asked-some-faculty-avoid-talking-media.

From Inside Higher Ed: Hackers who attacked Dartmouth College in August stole information concerning more than 35,000 people from multiple states, according to The Record from Recorded Future News. The security breach was part of a larger attack by cybercriminals against Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) software, which Dartmouth and other higher ed institutions use to manage operations. Dartmouth, which confirmed the leak to SecurityWeek last week, discovered in late October that hackers had obtained files that contained individuals’ personal and financial details, including Social Security numbers. College administrators have since notified authorities in California, Maine, New Hampshire and Texas that residents of their states have been impacted...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2025/12/01/dartmouth-latest-college-be-targeted-hackers.

All in 30 Minutes - Part 3

The Regents are having yet another 30-minute meeting today about you-know-what, to which you are not invited:

November 29, 2025

TO THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA:

Because the membership of the Advisory Group on Research and Programs Funding Legal Issues (“Advisory Group”) includes five members of the Regents’ Governance Committee, there exists the potential for having present a quorum of a Regents’ Committee when the advisory committee meets.

This notice of meeting is served in order to comply fully with pertinent open meeting laws.

On Tuesday, December 2, 2025, there will be a Closed Session, Special Meeting of the Regents’ Governance Committee concurrent with the Advisory Group to discuss Research and Programs Funding Legal Issues 

The meeting will convene at 4:00 p.m. at 1111 Franklin Street, Oakland and adjourn at approximately 4:30 p.m.

(Advisory Group members: Regents Anguiano, Cohen, Hernandez, Leib, Matosantos, Milliken, Reilly, Robinson, Sarris, and Sures)

---

Source: https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/dec25/federal-12.2.2025.pdf.

Watch the Regents Meeting of Nov. 20, 2025

As noted in a post last Saturday, the big event of the November 18-20 Regents meetings was the approval of the cohort tuition plan on November 19. Thus, the business conducted on November 20 was more of a mopping up. There were public comments which mainly repeated themes heard on the previous two days: Opposition to a deal with the feds, support for undocumented and international students including issues of CalFresh, funding for disabled students, divestment from military, divestment from Israel, pro-Israel, low staff morale, Teamsters negotiations, post-doc funding, ICE on campus. 

Other topics included gender-affirming care, military equipment for UC police, opposition to the proposed investment in the Big Ten athletic conference and divestment from Blackstone (which - as faithful blog readers will know - got a quasi-bailout from UC in exchange for a promise of above-market returns). There may have been some confusion between Blackstone and Blackrock, two separate firms with similar names in the comments. (???) AFSCME negotiations were also mentioned.

The undergraduate and graduate students leaders both complained of lack of access to Milliken and the campus chancellors. Undergraduate complaints also included lack of access to collective bargaining sessions, lack of data on penalties imposed for protests, notification of ICE on campus. Proposals included having the newly-approved 1% surcharge on tuition go to student services and zero-cost textbooks. Graduate student complaints concerned data sharing with the feds, opposition to the tuition hike, lack of access to chancellors, a problem with Clery crime notifications, and ICE-on-campus notifications.

There was then a brief meeting of Compliance and Audit which consisted of presentation of annual and fiscal audit reports. It was noted that there is increased complexity in legal rules regarding research security with regard to certain foreign countries and companies. The Governance Committee then dealt with an executive pay adjustment and regental meeting dates for 2027. Finally, the full board reconvened to approve the various committee recommendations.

As always, we preserve Regents meetings indefinitely since the Regents have no policy on retention. The general site for the Nov. 20 meeting is at:

https://archive.org/details/31-regents-board-11-20-2025

The initial board meeting is at:

https://archive.org/download/31-regents-board-11-20-2025/31-Regents%20Board%2011-20-2025.mp4

Compliance and Audit, Governance, and the second board meeting are at:

https://archive.org/download/31-regents-board-11-20-2025/32-Regents%20Compliance%20and%20Audit%20Committee%2C%20Governance%20Committee%2C%20Board%2011-20-2025.mp4

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 95 (An off-the-shelf observation)

Our previous post on this blog dealt with partial restoration of a library at Berkeley. But what is the library situation at Harvard?

Well, according to an article in the Harvard Crimson magazine, freshmen at Harvard are supposed to be introduced to the very large library there through a special program:

"When new students arrive at Harvard, they face not only the steep adjustment to coursework and campus life, but also the challenge that comes with navigating the world’s largest academic library. To alleviate this, the First-Year Librarians program was born: an initiative that pairs groups of freshmen with a personal librarian... As librarian Lee LaFleur explains, the objective is to act as an “orientation lens” so that students can “learn about their new library, learn about the role of librarians in academia.” But despite these ambitious goals, most first-years on campus seem unaware of the initiative..."*

Perhaps if the reporters had spent more time with the first-year librarians, they would have found that "Shelf" is not a verb.

Just an impolite thought that yours truly will immediately shelve, and give them an A.**

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*https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/11/27/first-year-librarians/.

**https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/us/harvard-students-absenteeism.html.

Straws in the Wind - Part 178

From the Columbia Daily Spectator: Columbia is absent from the list of 38 universities facing proposed suspensions from a Department of State federal research partnership program, according to an internal memo... The memo and an attached spreadsheet indicate that the department is looking to suspend institutions from partnering with its Diplomacy Lab program effective Jan. 1, 2026, because they “openly engage in DEI hiring practices.” Diplomacy Lab is an initiative between the federal government and over 60 universities that aims to harness “the expertise and fresh perspectives of students and faculty members to conduct research on key foreign policy topics,” according to an information sheet about the program.

A State Department spokesperson told Spectator that all agency programs are under review to ensure they are aligned with the priorities of President Donald Trump’s administration. The spreadsheet evaluated the hiring practices of 75 universities on a 4-point, color-coded scale... Universities showing “clear DEI hiring policy” were marked red for suspension from the program, whereas institutions showing “merit-based hiring with no evidence of DEI” were marked in green.

...In its July 23 $221 million settlement with the federal government, Columbia pledged not to consider “race, color, sex or national origin” as a factor in its hiring decisions. Columbia has also committed to submitting admissions data to the federal government, beginning with an initial October report...

Full story at https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2025/11/23/columbia-set-to-retain-embattled-state-department-research-partnership-as-other-universities-face-potential-suspensions-over-dei-hiring-practices/.

From The Guardian: More than three dozen universities including Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Duke have their participation in a federal research partnership on the chopping block after the state department proposed to suspend them over their diversity, equity and inclusion hiring practices. Last week, the Guardian obtained an internal memo and spreadsheet showing that the state department is moving to exclude 38 institutions from the Diplomacy Lab program, which pairs university researchers with state department policy offices on foreign policy projects. The suspensions would take effect on 1 January, and because the list is not finalized, the schools have not yet been informed.

The targeted schools include elite universities such as Stanford University, Yale University, Johns Hopkins University, Duke University and the University of Southern California, as well as American University, George Washington University, Syracuse University and several University of California campuses. 

Universities recommended to remain include Columbia University, MIT, the University of Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Virginia and the University of Texas at Austin. Several of these moved to comply with the administration’s anti-DEI demands earlier this year – Columbia agreed in July to pay more than $200m to the federal government and pledged not to use “race, color, sex or national origin” in hiring decisions, while the University of Virginia’s president resigned in June after the justice department demanded he step down over the school’s diversity practices...

Full story at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/25/us-universities-cuts-dei-state-department.