Confident Retiree Webinars

Confident Retiree Webinars provide you with the knowledge, tools and resources to enjoy a comfortable retirement.

Attend the final webinar in our new Legacy Planning series, Essential Steps for Survivors of UC Retirees: Accessing UC Benefits and More and learn about: 

• What UCRP (pension) payments are made after a retiree’s passing
• How to apply for UCRP benefits
• Important documents needed to access UCRP benefits 
• Health and Welfare benefits for survivors  
• Other sources of income 
• Important contacts and resources 

Thursday, June 11, 2026 
1:00 p.m. PT
Register

Friends and family are encouraged to attend.

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About the Legacy Planning Series
This webinar is the last in UC’s three-part Confident Retiree series called Legacy Planning–Peace of Mind for You and Your Loved Ones. 

Together, these sessions are designed to help UC retirees and their families prepare for the future by protecting savings, organizing personal affairs, and ensuring survivors can access UC benefits when it matters most.  

Additional resources 
We’ve included some helpful links below to resources mentioned in the upcoming Part 3 webinar, Essential Steps for Survivors of UC Retirees: Accessing UC Benefits and More: 

• Essential Steps to Access UC Benefits: A Checklist for Survivors of UC Retirees

• UCRP Special Durable Power of Attorney Fact Sheet

• Social Security Administration

• Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: Taking Control of Your Finances: Help for Surviving Spouses

The slide decks and recordings for Part 1: Preserving Your Savings for Future Generations and Part 2: Getting Your Affairs in Order: Essential Planning for Peace of Mind are currently being updated to meet accessibility standards. Once available, they will be posted on the  Webinars Overview page of myUCretirement.com.  

Straws in the Wind - Part 352

From the Washington Post: MIT is doing less research and enrolling fewer graduate students as a result of federal actions, the university president warned... Federally funded research on campus is down more than 20 percent compared to this time last year, MIT’s president, Sally Kornbluth, told the campus community in a video message, and the number of new federal research awards is also down more than 20 percent. ...Graduate student enrollment will also decline significantly in the coming academic year, she said; outside of two programs that are still in the midst of admissions, the number of grad students will be 20 percent less than it was in 2024 — about 500 fewer students. MIT’s loss is emblematic of the shrinking of American science caused by Trump administration actions that are affecting labs across the country.

Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, said he expects to hear similar assessments coming from other leading research universities. “This is the first of many of these kinds of alarms that will be ringing," he said. But at MIT, the reduction in research funding is exacerbated by the impact of a sharply increased tax on its endowment returns. Most colleges and universities are exempt from taxes because of their nonprofit status and educational mission. MIT expects to pay about $240 million a year for that tax, which was increased to 8 percent this year by Congress and applied to only a handful of elite schools...

Full story at https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2026/05/15/mit-president-blames-federal-policy-shifts-big-drop-research-campus/.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 165

From the Harvard Crimson: Harvard faculty voted to impose a roughly 20 percent cap on A grades beginning in fall 2027, approving the College’s most aggressive attempt in decades to reverse grade inflation and reshape academic standards. Faculty voted 458 to 201 for the first plank of the three-part proposal, which will limit A grades in undergraduate courses to 20 percent of enrollment, with flexibility for up to four additional A’s. The measure passed with 69.5 percent of votes cast.

Faculty also approved a companion measure to use average percentile rankings, rather than GPA, to determine internal awards and honors. That measure passed 498 to 157, with 76 percent of participating faculty in favor. But faculty rejected the proposal’s third plank, which would have allowed courses to petition to opt out of the A cap if they were graded on an unsatisfactory, satisfactory, and satisfactory-plus basis. That measure failed 292 to 364.

Together, the votes represent a sweeping intervention in Harvard College’s academic culture — one that will sharply reduce the share of A’s and place new constraints on grading decisions traditionally left to individual instructors...

Full story at https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/5/20/fas-passes-a-grade-cap/.

Row

From the California Post: Claire Prindiville wakes up not knowing if this will be the day. The day that her symptoms come back. The day that her legs betray her again. The day that her vision falters, or her ability to use the bathroom is out of her control. Doctors have told her there’s a 60% chance that she’ll have to battle these same despicable conditions again, and if they return they might be worse than the first bout. Somehow, none of those possibilities crosses the UCLA rower’s mind as she rises at 5:28 every morning except Sunday thanks to an alarm that beats the roosters...

When Prindiville was a junior in high school, persistent headaches landed her in the emergency room. Doctors just sent her home with medication. Her pediatrician diagnosed her with a stiff neck, and she started acupuncture, thinking nothing of it.

Eventually, [after a major attack, her familly] learned that Claire was suffering from a rare neurological autoimmune disorder called myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein antibody-associated disease, or MOGAD. There is no known cause or cure for the disease in which the immune system attacks the protective coating of nerves in the central nervous system, impairing their ability to send signals from the brain to the rest of the body...

Having rowed for Gonzaga, Matt Prindiville told his daughter that his old sport might be an option at [UCLA]. Even though she clocked an exceptional time on a rowing machine, coaches felt her form was too raw and she was too prone to injury. They cut her. Devastated, she wrote an email asking for another chance to prove herself. Her coach called two hours later, accepting the offer. “With Claire,” her father said, “there’s a strong component of just advocating for herself.”

Showing continual improvement, she not only made the team but eventually landed a scholarship. Combining superb strength, endurance and a relentless pursuit of mastering proper technique, she’s now one of the top rowers on [the] team... 

Full story at https://nypost.com/2026/05/16/sports/why-ucla-rower-claire-prindiville-isnt-disheartened-by-rare-disease/.

Straws in the Wind - Part 351

From Reuters: A longstanding diversity and inclusion requirement for U.S. law schools is teetering amid mounting pressure from the Trump administration and Republican states. The American Bar Association council that oversees law school accreditation voted... to eliminate a ​rule that requires law schools to demonstrate their commitment to diversity in recruitment, admissions, and student programming. The ‌rule has been suspended since February 2025, after Republican President Donald Trump returned to the White House and began cracking down on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts...

The change would not become final until the ABA's House of Delegates begins ​to consider it as early as August and then debates revisions. That approval process could push the diversity rule's elimination to sometime ​in 2027...

Full story at https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/american-bar-association-votes-eliminate-dei-rule-law-schools-2026-05-15/.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 164

From the Harvard Crimson: Harvard asked a federal judge Monday to dismiss the Department of Justice’s lawsuit accusing the University of failing to protect Jewish and Israeli students, arguing that the Trump administration’s claims are outdated and legally deficient. In a 49-page motion filed in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts, Harvard’s lawyers argued that the government failed to plausibly allege a continuing violation of Title VI, which bars discrimination in programs that receive federal funding. They also contended that the Justice Department cannot use the lawsuit to claw back nearly $1 billion in already spent federal grant money. The motion is Harvard’s most forceful response to the DOJ’s March lawsuit, which alleged that the University was “deliberately indifferent” to antisemitic and anti-Israeli harassment after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

The government has asked the court to impose sweeping remedies, including the appointment of an outside monitor, a bar on future federal funding, and restitution of federal grants issued during the period of alleged noncompliance. Harvard’s lawyers rejected that account..., writing that the complaint relies on “a snapshot in time that does not exist today” and ignores a long list of steps the University says it has taken to combat antisemitism...

Full story at https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/5/19/harvard-doj-antisemitism-dismissal/.

Life around Harvard Square

Seen on the bulletin board of an ice cream shop.

Straws in the Wind - Part 350

From the Yale Daily News: This year’s graduating seniors were first years when OpenAI released ChatGPT. As the first class with the opportunity to use large language models like ChatGPT during every year of their college career, most seniors have now incorporated artificial intelligence into their lives to assist them for various purposes, from aiding with problem sets to researching theses. According to an anonymous survey conducted by the News and filled out by 172 seniors, 91 percent of the class of 2026 have used AI for schoolwork. Only 9.1 percent of students surveyed said they had never used AI for schoolwork. A majority of students — 67.5 percent — reported using AI sometimes, often or very often. 

More than 75 percent of respondents said they have used AI in a problem set. About 64 percent of respondents said they have used AI to write a paper, while 48.5 percent of the surveyed seniors said they used AI to write their senior theses — slightly less than the 51.5 percent that said they did not...  Male respondents were more likely to report that they used AI for schoolwork than female respondents. While 16.7 percent of male respondents said they used AI “very often” for schoolwork, only 1.6 percent of female respondents said they did. According to the survey results, students majoring in the sciences were most likely to report AI use for schoolwork, followed by those in the social sciences, those in interdisciplinary majors and those in the humanities...

Full story at https://yaledailynews.com/articles/91-percent-of-senior-class-has-used-ai-for-schoolwork-news-survey-finds.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 163

From the Harvard Crimson: Harvard reported $126.6 million in legal fees in its Form 990 filing released Friday, up from roughly $80 million in fiscal year 2024 — a 58 percent increase. The spike marks a dramatic rise from recent years, when Harvard’s legal expenses hovered around $20 million. The University spent $19.5 million on legal fees in fiscal year 2023 and $20 million in fiscal year 2022. The total is reflected in Harvard’s Form 990 filing for fiscal year 2025, which ran from July 1, 2024, to June 30, 2025, and includes program service, management and general, and fundraising expenses...

The heightened legal expenses came as Harvard faced broad financial pressures, with University officials warning that costs across Harvard are rising faster than revenues. Harvard reported an operating loss of $113 million in fiscal year 2025 — its first budget deficit since the pandemic — on $6.7 billion in total revenue. Harvard has been at legal odds with the White House since the spring, when the Trump administration conditioned billions of dollars in federal funding on a list of demands to the University. When Harvard rejected the conditions, the administration froze $2.2 billion in federal funding, prompting Harvard to sue nearly a dozen federal agencies and their leaders...

The legal fees reported in the filing capture only the early months of Harvard’s escalating fight with the Trump administration. Later lawsuits — including two filed by the Department of Justice this year — will not be reflected until future filings...

Full story at https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/5/16/harvard-legal-fees-surge/.

I Never Promised You a Rose Bowl? - Part 18

And yet more on former CFO Agostini's involvement in the planning to move UCLA from the Rose Bowl to SoFi stadium:

From NBC Sports: ...In August 2025, Rams and Kroenke Sports & Entertainment president Kevin Demoff texted this to UCLA vice chancellor Steve Agostini: “good luck tonight, next year at SoFi!” The court filings also show text messages from February 2025 between Demoff and Agostini regarding a tour of SoFi by UCLA officials “to see how we would make next season work.” Said Demoff, “Yes will make whatever work.”

Demoff’s employer, and SoFi Stadium, eventually were added to the ongoing lawsuit under the theory that these outside parties intentionally interfered with the contractual relationship between UCLA and the Rose Bowl. The argument is simple; it’s impermissible to induce someone to break a valid and binding agreement. UCLA has a lease that runs through 2043. That lease must be respected by anyone who would be tempted to persuade one of the parties to violate its terms. The concept applies throughout American business. Any contract between two parties must be respected by the rest of the world. That means not saying “see you next year” but “see you when your contract ends.” ...

Full story at https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/rose-bowl-litigation-shows-kevin-demoff-was-trying-to-lure-ucla-to-sofi-stadium.

Straws in the Wind - Part 349

From the Cornell Daily Sun: The Board of Trustees’ Ad Hoc Special Committee completed its investigation of the incident between President Michael Kotlikoff and a group of students and alumni on April 30, clearing Kotlikoff of wrongdoing and finding the actions taken by the students to be "inconsistent with University policy,” according to a statement sent to the Cornell community by the committee... Students and alumni followed Kotlikoff to his car and surrounded it, asking about free expression on campus following a debate on the Israel-Palestine conflict, hosted by the Cornell Political Union. Video footage obtained by The Sun shows that Kotlikoff reversed into one student and ran over the foot of a recent alumnus after they blocked his car.

“The Committee has found that the actions taken by these individuals on April 30th, which included following President Kotlikoff from an evening event into a parking lot and impeding his ability to leave, are inconsistent with university policies governing expressive activity and our standards for respectful conduct, safety, and the prohibition of intimidation,” the committee wrote...

Full story at https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2026/05/board-of-trustees-concludes-investigation-into-kotlikoff-car-incident-finds-students-violated-university-policy.

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From the Cornell Daily Sun: Milton Taam ’73 received a persona non grata from the Cornell University Police Department on May 4, banning him from campus for three years. Taam received the persona non grata on the basis of trespassing after being present for the April 30 incident where President Michael Kotlikoff was questioned on free expression and drove into a student on campus. The persona non grata was issued to Taam on the basis of trespassing on Cornell property, specifically in the Day Hall Parking Lot, according to the persona non grata obtained by The Sun. Taam is prohibited from entering any grounds owned by Cornell for three years unless approved by the chief of CUPD. 

In an interview with The Sun, Taam said the trespassing charge “makes no sense.” Taam also said that the officers who delivered the persona non grata “didn’t at all” explain the charge to him. CUPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment. “The persona non grata order is basically a formalized notice that Cornell gives to individuals saying, ‘you do not have our permission to be here, and therefore entering onto Cornell property in the future will be treated as a trespass,’” said Prof. James Grimmelmann, Tessler family professor of digital and information law, to The Sun...

Full story at https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2026/05/alumnus-present-at-kotlikoff-car-incident-issued-persona-non-grata-3-year-ban-from-campus.

The latest scam

If you get a message like the one above, ignore it and do not call the number shown.

The May Revise

As noted in prior postings, yours truly is traveling so our analysis of the governor's May Revise budget was delayed. However, last Thursday, May 14th, the governor presented his revised budget proposal for the coming fiscal year, 2026-27. He will be termed out in January 2027 when the budget year is a little over 50% over, and his successor will have to deal with the rest of the year and come up with a budget plan for 2027-28.

The governor spent about an hour going over his proposal of which about 13 minutes was more devoted to his non-campaign for president in 2028. He then took about an hour for Q&A. 

Usually, in our past reviews of such proposals, we start with the macro and then go to the micro, i.e., UC. But let's do it in reverse this time. What about UC?

SIGNIFICANT BUDGET ADJUSTMENTS

• Base Funding Augmentation—The May Revision maintains the proposed increase of $254.3 million ongoing General Fund, representing a 5-percent base increase for the fifth and final year payment of the Compact. The May Revision also maintains the proposed increase of $96.3 million ongoing General Fund to provide partial funding of the fourth year Compact payment as scheduled in the 2025 Budget Act.

• Compact Funding Deferral—The May Revision maintains the planned one-time deferral of the 2025-26 Compact investment of $240.8 million, representing a 5-percent base increase in the fourth year of the Compact, to 2027-28. The May Revision also maintains the planned one-time 2025-26 deferral of $31 million to offset revenue reductions associated with the replacement of 902 nonresident undergraduate students enrolled at three campuses with an equivalent number of California resident undergraduate students, from 2025-26 to 2027-28.

• One-Time Base Deferral—The May Revision maintains the proposed delay of a one-time repayment of $129.7 million, representing a deferral of a one-time 3-percent base increase from 2025-26, from 2026-27 to 2027-28.

• Foster Youth Support Services—An increase of $1.5 million one-time General Fund to support First Star Academy Youth Cohorts at UC campuses.

Source: https://ebudget.ca.gov/2026-27/pdf/Revised/BudgetSummary/HigherEducation.pdf.

Translation: We have a multi-year "compact" with UC but we won't actually pay what is due. Instead, we will keep deferring part of what is due to the future when there will be some new governor and a new legislature and they might or might not honor it. Compact is not the same as contract. The latter is enforceable. The former isn't.

Of course, everyone understands this point. But the game is played by UC thanking the governor and then seeking more from the legislature. From UC President Milliken:

I’m deeply grateful to Gov. Newsom for his thoughtful leadership and sustained support of the University of California over the years. The UC funding included in the May revision will help ensure that the university remains affordable and accessible to California students. As the University of California faces ongoing federal funding uncertainty and increasing operational and labor costs, state funding for UC is more important than ever.  

We will continue to advocate for the resources necessary to help our hundreds of thousands of students succeed, and to support the faculty and staff who deliver the teaching, research, and patient care that Californians expect and deserve. I look forward to working with Gov. Newsom and the Legislature in the coming weeks to achieve a state budget that fully funds UC and improves the lives of every Californian.

Source: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/press-room/uc-statement-gov-newsoms-2026-27-revised-budget-proposal.

How effective will the UC advocacy be? The governor's May Revise for UC is about what the proposal was in January, with some tidbits added.* So the governor wasn't much affected. We will have to see what the legislature does in the next few weeks.

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*See https://ebudget.ca.gov/budget/m/2026-27/Department/6440.

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What about the macro?

Enough extra revenue (revenue above projections) came in thanks to AI and stock market gains to lead to a modest surplus for the current fiscal year.** Next year, however, total reserves fall rather than rise, i.e., a deficit. That isn't what the governor said during his presentation. But that is what his numbers say.

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**There are various reserve accounts associated with the General Fund (GF). Yours truly had to estimate the changes in the Public School and Safety Net accounts using figures for 2024-25 as enacted to calculate the change in those accounts to 2025-26. LAO, which has more access to data, reports a slight deficit for the current year rather than a small surplus:

https://ebudget.ca.gov/reference/MultiYearProjection.pdf. 

LAO also reports projected deficits out to 2029-30:

https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5187.

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NOTE: The governor's May Revise news conference can be seen at:

https://ia601802.us.archive.org/14/items/newsom-may-june-2026/newsom%205-14-2026%20May%20revise.mp4.

Straws in the Wind - Part 348

From the Daily Princetonian: All in-person examinations at Princeton will be proctored starting July 1, representing the most significant change to the honor system since it was established in 1893. The faculty passed a proposal requiring instructor supervision... with one opposing vote. The historic vote was the culmination of months of deliberation within the administration and student governing bodies about how to address increasing concerns over academic integrity violations, including the proliferation of AI usage. The proposal cleared a full faculty vote as the final of three required rounds of approval, having already been passed unanimously by the Committee on Examinations and Standing and the Faculty Advisory Committee on Policy.

According to the policy proposal, previously sent by Dean of the College Michael Gordin to the Faculty Advisory Committee and included in Monday’s meeting notes, instructors will remain present in exam rooms “as a witness to what happens,” but are instructed not to interfere with students. If a suspected Honor Code violation occurs, proctors will document their observations and submit a report to the student-run Honor Committee, where they may later testify under the same standards used for other witnesses... 

The proposa... points to a growing reluctance among students to report peers directly. The proposal claims that anonymous reporting of allegations has increased in recent years, fueled by fears of “doxxing or shaming among their peer groups” online... 

Full story at https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2026/05/princeton-news-adpol-proctoring-in-person-examinations-passed-faculty-133-years-precedent.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 162

From The Free Press: In June 2019, the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates appeared before a congressional committee to make the case for reparations. Advancing an argument he’d laid out in The Atlantic years earlier, Coates contended that America owed a debt to its black citizens not just for slavery but for generations of plundered wealth. Over the next few years, the issue had grown in visibility, and slogans like “Black Lives Matter” had entered mainstream political discourse. “It is impossible to imagine America without the inheritance of slavery,” Coates told the committee. Six months later, Harvard University took up the cause when Harvard president Lawrence Bacow convened a faculty committee to excavate the university’s historical involvement in the Atlantic slave trade.

...The university then established what it called the “Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery Initiative,” which aimed to “remedy harms to descendants, to our community and the nation, and to campus life and learning.” It committed an extraordinary $100 million to the initiative and promoted Sara Bleich, a professor of public health policy, to vice provost for special projects to shepherd the effort.

...One of the Legacy of Slavery Initiative’s first hires was a man named Richard J. Cellini. His job was to find those descendants. At that point, Harvard had identified 79 individuals who had been enslaved by university affiliates, but it had yet to locate a single living relative. “I don’t think Harvard really understood what they were getting themselves into,” Cellini told me. Cellini, 62, is not the sort of person you might expect to do this kind of work. He describes himself as an “Eisenhower Republican” rather than a “social justice warrior.” Genealogy, which is now his avocation, came to him late in life. He began his career as a lawyer on Wall Street, and then spent three decades “growing and selling” technology companies.

...Harvard soon discovered that Cellini was a forceful advocate for his work, determined to find as many descendants as he could, no matter the consequences. Meanwhile, Harvard was clearly getting nervous about the potential scope of his efforts. ...[Harvard's] anxiety was not entirely irrational. Every name Cellini added to the ledger represented a potential claim on Harvard’s commitment. Cellini pushed to enlarge the list of potential beneficiaries by including the names of slaves owned by members of the university’s governing boards—a category administrators had debated. He won that debate—and the pool grew accordingly. A research trip to Antigua, following the discovery of several hundred individuals enslaved there by Harvard affiliates between the 17th and 19th centuries, yielded an additional hundred names from public archives. Cellini and his team also met with Antigua’s prime minister and discussed opportunities for collaboration between the university and the island nation, a conversation that likely did little to reassure Harvard administrators about the project’s scope.

...Shortly after Cellini and his team returned from Antigua in January 2025, they were all fired by Harvard. The university subsequently outsourced the work to American Ancestors, a New England genealogical nonprofit now on a three-year contract. Harvard has declined to provide a specific rationale for the change. American Ancestors has denied that the university has imposed any constraints on their research...

...Harvard, like any institution invested in its own survival, is not about to bankrupt itself. Its effort will likely follow the well-worn path of local reparations programs across the country: introduced with a bang and then quietly abandoned as the logistics and finances prove untenable...

Full story at https://www.thefp.com/p/harvard-reparations-plan-failure.

The One That Didn't Get Away (but is behind closed doors, too)

Unlike our previous post about last week's Regents meeting about the conflict with the feds, we caught this one just in time, since the meeting is later today. But like all the other ones, it is behind closed doors, so we don't know if there are really any new developments.

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, May 19, 2026, 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 

(Closed Session Statute Citation: Litigation [Education Code section 92032(b)(5)].) 

The meeting will convene at 4:00 p.m. at 1111 Franklin Street, Oakland and adjourn at approximately 5:00 p.m. 

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

Source: https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/may26/meeting-notice_federal-may-19-2026.pdf.

The one that got away

The announcement of the (closed-door) Regents meeting above somehow got away from us. So, for the record, here it is. As blog readers will know, at the regular May 5-6 meetings at the Regents, there was also discussion (behind closed doors) of the conflict with the feds. Did some new development occur between those meetings and the May 9th announcement above?

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The link (for the record) to the announcement is:

https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/may26/meeting-notice_federal-may-12-2026.pdf.

I Never Promised You a Rose Bowl? - Part 17

As blog readers will know, after former UCLA CFO Agostini was fired for saying Very Bad Words, it was said that the idea of moving UCLA from the Rose Bowl to the newer SOFI stadium was his baby. Blog readers will also know that that threat of such a move has sparked litigation against UCLA. A reported $30 million is being spent to snazz up the Bowl based in part on UCLA's long-term lease.

In case you missed it, the LA Times recently carried a report that suggested maybe UCLA is reconsidering its proposed departure from the Rose Bowl:

Last October, in the wake of UCLA’s threats to terminate its contract with the stadium, the Rose Bowl Operating Co. and the City of Pasadena filed a lawsuit to force the Bruins to honor the remaining two decades of their deal and keep their home football games at the historic venue through 2044. UCLA is staying put for next season and there are indications the sides could be quietly heading toward a settlement that would keep the Bruins in place for the foreseeable future, ending their flirtation with SoFi Stadium.

Speaking to the media at UCLA’s recent spring game, coach Bob Chesney heaped praise on the Rose Bowl, saying, “To get a chance to walk in here and just feel this ... is pretty special, we addressed that last night as a team and made sure we understand the respect that this place deserves and understand the attitude of gratitude we should have.” ...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/sports/ucla/story/2026-05-11/inside-rose-bowl-30-million-renovation-ucla-football.

Straws in the Wind - Part 347

From the Boston Globe: When Gaurav Jashnani was offered a position as an assistant professor at Hampshire College, he saw it as a good move: Even though the iconoclastic liberal arts school doesn’t have a tenure system, the job would put him on a forward-moving track at a forward-looking institution. So in 2024, he relocated his family from Belmont to Northampton, where he became a first-time homeowner. Now, less than a month after Hampshire announced it would close, he’s staring down unemployment. Like most of the school’s roughly 250 employees, he will have no paycheck, no severance, and few job prospects after June, since the hiring cycle for the coming academic year has already closed.

“It’s been kind of a train wreck,” said Jashnani, who teaches psychology, Black studies, and disability studies. For some faculty members, “we just don’t know how we’re going to pay our bills.” Like students, many Hampshire faculty and staff thought the college was on the upswing after nearly closing in 2019. The school, however, was not able to recruit enough students to stabilize its finances, and it failed to secure much-needed debt refinancing and a crucial land sale in recent months. Administrators nevertheless remained optimistic, inviting alumni to brainstorm on Zoom about Hampshire’s “next three to five years” as recently as March 25. Less than three weeks later, on April 14, Hampshire announced it would close.

Now some faculty wonder how Hampshire went from projecting confidence to pulling the plug so quickly — with nothing left to offer its employees...

Full story at http://bostonglobe.com/2026/05/07/metro/hampshire-college-employees-closure/.

Balanced Approach

From the San Francisco Chronicle: “Sense and Sensibility and Science” was started 13 years ago by a team of UC Berkeley professors, including a Nobel laureate, who wanted to give students the tools to combat misinformation and improve their communication skills in an increasingly confusing world. They did not expect the class to become so popular — it’s now taught at a handful of other schools including Harvard and the University of Chicago — or for their lessons to become even more urgent.

The class is part philosophy and part behavioral science. It’s meant to help students make more thoughtful decisions, look and listen past their biases, and embrace humility and the idea that they may not always be right. Assignments include attempting challenging conversations with friends or family. It’s a course, say the professors who run it, with the ultimate goal of bettering the world.

Saul Perlmutter, who won the Nobel Prize in physics in 2011 for his work studying distant supernovas to determine how the universe is expanding, helped start the class in 2013. He said he did so because he recognized that the tools that scientists use to communicate and share ideas could help people have more productive conversations on all kinds of practical, everyday topics.

“There are very few things we can fix in everybody’s life by getting to the bottom of the Big Bang,” he joked. “In my grandiose optimistic picture,” he said, “eventually everybody is learning this stuff and can go into conversations feeling like their job isn’t to convince everyone that they’re right, but to figure out where they’re making mistakes and hearing everyone out.” ...

Full story at https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/uc-berkeley-class-saul-perlmutter-22237250.php.

Straws in the Wind - Part 346

From the Chronicle of Higher Education: An Indiana University biology professor who has condemned the U.S. government’s prosecution of Chinese scientists now finds himself locked out of his lab amid a federal investigation. The closure of the lab and other research space at the Bloomington campus marks the latest step in months of scrutiny of Chinese researchers and, by extension, American colleagues who have come to their defense.

Neither federal authorities nor the university, whose police department closed the labs on Thursday night, have offered a reason for the lockout, the chair of Indiana’s biology department said. But it came weeks after one of the professor’s postdoctoral students was ordered deported to China for allegedly smuggling biological materials into the United States, a move criticized by the professor, Roger W. Innes.

“It seems pretty obvious that this is an attempt by the current administration to silence people that question their activities,” Innes told The Chronicle.

Meanwhile, the indefinite closure of multiple labs, offices, and storage facilities — many of which have no affiliation with Innes or his lab — has hampered the work of approximately 50 other individuals at Indiana, said the department chair, Armin P. Moczek. And although the university has said it shut down the facilities at the order of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the department told The Chronicle it had issued no such order...

Full story at https://www.chronicle.com/article/a-professor-defended-a-postdoc-who-was-deported-now-his-lab-has-been-suddenly-locked-down.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 161

From the Harvard Crimson: Former Harvard President Claudine Gay earned more than $1.5 million in 2024, according to Harvard’s annual tax filings, receiving a higher compensation package in the year after she resigned from the presidency than she did during her six months in Massachusetts Hall. Gay’s compensation rose from the more than $1.3 million she earned in 2023 — which spanned the end of her term as Faculty of Arts and Sciences dean and all six months of her presidency. Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 earned more than $1.6 million in 2024, his first compensation reported while serving at Harvard’s helm. Garber served as interim president from January to August 2024, when he was appointed to the position permanently.

And Harvard Management Company Chief Executive Officer N.P. “Narv” Narvekar — the highest-paid employee across HMC and Harvard — earned more than $6.2 million in 2024, a slight increase from his $6 million payout in 2023. The compensation, released as part of the University’s Form 990 tax filings for fiscal year 2025, is required annually by the Internal Revenue Service for tax-exempt entities. Salaries are reported for the 2024 calendar year...

Full story at https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/5/15/harvard-form-990-gay-garber-2024/.

Wait!

The Wall St. Journal ran an article about college waitlists for admission. Selective schools offer many rejected applicants the option of being on their waitlists.* Why not? Those rejected applicants who receive such offers will often accept waitlisted status unless they are completely happy with a school they did get into. But very few on the waitlist are accepted. At UC-Berkeley, as the chart above shows, the number who got in via the waitlist last fall was Zero.

UC President Milliken has talked about public discontent with higher ed with opaque admissions being one of the causes. A waitlist with a Zero probability - or even a close-to-zero probability - isn't likely to improve the situation.

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*https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/college-waitlists-national-decision-day-4cb7b5d8.

Straws in the Wind - Part 345

From George Washington University media relations: The university is aware of reports that at Israel Fest..., individuals dropped vials containing an unknown substance, in an apparent attempt to disrupt the festival.

At least one student was injured by this incident, which is now under an investigation that will examine among other things whether individuals were targeted based on their Jewish faith. The university condemns this reprehensible and criminal action. Acts like this have no place in our community, which is a safe and inclusive place for individuals of all backgrounds, perspectives and experiences.

The university, in cooperation with law enforcement as appropriate, will utilize all available avenues to investigate these concerning reports thoroughly and hold any perpetrators who are identified accountable to the fullest extent under university policies and applicable law.

Full release at https://mediarelations.gwu.edu/university-statement-israel-fest.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 160

From the Harvard Crimson: At least 259 Harvard officials enslaved more than 1,600 people over a 229-year period. Researchers expect both numbers to grow as they continue working to identify enslaved individuals. Harvard officials enslaved more than 1,600 people from 1636 to 1865, new research released Tuesday shows. Harvard University shared details in a new database about the people who were enslaved as well as those who owned them. Researchers with the Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery Initiative say they’ve found at least 259 Harvard university leaders, faculty, staff and board members who enslaved individuals. 

The initiative, which began in 2022 as a way to identify the descendants of enslaved individuals, partnered with American Ancestors, a national genealogical nonprofit, on the project. Harvard officials said the database is expected to grow beyond the initial 1,613 people. In a 2022 report, the university identified 70 people who were enslaved... Henry Louis Gates Jr., a Harvard professor who directs the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research and serves on the initiative’s advisory council, said in the university’s news article that he hopes Harvard will be a leader “in demonstrating institutional honesty and humility in confronting the complexities of our institutional past...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2026/05/13/harvard-tallies-how-many-people-officials-enslaved.

Watch the Regents Meeting of May 6, 2026

We are again catching up with the Regents, this time for their second-day meeting of May 6. The meeting began with public comments covering disabled students, complaints about ERs being well-above capacity, support for the AFSCME negotiations,* lack of budget information for student government, revisiting the issue of hiring undocumented students by UC, student affordability and basic needs including housing costs and childcare, revisiting the issue of departmental political statements, two thank-yous to Regent Sures for statements on antisemitism, and divestment. There was a brief AFSCME protest at the end of the public comment session.

Grad student Valadez spoke about federal cutbacks, advocacy for a second student regent, and made a veiled criticism of an unnamed Regent. (This may have been Sures for the same reason he received praise in public comments.) Undergrad student rep Hariharan spoke about federal cutbacks, disabled student funding, Native American students, a need for ICE warnings on campus, and support for union workers. 

There was then a presentation about the research "landscape" which included reference to federal cutbacks and support for the proposed state bond for research. There was an emphasis on medical research, scientific patents, and commercialization of such research and patents. Following that presentation was one on campus energy systems referencing emissions reductions, decarbonization over twenty years, and UC-Santa Barbara's purchases of renewable electricity and a new heating and cooling system. Regent Makarechian wondered whether new developments in small nuclear power plants should be considered.

In the Finance and Capital Strategies Committee, some items were pulled off the consent calendar for more detailed discussion. These items included expenditure rates from the General Endowment Pool for UC usage and administrative purposes. Modified version of these items were approved although Milliken voted "no." Exactly what his concerns were was unclear. This episode seemed unusual. First, apparently controversial items were initially put on the consent calendar. Second, approval over opposition by the UC president - one newly appointed - would seem to be significant.

New student housing for UC-Santa Cruz sparked some controversy. Regent Makarechian, who has more knowledge of real estate development than many other regents, noted that with land costs for campus housing being zero, the proposed housing seemed expensive compared with the private sector (which has to deal with land costs). He also noted that the housing proposed was bare bones, with 3 in a room sharing a bathroom, unlike the private sector. Ultimately, he abstained from voting. UC-Santa Cruz spokespersons said the "geology" of the campus was more difficult than in the City of Santa Cruz. In contrast, a building for UC-San Francisco for hearing disorders was quickly approved.

Item F4 - suspension of STIP loans to the pension for a year - was approved without much discussion. Regent Cohen said that UC needed to have liquidity given the current budgetary pressures. The consultant/actuary noted that this suspension was not the first to occur and that going forward estimates of the calendar of pension funding would be made without assuming further STIP usage. This was another issue that seemed to merit more discussion than it got.

The final item was the UCOP budget. Makarechian asked about legal costs, given the current conflict with the feds. Were lawsuits aimed at particular campuses being handled at the systemwide or campus level? The answer he got was fuzzy. It was said that campus lawsuits that had systemwide implications would be handled at the systemwide level. But it was never clear which those were.

Regent Hernandez asked whether there was still funding for the Hawaiian Thirty-Meter Telescope (TMT). It was said by Nathan Brostrom that there was no cost at this time (although some funding had been set aside in the past), and that planning had shifted to the Canary Islands location. It was unclear if this shift was now a definite decision or just an option - but it sounded more like the former than the latter. If that is so, it is a Big Deal for the project. But this was again a matter than seemed to float by with little attention.

Academic and Student Affairs featured a review of UC's student programs in Washington, DC and Sacramento.

Public Engagement and Development had a report on state government relations. Note that this session occurred before the governor's May Revise budget proposal. There was discussion of the proposed research bond and repeated notes that the campaign in the legislature to put the bond on the ballot was being undertaken in cooperation with UAW. There is also support for a housing bond that might provide some student housing support. It was noted that UC can advocate for bills to put things on the ballot. But if they actually make it to the ballot, UC as an institution cannot provide support.

The May 6 meeting ended with full board approval of the various committee reports and tributes to various outgoing regents and representatives.

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As always, we preserve recording of Regents meetings since the Regents have no policy on retention and their YouTube recordings are unlisted. You can find the May 6 meeting at:

https://archive.org/details/regents-finance-and-capital-strategies-academic-and-student-affairs-5-6-2026.

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*In a prior post last Tuesday, we noted that an AFSCME spokesperson indicated that UC wanted to push AFSCME-covered staff out of Kaiser and into UC providers.

Straws in the Wind - Part 344

From the Daily Princetonian: Princeton will not have to pay any net investment income tax on returns from its $36.4 billion endowment, a University investment official said at a private event in January, after a recent expansion of its undergraduate financial aid program left the University below a 3,000 tuition-paying student threshold to qualify for taxation. Experts had projected that the new tax on wealthy university endowments — enacted under H.R. 1, the omnibus tax and spending bill passed by congressional Republicans in July 2025 — would have cost Princeton roughly $180 million annually. The 8 percent endowment tax was predicted to impose one of the country’s highest university tax burdens on Princeton, which currently enrolls 9,100 undergraduate and graduate students. According to University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83, recent widespread budget cuts have been driven by decreased long-term endowment projections — growth estimates that likely would have been further eroded if the University were required to pay the tax.

...In July, amid several Trump administration attacks on higher education, Congress set the 8 percent tax rate for universities with over $2 million in endowment funds per student and over 3,000 tuition-paying students. At around $3.9 million in endowment funds per student, Princeton was expected to be subject to the tax, and many of its peer institutions are still likely to pay hundreds of millions annually. 

...Emeritus Professor of Economics Burton Malkiel GS ’64, who has publicly written about how universities benefit from the illiquid assets of endowments, called the University’s endowment tax strategy a “brilliant response to a punitive and discriminatory tax.” The expansion of financial aid “increases our income and produces much-needed student support,” he wrote to the ‘Prince.’ ...

Full story at https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2026/05/princeton-news-adpol-university-spared-endowment-tax-financial-aid-millions-princo.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 159

From the Harvard Crimson: A group of former Harvard athletes who are now physicians and scientists pitched the University’s sports medicine team last summer on disclosing the risk of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy to contact-sport athletes. Nearly a year later, the group says they have heard nothing back. At least seven former Harvard football players have been diagnosed with CTE, a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated head impacts that can only be confirmed via autopsy, according to Christopher J. Nowinski ’00, the co-founder and CEO of the Concussion & CTE Foundation. The most recent diagnosis, Jim Higgins ’70, came earlier this year.

The other publicly identified cases are James M. Peccerillo ’78, Toby Brundage III ’95, Mike T. Brooks ’01, Dick Clasby ’54, Hank Keohane ’60, and Christopher J. Eitzmann ’99, a former Harvard football captain who went on to play for the New England Patriots. The youngest of the seven died in his 30s. Nowinski, a former Harvard defensive lineman, said he first raised the issue with Harvard Athletics Director Erin McDermott at an Ivy League Football Association dinner in January 2025...

Nowinski said communication from Harvard Athletics stopped after the presentation. “We could not get emails returned,” he said, “so we suspect they did not go forward with our proposal to provide education on CTE to Harvard athletes.” ...

Full story at https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/5/6/cte-training-unanswered/.

Watch the Regents Meeting of May 5, 2026

We're catching up with the Regents' May 5 meeting, the first of two days. The meeting began with public comments. Topics included complaints about an ICE official who spoke at a UCLA law school program, a UC-Davis family center (??? speaker was unclear), anti-Israel, resident doctor negotiations, termination of the UC-Davis equestrian team, ICE notifications, divestment, divestment from Apollo, disabled student programs, names of protesters shared with federal government, revisiting UC hiring of undocumented students, AFSCME negotiations, and a proposal for a second student regent.

The Health Services Committee heard a report on the strategic plan for UC Health. It was noted that ERs are getting more patients due to federal cutbacks. 

At the full Board, Chair Riley noted that this would be her last meeting as chair and reflected on UC's contributions. She welcomed newly-appointed Regents. UC President Milliken took note of the significant legal expenses incurred as a result of the conflict with the federal government. He referenced public concerns about higher ed as described in the recent Yale report. Problems mentioned were complicated pricing, campus climate, and opaque admissions standards. He suggested a need for more transparency with regard to pricing and admissions. With regard to the latter, it's not clear what that would mean as long as subjective judgments are made. Faculty representative Palazoglu discussed the need for a new Master Plan and wanted the Academic Senate to be involved in developing such a Plan. There was then a tribute to selected UC and UCLA alumni. Finally, there was a celebration of UCLA women's basketball and a presentation by coach Cori Close followed by brief remarks by Chancellor Frenk.

The Governance Committee proposed the appointment of a new director for the Berkeley National Lab and the full Board reconvened to ratify the appointment.

The Investments Committee hear a brief report by CFO Bachhar covering the first 9 months of the fiscal year in which returns looked good thanks to the stock market. A disturbance at the meeting halted the session and the room was cleared. Bachhar cited the usual uncertainties: war, inflation, AI. It was noted during the discussion that the Blue and Gold Pool, which is a simple indexed fund, i.e., no stock picking, nothing but equities and fixed income, performed very well at very low administrative cost. It was suggested that maybe other funds managed by the CFO's office might be run that way.

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As always, we preserve recordings of the Regents sessions since the Regents have no policy on retention and their YouTube recordings are unlisted. The sessions described above are at:

https://archive.org/details/regents-may-5-2026.

Straws in the Wind - Part 343

From the Yale Daily News: Yale postdoctoral researchers opted to unionize in a landslide vote... The University’s postdoctoral associates and research fellows cast votes... to decide whether they would join UNITE HERE Local 33. The union, which represents Yale’s graduate and professional student workers, ratified its first contract with the University in 2023. In [the] vote, 859 postdoctoral researchers voted in favor of joining the union and 31 voted against, according to union spokesperson Ian Dunn. Yale has around 1,200 postdoctoral researchers in total, according to Yale’s Office for Postdoctoral Affairs.

The vote means that Local 33 will represent postdoctoral researchers in negotiations to seek a contract with Yale. A page on the union’s website under the heading “Yale Postdoctoral Scholars United” lists concerns regarding pay, job security and the handling of grievances.

...The vote aligns Yale with some peer universities. In April 2024, the National Labor Relations Board recognized a union including postdoctoral researchers at Harvard, according to the union’s website. Princeton postdoctoral researchers voted to be represented by a union the following month...

Full story at https://yaledailynews.com/articles/yale-postdoctoral-researchers-vote-overwhelmingly-to-unionize.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 158

From the Harvard Crimson: The Faculty of Arts and Science plans to increase Ph.D. admissions next year, partially reversing steep reductions imposed across its divisions this academic cycle, FAS Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra announced... Hoekstra said... that the FAS is “on track” to admit more graduate students next year after cutting Ph.D. admissions by roughly half across its divisions last fall — one of the school’s most dramatic cost-saving measures as it worked to close a looming $365 million structural deficit.

The planned increase marks the latest retreat from a policy that drew swift backlash from faculty, especially in the Sciences Division, and generated months of tension within the FAS’s senior leadership...

Full story at https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/5/6/fas-increases-phd-slots/.