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:
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