Watch the Regents Meeting of Sept. 15, 2026

We continue catching up with the Regents meetings of September 14-16. Below is a summary of the meeting of the 15th. 

The meeting began with public comments. Topics included a nurse payroll system problem, opposition to testing for admission, concern about the closing of a UCLA childcare program, a nurse AI scheduling problem, opposition to project labor agreements, support for SB 98 (emergency alerts to ICE on campus), aid to undocumented students, internships for international students, anti-Israel, dropping of Medi-Cal patients at UCLA, Philippine military investments, support for reinstating the SAT for admission, a nurse issue related to floating holidays, and disabled student funding.

After public comments, Chair Anguiano reviewed the upcoming agenda including A-G requirements. President Milliken discussed goals for students including the ability to evaluate evidence. He also referred to UC infrastructure needs. Faculty rep Susannah Scott spoke about admissions issues, shared governance, and political issues facing UC. She also referred to overcrowded classes as enrollments rose faster than faculty. And she took note of awards won by junior faculty.

There was then a presentation by two UC Pulitzer winners and discussion of the UC accountability report. Concerns were expressed about cutbacks by the federal government in research. Regent Makarechian asked why student debt load varied across the UC campuses. There was no clear answer. He also noted that student debt load at the various UCs compared favorably to other public universities.

At a joint meeting of Health Services and Finance and Capital Strategies, a major health facility development at UC-San Diego was approved. There was discussion - but general support - for planning of this development including adverse developments in federal health research funding. UCLA provided an update on the West Valley Medical Center that was acquired for $290 million in 2024 to reduce overcrowding at Reagan Hospital and UCLA Santa Monica Hospital. The plan is for it to service various UCLA clinics in the San Fernando Valley. The acquired facility needs seismic and other upgrading. UCLA has also acquired neighboring office buildings near the acquisition for doctors' offices.

The Health Services Committee reviewed the public payor situation (Medi-Cal, Medicare) in view of coming federal cutbacks. Spokesperson from the various health campuses made individual observations regarding the impacts. There was mention of a possible $1 billion/year cost. Some Medi-Cal participants will lose coverage due to work requirements and the paperwork needed to document work. UC is a major provider of Medi-Cal services in the state.

Finally, the Governance Committee, in a brief open session, approved an executive pay matter and changes in documentation of various UC rules. It was said that the Academic Senate approved the cleanup of the rules since no substantive changes were involved.

As always, we preserve Regents meetings since the Regents have no policy on duration of retention. You can find the September 15 meeting at:

https://archive.org/services/img/uc-regents-9-15-2026.

Food for Thought - University Investments

From an online/emailed book review in the Journal of Economic Literature of Mission and Margin: A Practical Guide to University Finances:

In the last 40 years many universities have followed the lead of Yale University under its legendary chief investment officer David Swensen and have tried to increase expected returns through judicious risk taking in multiple asset classes. A riskier asset allocation delivers a higher expected return and hence a higher sustainable spending rate, but it worsens the university’s risk management problem. The trade-off should be transparent but can be obscured when universities invest in illiquid assets, such as real estate and private equity, whose valuations are only gradually adjusted to reflect market conditions.

--

Note: Our recent coverage of the Regents' Investments Committee which met on Sept. 14 pointed to the large chunk of illiquid assets in the portfolio.

Straws in the Wind - Part 473

From the Chronicle of Higher Education: New faculty hires at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma — the state’s only public liberal-arts college — can no longer be offered tenure, following a contentious vote by the university’s Board of Regents last week. Instead, USAO instructors are to be hired on “continuing, renewable appointments.” The institution is also removing references to tenure from its faculty handbook, though professors hired on the tenure track before July 1 can continue on that path...

The policy changes codify an executive order directing most of Oklahoma’s public institutions to “phase out” tenure. Since Gov. J. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, signed the executive order in February, many faculty members across the Sooner State have hoped it would be short-lived: It’s set to expire 90 days after Stitt, who is term-limited, leaves office in January, unless his successor opts to continue it. (Representatives of Mike Mazzei, the Republican gubernatorial nominee, did not respond to several requests for comment about whether he would renew the order.) ...

Full story at https://www.chronicle.com/article/pushed-by-the-governor-a-small-liberal-arts-college-is-erasing-tenure-from-its-faculty-handbook.

Lonely App

From the Daily Bruin: ...Resonance, an app created by psychology professor Matthew Lieberman, is partnering with UCLA Student Affairs and Enrollment Management to help users form friendships based on their compatibility. The app, which will be free for all UCLA students for the 2026-27 academic year, matches users with potential friends based on their answers to a series of questions about their personalities, Lieberman said. Lieberman said he created the app in 2022 after asking his students about their experiences with loneliness. About 65% of the students in his UCLA class reported experiencing loneliness, having difficulty making friends and not having as many close friends as they wanted, he said...

Following a pilot test of Resonance in 2023 – which involved about 2,000 UCLA transfer student users – students reported a 41% reduction in loneliness, Lieberman said. In addition to one-on-one connections, users can join specific online communities based on shared characteristics or interests, he said. At UCLA, for example, students can join groups with people of the same year or major...

Full story at https://dailybruin.com/2026/09/17/ucla-partners-with-professor-designed-friendship-app-to-combat-student-loneliness.

Also - From the Daily Targum (Rutgers): ...The platform does not fully reward total similarity. Due to how the algorithm works, identical survey responses will only score two people at 78/100 compatibility. To reach the 95/100 score required for a match between two people, they will need to differ in the right ways. That way, this app will not simply section off people with identical personalities but will instead serve as a means to bring people together who complement one another...

Full story at https://www.dailytargum.com/article/u-alum-launches-new-app-to-increase-social-connection-on-campuses-worldwide-20260916.

Free

From the LA Times: In a bid to pack the Rose Bowl and Pauley Pavilion, tickets to all UCLA home football and men’s and women’s basketball games will be free for undergraduate, graduate and extension students going forward... Previously, the Bruins had to purchase a Den Pass for $199 to gain access to home football and men’s basketball games. Students who have already purchased the Den Pass for the 2026-2027 academic year will be reimbursed...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/sports/ucla/story/2026-09-16/ucla-to-give-all-students-free-tickets-to-football-basketball-games.

Straws in the Wind - Part 472

From Inside Higher Ed: For more than a year, the U.S. Justice Department has steadily worked its way through the list of states that allow eligible noncitizens to pay in-state college tuition. The agency sued first Texas and then Kentucky, arguing that the policies violated federal statute. Now, DOJ has sued 24 states and Washington, D.C., in what advocates call a coordinated assault on the rights of undocumented students. The last batch of lawsuits was filed Thursday against Arkansas, D.C., Hawaii and Utah.

...Of the roughly 525,000 undocumented college students in the United States, more than 180,000 go to school in the seven states that already ended the discounted rates, and 220,000 others live in states where litigation is ongoing, according to data from the Higher Education Immigration Portal...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/courts/2026/09/14/doj-sues-all-states-state-tuition-noncitizens. 

Moneyball

From Inside Higher Ed: The Senate voted 74 to 24 Tuesday [of last week] to move forward with voting on the Protect College Sports Act, a bill to establish federal guidelines on player eligibility, compensation, conference realignment, in-season coaching moves, student transfers and other changes. The bill would also grant the NCAA some antitrust protections that the association has said are critical to governing college athletics. If the legislation does advance out of the Senate... the House likely won’t vote until after the November midterm elections, and it’s unclear whether lawmakers in the lower chamber will rally around the bill. But this issue is a top priority for President Trump, who has warned that college athletics threatens to bankrupt higher education institutions without significant changes.

...The proposed changes come at a financially precarious moment for college sports, with most athletic departments operating in the red as they respond to new pressures such as revenue-sharing... Opponents of the bill, like Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, believe that the bill favors monied interests in college sports, such as coaches and executives, at the expense of the players...

As the bill moves forward, hundreds of colleges, coaches, conferences and the NCAA have thrown their support behind the bill in closed-door conversations and national ad campaigns... The NCAA, which lobbied for the bill, launched an ad campaign in support of the legislation. Like the bill’s sponsors, the NCAA says it is necessary to provide stability to college sports... Joining the NAACP in opposing the bill [are the] AFL-CIO and the National College Players Association. Opponents have argued that the legislation extends too much legal protection to the NCAA while diminishing the leverage players have. All three organizations joined Murphy and athletes... urged senators to vote against the legislation...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/politics-elections/2026/09/17/money-ads-and-star-power-push-remake-college-sports.

Bye Bye Master Plan

Whatever the details, the Master Plan for Higher Education is fast disappearing:

From the LA Times: California community colleges will be able to offer bachelor’s degrees that duplicate programs at California State University and University of California schools... under legislation approved [last] Friday by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The pair of bills scraps the state’s ban on community colleges offering any bachelor’s degree already available at CSU or UC, and replaces it with a system built around regional workforce needs and a district college’s performance. They cleared the legislature earlier this month after CSU and UC withdrew objections... The laws will take effect Jan. 1, 2028.

Chancellor Sonya Christian, who leads the community college system, had come out against the two related bills in the final days of the session. She said the versions lawmakers passed — and Newsom has approved — could create “more barriers” than currently exist for community colleges moving to provide new degree programs...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-09-18/california-community-college-bachelors-degrees-newsom-law.

Veto

From CalMatters: California college students without legal immigration status still cannot work at public colleges and universities after Gov. Gavin Newsom again vetoed a bill Sunday that would have given them that right. Assembly Bill 713 would have adopted an untested legal theory that argues that a 1986 federal law barring employers from hiring workers in the country without authorization doesn’t apply to state governments. The logic? That 40-year-old law doesn’t mention state governments as a type of employer that cannot hire workers without proper status.

But for the second time in three years, Newsom decided that adopting that theory for California would expose the state’s higher-education system to the wrath of the federal government...

Full story at https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/09/newsom-veto-students-wtihout-legal-status/.

As we have pointed out previously, the bill did not in fact impose a mandate on UC, unlike CSU and the community colleges. It left the ultimate decision to the Regents:

This article shall apply to the University of California, unless it is found to be inapplicable to the university, then, consistent with Section 67400, this article shall apply to the university only to the extent that the Regents of the University of California, by appropriate resolution, make it applicable.

See https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB713/id/3191073.

News accounts tend to omit this fact. Presumably, it was included in the bill because of the constitutional autonomy of the Regents.

All I know about Bloat... - Part 2

Yesterday, we posted a Boston Globe op ed of Sept. 9 from Prof. Barry Lam of Riverside concerning administrative bloat. As if on cue to illustrate his point, only a few days later, a 185-page document appeared on the systemwide Academic Senate website. We reproduce below just the 3-page cover letter that was part of that document. Should you want to read the full 185 pages, the link is at the bottom of this post. (But you shouldn't.)

===

September 11, 2026

CHANCELLORS

ACADEMIC COUNCIL CHAIR SCOTT

LABORATORY DIRECTOR YELICK

ANR VICE PRESIDENT HUMISTON

Re: Systemwide Review of Proposed Presidential Policy: Relocation Assistance Act Policy for Real Estate Acquisitions and Leases

Dear Colleagues:

Enclosed for systemwide review are proposed revisions to Presidential Policy: Relocation Assistance Act Policy for Real Estate Acquisitions and Leases (Relocation Policy or Policy). The University is required to comply with the California Relocation Assistance Law (California Government Code Section 7260 et seq.), which requires that all public entities adopt rules and regulations to administer relocation assistance and to implement the payments under this law. The University approved its Relocation Policy in 1974 and last updated it in 2013.

The Relocation Policy is very technical and is required to conform to the Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition Guidelines (“Guidelines”) adopted by the California Department of Housing and Community Development. Where possible, the Policy has been revised to address common University situations including the standard process for acquiring property, the expiration of long-term ground leases, and dealing with UC affiliated tenants in housing.

The University hired outside counsel to support the Policy revision process. The selected outside counsel worked on the 2013 update to the Policy and has had several minor engagements with campuses concerning the Policy interpretation. The revisions have been closely coordinated with UC Legal and the campus real estate offices and have been discussed at two systemwide conferences for UC real estate staff. No concerns have been expressed to date.

Systemwide Review

Systemwide review is a public review distributed to the Chancellors, the Chair of the Academic Council, the Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the Vice President of Agriculture and Natural Resources requesting that they inform the general University community, especially affected employees, about policy proposals. Systemwide review also includes a mandatory, 90-day full Senate review.

Employees should be afforded the opportunity to review and comment on the draft policy. Attached is a Model Communication which may be used to inform non-exclusively represented employees about these proposals. Systemwide Labor Relations at the Office of the President is responsible for informing the bargaining units representing union membership about policy proposals.

We would appreciate receiving your comments no later than December 10, 2026. Please submit your comments to julie.wong@ucop.edu. If you have any questions, please contact Julie Wong at julie.wong@ucop.edu or (510) 987-0374.

Sincerely,

David Phillips,

Associate Vice President, Capital Programs, Energy and Sustainability

Enclosures:

1) Draft Presidential Policy: Relocation Assistance Act Policy for Real Estate Acquisitions and Leases (clean copy)

2) Draft Presidential Policy: Relocation Assistance Act Policy for Real Estate Acquisitions and Leases (tracked-changes copy)

3) Model Communication

cc: President Milliken

Interim Provost and Executive Vice President Hexter

Executive Vice Chancellors/Provosts

Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Nava

Executive Vice President Rubin

Senior Vice President Bustamante

Vice President Brown

Vice President and Vice Provost Gullatt

Vice President Henderson

Vice President and Chief of Staff Kao

Vice President Maldonado

Academic Council Vice Chair Nuru-Jeter

Vice Provost Varsanyi

Vice Provosts/Vice Chancellors of Academic Affairs/Personnel

Deputy Provost Lee

Associate Vice President Matella

Associate Vice President McRae

Deputy General Counsel Woodall

Assistant Vice Provosts/Assistant Vice Chancellors for Academic Personnel

Executive Director Anders 

Executive Director Lin

Executive Director Menezes

Chief of Staff Beechem

Chief of Staff Levintov

Chief Policy Advisor McAuliffe

LBL Chief Human Resources Officer Crosson

Interim Chief Human Resources Officer Hairston

Director Chin

Director Garcia

Director Lavin

Director Weston-Dawkes

Associate Director Dicaprio

Associate Director Soria

Associate Director Woolston

Assistant Director LaBriola

Policy Analyst Durrin

Program Policy Analyst D’Agostino

Policy Advisory Committee

===

Source: https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/underreview/systemwide-senate-review-relocation-assistance-act-policy.pdf.

Don't call. Don't click. Delete.

Don't call. Don't click. Delete.  

Straws in the Wind - Part 471

From the Cornell Daily Sun: The Accepting Responsibility program, a restorative alternative to Academic Integrity hearings for first-time offenders, was entered into the revised Code of Academic Integrity in August. It was previously a pilot program used in individual courses, but not adopted as official University policy. The program was incorporated into the Code of Academic Integrity on Aug. 24 after the Faculty Senate voted to expand the program from its pilot stage at its May 4 meeting...

The AR program is voluntary for both the faculty and students involved, and it allows faculty members aware of an academic integrity violation to opt between a formal hearing and investigation or the AR program... If a faculty member decides to offer the AR program to a student, the student receives a violation notification outlining the issue, evidence of the violation and a proposed grade penalty, according to the revised Code of Academic Integrity. The student then has three business days to decide whether to accept responsibility or request an Academic Integrity hearing. If the student accepts responsibility, they admit the violation, accept the penalty and agree to complete an AR workshop within two weeks...

Full story at https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2026/09/m4e6oo4sdu5k.

They asked but got NIL - Part 2

From CalMatters: CalMatters is suing the second UC campus — UC Berkeley — in as many months to force the institution to release financial data on how much its student athletes earn from name, image and likeness deals. The suit, filed last week in the Alameda County Superior Court, is nearly identical to the one the nonprofit news outlet filed against UCLA in August. In both cases, the campuses refused to divulge how much they pay athletes after a national legal settlement last year that permits U.S. colleges to compensate their athletes directly. “We are reviewing the complaint and are going to decline comment at this time,” wrote Janet Gilmore, a spokesperson for UC Berkeley...

...Campuses can direct up to $20.5 million to student-athletes. At UC Berkeley, that pool of money is made up of athletics revenues, philanthropic funds, and “some campus funds,” the school’s chancellor, Richard Lyons, wrote last year... 

CalMatters spent almost a year seeking the data from UC Berkeley. It filed numerous California Public Records Acts requests to public universities across the state. Several campuses offered paltry data in response. Others, however, produced at least partial records, indicating that the payment records and contracts the newsroom seeks are public records, the lawsuit said. For example, UC Riverside reported that it provided its male athletes about $200,000, including multiple payments to the men’s basketball team, plus $70,000 for its female athletes. 

A Congressional Research Service paper noted that the new name, image and likeness payment era raises questions about federally mandated sex-based fairness in university sports... UCLA and UC Berkeley’s athletics programs were in the red in 2024-25, despite using their endowment or general fund dollars to subsidize their budgets...

Full story at https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/09/nil-california/. 

Round 1 Loss for UC

From the LA Times: In a conservative win, campus members of an education advocacy organization may refer to transgender people using names and pronouns that are not consistent with that individual’s gender identity, according to a federal court ruling that restricts University of California anti-harassment policies. The ruling issued by U.S. District Judge Fred W. Slaughter of California’s Central District does not fully invalidate UC’s wide-ranging anti-harassment policy, which covers misgendering, sexual abuse and stalking among campus community members...

The preliminary injunction — a temporary ruling while the case against UC proceeds — only protects members of the conservative group Defending Education. The group offers membership to anyone for free. It is unclear how many members the group has on UC campuses. Slaughter said he found Defending Education likely to succeed on its 1st Amendment challenge, writing that the UC policy “compels speech and is viewpoint-based.” ...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-09-19/uc-transgender-harassment-policy-free-speech-lawsuit.

===

Lawsuit available at:

https://defendinged.org/lawsuits/defending-education-files-suit-against-the-university-of-california-for-unconstitutional-speech-policies/.

===

If the judge is saying the plaintiffs are likely to succeed, maybe it's time to settle?

All I know about Bloat...

Barry Lam is a professor of philosophy at UC-Riverside, writes in the Boston Globe:

...The story of Bloat 1.0 is that through a combination of local, state, and federal laws, fear of litigation, or simply the need to do something in the face of some problem, administrators start creating rules and mandates that take on a life of their own... At the University of California, where I work on the Riverside campus, the hiring process for faculty positions requires a brief report on every candidate who applied for a job and didn’t get it. Candidates on any short list must submit official legal affidavits that they have not been found guilty of any form of workplace misconduct before they can advance to a final round of interviews.

All of these mandates require someone on campus to verify, process, and enforce them. And for every violation, there must be some process by which sanctions get recorded or appealed. Rules like these pervade the entire university, for low-stakes and high-stakes practices, many connected to the educational mission, but most unconnected. Because every rule must have administrative oversight, compliance, documentation, and sometimes even legal review, the university has to manage all the people involved in making, enforcing, and reviewing these rules. More people are in charge of standing in the way of the educational mission than actually facilitating it.

Which brings us to Bloat 2.0. The promise of digital infrastructure is to be able to do bureaucratic tasks more cheaply and efficiently. In principle, just like spending on administrative staff should make the essential functions of administration less burdensome, spending on software should make spending on administrative staff less essential.

But in higher education the opposite has happened. Millions and millions of dollars are being spent on digital infrastructure and the hiring of administrative staff who must oversee and mitigate problems caused by the digital infrastructure itself.

The University of California system promised that $170 million in spending on a single digital infrastructure project would cut administrative bloat by $753 million over its lifetime. Instead, the project took seven years and ballooned to $942 million in cost — and the finished project was so poorly designed and difficult to use that an entirely new IT unit had to be created just to keep the software functional. The savings on staffing were zero.

Making and passing out a syllabus now requires rounds of compliance with a variety of rules set by administrators, the state, and the federal government. Every professor knows that what starts as a two-page syllabus of readings and assignments now ends up being six to eight pages because of a variety of statements that administrators require or advise us to include — such as policies and procedures for students who are pregnant, bullied, sexually harassed, in need of religious accommodations, having their civil rights violated, or sensitive to disturbing content. Taking attendance requires ensuring that students are logged on to the right software, are connected to the right Wi-Fi routers, and have their geo-locating trackers on. One professor at UC San Diego tells me that new course approvals went from a six-month process to a two-year backlog, largely because of expensive software that requires ongoing maintenance...

Full story at https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/09/09/opinion/higher-ed-college-costs-administrative-bloat/.

Well, maybe there's a remedy:

Straws in the Wind - Part 470

From the Columbia Daily Spectator: Columbia has prohibited the use of electronic devices in all Literature Humanities and Contemporary Civilization sections starting this fall, 12 syllabi for the courses reviewed by Spectator show and a Columbia College spokesperson confirmed. The ban comes as Columbia continues to grapple with the impact of generative AI in the classroom and as several peer institutions have enacted similar policies restricting technology use in the classroom. Last month, the University of Chicago banned devices and the use of AI by both professors and students in its core social science classes.

Though according to the spokesperson, Music Humanities has had a device ban since 2025, the policy is the first of its kind for Columbia’s flagship first- and second-year Core Curriculum classes. In interviews with Spectator, five Lit Hum and Contemporary Civilization instructors welcomed the prohibition, saying that it was a necessary step toward ensuring students remain focused on discussions in class...

Full story at https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2026/09/10/columbia-prohibits-electronic-devices-in-all-literature-humanities-contemporary-civilization-sections/.

Slippage?

From SFGATE: ...UC Santa Barbara, known for its wild ragers, lost its title as the top party school in America to Florida State University, according to Niche. The beachside university plummeted to No. 26, even falling behind USC (No. 5) and San Diego State University (No. 18)...

Full story at https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/college-rankings-ucla-niche-22432023.php.

Just not like the old times:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkAkmL8_JKQ.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 199

From the Harvard Crimson: Harvard Kennedy School’s Middle East Initiative announced last week the launch of a new Israel Program, expanding the center’s research, teaching, and engagement on Israel within its regional and global context. In a letter announcing the program, Middle East Initiative Faculty Chair Tarek E. Masoud wrote that interest in Israel has intensified “after Hamas’ terrorist attacks of October 7th, 2023 and Israel’s subsequent military campaigns, and particularly the devastating war in Gaza.” The program will be led by Barak Sella, a senior research fellow at the initiative and a Kennedy School graduate who previously served as executive director of the Reut Institute, an Israeli policy nonprofit. Masoud wrote that Sella has “long been a leading voice on U.S.-Israel relations and global Jewish affairs.” The program will also draw on existing initiative scholars, including senior fellow Edward P. Djerejian, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and Syria, and Kennedy School professor Lotem Bassan-Nygate.

A central piece of the program is the Shared Society Lab, which will be led by senior research fellow Dana Schleifer, another HKS graduate who previously served as chief innovation officer for the Tel Aviv-Yafo municipal government. According to Masoud’s announcement, the lab will focus on strengthening municipal institutions and building partnerships between Israel’s Jewish and Palestinian citizens. The Israel Program will also introduce a new course, DPI-635: “Arguing Israel-Palestine,” and will launch an Israeli Research Fellowship beginning in the 2026-2027 academic year that will bring Israeli scholars and practitioners to the initiative for short-term residencies with other scholars from the region, as well as Harvard students and faculty. Masoud wrote that these initiatives will foster the “rigorous, open inquiry and civil, constructive debate that are the hallmarks of the Middle East Initiative.”

...The new program also arrives just over a year after Harvard announced a pair of new academic partnerships with Israeli institutions — a study abroad program with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and a postdoctoral fellowship for Israeli researchers at Harvard Medical School. Harvard had agreed to partner with an Israeli university as part of a January 2025 settlement with two groups alleging it had slow-walked its response to campus antisemitism. A separate antisemitism lawsuit brought against Harvard by the Department of Justice was dismissed in August, and the department appealed the ruling to the First Circuit Court of Appeals later that month...

Full story at https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/9/17/harvard-middle-east-initiative-israel/.

I Never Promised You a Rose Bowl? - Part 20 (Vibe Shift)

When last we looked at the litigation regarding UCLA's desire to shift from the Rose Bowl to Sofi Stadium for football on August 1, it appeared there would be some kind of court activity in early September. Yours truly couldn't find any news sources about that activity occurring, but there seems to be a vibe shift with the advent of new personnel at UCLA: a new interim CFO, a new AD, and a new coach. The new AD, Tim Harris, bought 300 Rose Bowl tickets and distributed them for free (for one game):

https://nypost.com/2026/09/07/sports/how-uclas-new-ad-is-personally-invested-in-big-rose-bowl-crowd/.

The Rose Bowl unveiled a new Field Club facility for premium seat holders (revenue from which will benefit UCLA):

...New UCLA AD Tim Harris, noting that as a Lakers executive he had spent the last few decades around two of the most iconic arenas in sports in the Forum and Cryto.com Arena, said he “pinched myself” that he now got to be associated with the most iconic college football stadium in the country...

https://nypost.com/2026/09/10/sports/rose-bowl-unveils-impressive-field-club-ahead-of-ucla-home-opener/.

In short, maybe a deal can be reached involving continued use of the Rose Bowl.

Straws in the Wind - Part 469

From Wellesley College: Wellesley College today announced that it will guarantee a tuition-free education to U.S. students whose families have a total annual income of $200,000 or less with typical assets. Wellesley is the first women’s college—and only the second liberal arts college in the nation—to guarantee free tuition at the $200,000 level. The Wellesley Tuition Promise will apply automatically to all first-year and transfer students who are admitted to Wellesley, as well as returning students, beginning in fall 2027...

Nationally, 85% of all families in the U.S. earn less than $200,000 per year. Today, approximately 80% of Wellesley’s financial aid program is supported by the College’s endowment. Recent changes to college endowment tax rules are contributing to increased funding for financial aid, including the Wellesley Tuition Promise...

Full news release at https://www.wellesley.edu/news/wellesley-free-tuition-income-200k-or-less-fall-2027.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 198

From the Harvard Crimson: Almost four years after the public release of ChatGPT, nearly two-thirds of professors who responded to The Crimson’s annual Faculty of Arts and Sciences survey said they believe the prevalence of artificial intelligence has had a negative effect on their courses. Sixty-four percent of faculty respondents said AI had a “somewhat negative” or “very negative” effect on their courses this year — a sharp uptick from last year’s survey, when 42 percent said the same. The figures point to growing concerns about tools that allow students to complete assignments without fully absorbing content, even as professors adjust their courses to keep up with the technology.

Course-level policies are now commonplace: Only 3.5 percent of respondents said they have no explicit policy on AI tools in their courses, down from 10 percent last year. The percentage of respondents who said they “entirely permit” the use of AI tools in their courses was also roughly halved, from 8 percent to 4 percent. The faculty concerns come as Harvard coordinates broader curricular responses to AI. Harvard College added a required AI module to the first-year Expository Writing course this spring and phased in an AI chatbot to advise incoming students on course planning. The FAS also announced plans this spring to offer access to Anthropic’s Claude, while ending its institution-wide ChatGPT Edu pilot...

Full story at https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/9/14/fas-2026-survey-AI/.

Letter from Academic Senate to Chancellor / Letter from Chancellor to Senate

September 16, 2026

Dear Chancellor Frenk,

We are writing to express our concerns and reservations about the press release you issued on September 11, 2026, titled “Chancellor Julio Frenk comment regarding media coverage on Sept. 10.” The document contained several statements that have been interpreted as criticizing the law school event “25 Years After 9/11: Reimaging Freedom, Justice, and Security” and its organizers.

The University of California’s (UC) policy (APM 010) on academic freedom is clear and unequivocal:

The principles of academic freedom protect freedom of inquiry and research, freedom of teaching, and freedom of expression and publication. These freedoms enable the University to advance knowledge and to transmit it effectively to its students and to the public.

Academic freedom requires that teaching and scholarship be assessed by reference to the professional standards that sustain the University’s pursuit and achievement of knowledge. The substance and nature of these standards properly lie within the expertise and authority of the faculty as a body. [emphasis added]

The AAUP has long affirmed “its belief that the freedom to hear is an essential condition of a university community and an inseparable part of academic freedom” and that “the right to examine issues and seek truth is prejudiced to the extent that the university is open to some but not to others whom members of the university also judge desirable to hear.”

The UCLA Senate’s Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) laid out guidelines last year for dealing with challenging material in the classroom, which also apply to other academic endeavors:

Classroom materials dealing with sensitive topics such as religion, nationality, ethnicity, or deeply held political views may sometimes be taken as disrespectful and hurtful. Those materials dealing with violent, even horrific, events may be emotionally disturbing and their sudden introduction may retraumatize survivors.

In a November 2025 response to CAF’s May 2025 statement “In Defense of Academic Freedom and the University,” you and EVCP Hunt wrote:

We fully agree that academic freedom, institutional autonomy, and shared governance are essential to the University's mission of discovery, learning, and public service. These values have long enabled UCLA to advance knowledge across disciplines and foster open, rigorous, and respectful debate in the pursuit of truth.

We recognize the challenges currently facing higher education, both nationally and globally, and share the committee's concern for preserving an environment in which faculty, students, and researchers can pursue their scholarly work free from undue interference. UCLA remains committed to these core values and to working collaboratively with the Academic Senate to ensure that they continue to guide our community.

As elected leaders of the Los Angeles Division of the UC Academic Senate, we reiterate and reinforce these foundational policies and values related to academic freedom. Particularly during times of grief, stress, political division and pressure, it is of the utmost importance for the UCLA Administration and Senate faculty to work collaboratively to uphold our deeply held principles and protect academic freedom. As you observed, “When we face difficult challenges and tough decisions, we find strength in staying connected.”

Sincerely,

Tim Groeling, Chair

Catherine Sugar, Vice Chair

Megan McEvoy. Immediate Past Chair

===========================

September 17, 2026

Dear Chair Groeling, Vice Chair Sugar, and Immediate Past Chair McEvoy,

Thank you for your thoughtful letter. I take the concerns you raise seriously, particularly because they touch upon one of the most fundamental principles of a university: academic freedom.

Let me begin unequivocally: UCLA is committed to academic freedom. It is a core tenet of our mission and a bedrock of higher education. My September 11 statement does not change that fundamental commitment or the protections it affords faculty, symposia organizers, speakers and participants.

Faculty must remain free to pursue difficult questions, organize academic programs, select speakers and engage ideas that may be controversial or deeply contested. Those protections are essential to the work of a great university, including the role of the School of Law in examining consequential questions of law, justice and policy.

The School of Law symposium operated within the protections of academic freedom and proceeded as planned, with its program, speakers and academic content unchanged.

The statement expressed my support for Professor Judea Pearl and others in our community who carry their own lived experiences of September 11 and its aftermath. It also reaffirmed UCLA’s opposition to antisemitism and terrorism.

I chose the words of my statement carefully and deliberately. Some subsequent accounts have characterized it as a condemnation, rebuke or repudiation of the symposium. A careful read of my statement will fail to find any of those words. Furthermore, the statement did not criticize the School of Law or question the validity of legal representation, including for individuals accused of horrific acts.

My statement underscores that UCLA’s protection of academic freedom does not constitute institutional endorsement of every speaker’s viewpoint or program presented under those protections. That principle applies broadly to events across our campus, and we will make that distinction clear in our communications.

The key point of my statement is that we can uphold academic freedom while also expressing support for members of our community who are hurting. A university is more than a collection of individual rights and freedoms. It is a community, and community carries with it obligations of reciprocity.

What do we owe one another, particularly when we profoundly disagree? For me, the answer begins with mutual respect, empathy and recognition of one another’s humanity. Academic freedom protects our ability to engage the most difficult ideas. It does not require indifference to one another or to the impact felt by members of our community. We must safeguard the freedom to pursue scholarship, invite speakers, test assumptions and express views that others may find deeply objectionable. At the same time, we must foster a culture of reciprocity in which those freedoms coexist with respect for the dignity and humanity of others.

At this moment of extraordinary polarization, reciprocity is essential to what holds a university community together. I am committed to safeguarding academic freedom and preserving free expression. I am equally committed to sustaining the mutual respect, care and reciprocity that allow those freedoms — and our community — to flourish.

Sincerely,

Julio Frenk

Chancellor

---

Source: https://dms.senate.ucla.edu/issues/issue/?11554.Academic.Senate.Leadership.Letter.on.Academic.Freedom.

Remember what they used to say?

They don't say that anymore:

University of California leverages systemwide expertise to advance purposeful, human-centered uses for AI

UC Office of the President, September 16, 2026

https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/press-room/university-california-leverages-systemwide-expertise-advance-purposeful-human-centered

Under President Milliken’s direction and leadership, the University of California launched the AI Steering Committee to highlight and focus UC research on harnessing AI for the public good.

At the September UC Board of Regents meeting, the UC AI Steering Committee provided its first report to the Board, detailing the progress of its working groups and announcing showcase events involving each UC campus over the next year that will highlight campus AI initiatives and research in the fields identified by those working groups.

Formed by President Milliken in May of 2026, the University of California’s AI steering committee was established to leverage the university’s extraordinary scale of 10 campuses, six academic health centers, and three national labs in navigating AI’s increasingly broad impacts on everyday life and the university’s mission of education, research, patient care, and public service. The Steering Committee created five working groups focused on AI applications and their impact across the following areas: health and longevity; learning and work; discovery and innovation; protecting humans and humanity; and AI for the public good.

“AI is transforming the way we learn, work, and live,” said UC President James B. Milliken. “We hear every day about the increasing potential and the risk of AI. The task force is sharpening our focus on how UC can advance human potential, not diminish it. As a public university with a commitment to California and the nation in its DNA, UC is also ideally positioned to contribute to the broader public discussion on managing the benefits and risks of AI.”

Amid calls for a slowdown of AI development, the University of California's AI Steering Committee informed the Board of Regents today of its work in establishing a different path for AI, one of responsible public adoption for the public good. 

The report began by addressing the risks of unconsidered AI adoption, including security breaches, fragmented regulation, and increased energy and utility consumption. It established that UC was among the first in the country to adopt a formal set of AI Principles, and the first university to address artificial intelligence explicitly in a Digital Risk Appetite statement, a formal declaration of how much technology risk the institution will accept, and where.

AI Steering Committee Co-Chair Van Williams highlighted the need to responsibly govern AI capacity for UC and detailed existing initiatives to broaden access to AI tools for researchers, employees, and students while promoting ethical and responsible use. These include research awards and computing credits from Amazon and Google, the latter of which has granted more than $32.7 million across 61 funded projects, spanning AI safety and trust research, frontier research, workforce development, and public impact applications at the campuses. 

The Steering Committee is seeking coordinated, systemwide approaches with AI developers and cloud providers to ensure UC is not reliant on a single vendor. The committee is also exploring the creation of a systemwide learning platform to support the responsible adoption of AI tools and use of resources. 

Sharing perspectives in cybersecurity and in education were two of the steering committee’s working group leaders who presented alongside Williams: Giovanni Vigna, distinguished professor in the Department of Computer Science at UC Santa Barbara, head of the working group on protecting humans and humanity, and Rita Raley, professor of English at UC Santa Barbara, who leads the working group on AI for learning and work.

Professor Vigna, who also directs the UC Santa Barbara-based, National Science Foundation-funded Institute for Agent-based Cyber Threat Intelligence and Operation (ACTION), described the sophistication of AI agents in exploiting security flaws, a source of increasing concern. “There is hope,” he said. “We need to make an investment in educating people in AI tools and create coordination between all the stakeholders so that threat intelligence between different parts of critical infrastructure can be shared at a scale and pace that is required to make progress in protecting our networks.”

Professor Raley, co-director of the new Center for the Humanities and Machine Learning (HUML) at UC Santa Barbara, described a course she developed, “Critical Artificial Intelligence,” and the scope of her working group, which will provide systemwide recommendations on what each student needs to know about AI. “The University will continue to certify students on the basis of disciplinary knowledge attained. But, no less important, we must now give students the critical judgment to ask what this technology is, who needs to be accountable for it, how to use it, when to refuse it — and what it could be instead.”

Among the examples highlighted by co-chair Williams of AI’s potential for public good was the work done at UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco to restore speech back to a patient named Ann, who had lost her speech to a brainstem stroke nearly two decades ago. A joint UC team built a brain-computer interface to convert her attempted speech into audible, natural-sounding words in approximately a second. 

“The technology will keep getting more capable whether or not any of us are ready for it,” Steering Committee Co-Chair Van Williams said. “How it gets used is still a choice. The university that helped give Ann her voice back intends to keep making that choice deliberately, in public, and for the public.”

Bond. Prop 38

From the Sacramento Bee: Three former employees of the California Legislative Analyst’s Office came out in strong opposition against Proposition 38 Thursday, arguing that the ballot measure that seeks to support medical research lacked appropriate provisions for transparency and accountability. Instead, they said, it seemed to “steer public funds” to its billionaire backer’s “philanthropic project” and then “hide its tracks.” The proposition will ask voters in the November election to allow the state to borrow $8.4 billion to support medical research in immunology and immunotherapy conducted by California research institutes and universities.

...CalMatters reported only one research institute in California appeared to meet the criteria included in the measure for the nonprofit that would be awarded half the bond proceeds. That institute is the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy [CIII], an independent medical research organization affiliated with UCLA. Gary Michelson, a billionaire philanthropist and medical inventor, is both the co-founder of that institute and the chief backer of Proposition 38...

First announced in 2024, the CIII is currently under construction and scheduled to open soon...

Full story at https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article317199654.html.

Reminder - From the UCLA Newsroom (2024):

Key takeaways

The UCLA Research Park will occupy the former mall site, a 700,000-square-foot property 2 miles from the Westwood campus.

The research park will house the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy at UCLA and the UCLA Center for Quantum Science and Engineering, as well as programs across the disciplines.

This acquisition was made possible in part by an intended $500 million investment from the state of California, with $200 million already allocated.

The California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy is also supported by a group of founding donors led by Meyer Luskin, Dr. Gary Michelson, Dr. Eric Esrailian, Dr. Arie Belldegrun, Sean Parker and Michael Milken...

Full news release at https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/ucla-to-transform-empty-mall-into-research-park.

Straws in the Wind - Part 468

From Inside Higher Ed: The U.S. Military Academy at West Point cannot restrict what civilian faculty write or say publicly, a federal court judge ruled... The ruling permanently overturns a sweeping policy that required faculty members speaking in their professional capacity to seek prior approval for any external speech, including journal publications, media interviews and blog and social media posts. U.S. District Court Judge Cathy Seibel, a George W. Bush appointee, sided with Tim Bakken, the West Point law professor who sued the academy in September 2025, arguing the new policy was unconstitutional. In [her] ruling, Seibel agreed the policy violates the First Amendment. She also ruled that West Point may not prevent Bakken from “expressing or offering” his opinions or beliefs about the subject matter under discussion during his classes.

West Point could appeal the decision...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2026/09/10/judge-declares-west-point-faculty-gag-order-unconstitutional.

Kirk

From the Daily Californian: ...UC Berkeley students turned out both to celebrate and to mourn for the one-year anniversary of conservative political activist and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk’s death. The day’s activities, which began mournfully but ended with a separate celebration of Kirk’s death from students who opposed his politics, also drew attention from the federal government. Saturday evening, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau replied to a post on X calling for the deportation of multiple international students who attended a “Kirkversary” event with: “Thanks. On it!” The Department of State did not immediately reply to a request for comment...

Members of TPUSA at UC Berkeley gave speeches and tabled on Sproul Plaza in commemoration of Kirk’s legacy. The chapter placed a large portrait of Kirk front and center on its table, surrounded by posters with various themes of freedom and American patriotism... A few hours later, ...a bustling crowd of students gathered on the glade for the “Kirkversary.” The event, advertised by the Instagram account @berkeleyrankings, brought students together to sing, cheer and boo at Kirk’s memory... Many students, ...though outspoken about their disagreement with Kirk’s politics, also described great concern with the idea that someone could be killed for exercising their right to free speech...

Full story at https://www.dailycal.org/news/campus/student-life/uc-berkeley-students-mourn-celebrate-on-1-year-anniversary-of-charlie-kirk-s-death/article_c89bfef6-3804-4277-811c-83447660db92.html.

Parallel Blogs / Subscribing / Blog Song

We have been putting out this blog since 2009 under the heading "UCLA Faculty Association" using the link:

https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/

The blog site was originally created by the then-executive director of the Faculty Association. As such, yours truly does not have control of the site; he is simply a blogger on it. So when technical issues arise, that can be a problem. Given that issue, we have been adding a parallel site with the same blog entries since July 23rd:

https://danmitchellsblogcontinues.blogspot.com/

We will be running the two in parallel for the indefinite future. Possibly, at some point we will switch to the new link.

If you read the blog using the Facebook page of Yousee Elayemeriti, you can continue to do so:

https://www.facebook.com/yousee.elayemeriti

===

Want to subscribe?

You can't subscribe directly. But you can subscribe indirectly to this blog via a service called Blogtrottr. Go to blogtrottr.com and fill in the URL for the blog:

https://danmitchellsblogcontinues.blogspot.com/ 

or

https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/

and put in your email address. 

You will then receive an email at the email address you provided asking you to confirm. After you confirm, you will receive an email notification of new postings whenever they appear. If there are, say, three postings on a particular day, you will receive three notifications (one for each one). 

Note and full disclosure: There are ads on these notifications. 

==

And here's a little song, based on the information above, composed by Gemini:

"Sharp and Clever Pen":

Or https://archive.org/details/sharp-and-clever-pen

Verse 1

I scroll the screen looking for some light

A voice that cuts right through the noise

They talk about the taxes and the spin

But Dan Mitchell has a different kind of truth

He talks about the spending and the waste

The parallel blogs that keep us truly free

Independent channels are the only way to go

To find the analysis the mainstream never shows

--

Chorus

Get real economic facts!

Escape the corporate tracks!

Subscribe and find the key!

To keep your mind free!

Get real economic facts!

Escape the corporate tracks!

Subscribe and find the key!

To keep your mind free!

--

Verse 2

He analyzes policy with a sharp and clever pen

Decentralized and honest, standing on his own ground

You don't need their filters and you don't need their spin

Just some liberty and facts to help you really win

Bookmark the connection and let the truth begin to flow

A parallel alternative to the status quo we know

Fiscal sense and freedom are waiting on the page

The perfect antidote for a confusing modern age

--

Chorus

Get real economic facts!

Escape the corporate tracks!

Subscribe and find the key!

To keep your mind free!

Get real economic facts!

Escape the corporate tracks!

Subscribe and find the key!

To keep your mind free!

--

Outro

Yeah, find the facts for yourself

Dan Mitchell's blog is out there waiting

Just click and subscribe and see the difference

Get free and stay informed always. 

Free Bus

From UCLA Newsroom: UCLA is helping ease employees’ commute to campus — and reducing their carbon footprint — by expanding access to its fare-free public transit program. UCLA employees earning less than six figures annually are now eligible for a free quarterly transit pass that provides unlimited access to 13 major Southern California transit systems, including L.A. Metro’s bus, rail and Metro Micro services, Santa Monica Big Blue Bus, Culver CityBus, Long Beach Transit, LADOT Transit, Antelope Valley Transit Authority, Santa Clarita Transit, Foothill Transit, Gardena GTrans, Montebello Bus Lines, Norwalk Transit System, Pasadena Transit and Torrance Transit.

...Modeled after income-based health insurance tiers, the Tier 1 Plus program provides a free quarterly transit pass to UCLA and UCLA Health employees who hold at least a 43.75% appointment and earn less than $100,000 annually. Roughly 20,000 employees are eligible...

Full announcement at https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/ucla-transportation-free-public-transit-employees-less-than-100000.

Particularly if you take the Santa Monica Big Blue Bus, just be careful what bus you get on:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKJa-KQNjQU.

Straws in the Wind - Part 467

From Inside Higher Ed: Law schools are no longer required to demonstrate a commitment to diversity and inclusion among students, faculty or staff, following a special meeting Tuesday where the American Bar Association’s accreditation council voted 10 to 6 to eliminate the standard. The decision is final and takes effect immediately. It does not, however, prevent law schools from continuing to prioritize diversity on campus; rather, it bars the council as a quality-assurance group from mandating that colleges do so in order to remain accredited. Other diversity-related standards, including one concerning curriculum, are still up for discussion among the council.

Known as Standard 206, the now-repealed quality metric has been a topic of debate for years. Critics argue that it violated the 2023 Supreme Court ruling banning the consideration of race in college admissions; proponents call that view an overreaching interpretation of the high court’s opinion. More recently, the Trump administration has cited the standard in an executive order as one of many alleged infringements on the regulations that define which accreditors qualify for federal recognition—a status that allows them to deem a college eligible for federal student aid and that can be key to ensuring students qualify for an attorney’s license. The Education Department officially recommended that the ABA accreditation council be stripped of its recognition in August...

Full story at: https://www.insidehighered.com/index%2ephp/news/governance/accreditation/2026/09/08/aba-accreditation-council-repeals-diversity-standard. 

The Humanities Slide

From the American Academy of Arts and Sciences: ...In 2025, the nation’s colleges and universities awarded 164,847 bachelor’s degrees in the humanities—the smallest number of degrees awarded since 1991 and 30.4% below the recent high-water mark in 2012... That decline includes a particularly sharp drop of 12.7% from 2021 to 2023, followed by a more modest drop of 2.1% from 2023 to 2024, and a further decline of just 0.4% from 2024 to 2025—the smallest year-on-year decline since 2012. The number of bachelor’s degrees conferred in the “historical categories” (disciplines with data going back to 1949) has been falling more quickly than for the field as a whole—with a decline of 42% from 2012 to 2025...

The share of bachelor’s degrees conferred by disciplines among the historical categories contracted to 3.4% of all degrees conferred in 2025—the smallest share in records extending back to 1949, and just under one-fifth of the share at their peak in 1967 (when they constituted 17.2% of all bachelor’s degrees awarded)... 

Full report at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/students/academics/2026/09/10/report-humanities-majors-disappearing. 

Union Negotiation News

From time to time, we have noted that after a major strike predominantly of student-workers, UC "professionalized" its approach to collective bargaining. Part of that approach is the issuance of releases concerning its view of the state of negotiations. UC recently released this account of current negotiations with one unit that will continue today:

The University of California (UC) and the United Auto Workers (UAW) continued negotiations on August 28, September 2, and September 11 on the first systemwide collective bargaining agreement covering roughly 1,600 Communications, Marketing, and Sales Professionals, known as ComMaS. During the August 28 session, the University passed a package proposal that included the articles from the RPSP and SSAP* agreements ratified on March 20, 2026, and a revised Side Letter on Subcontracting.

At the September 2 session, the University passed a package proposal that included the articles from the RPSP and SSAP March 2026 agreements,** as well as further revisions to the Side Letter on Subcontracting. UAW also passed a revised Side Letter on Subcontracting. The parties reached a tentative agreement on the Side Letter on Subcontracting, marking an important step toward a first contract. At the September 11 session, UC and UAW continued to exchange ideas to help resolve outstanding issues and move the parties closer to a first contract. UC welcomes the progress made and remains committed to engaging in good faith toward reaching an agreement.

UAW ComMaS-represented employees help connect UC with the public and the broader university community through communications, marketing, outreach, and related work that advances the university’s mission.

The parties will resume negotiations on September 17.

Source: https://ucnet.universityofcalifornia.edu/labor-news/uc-uaw-cm-09-15-26/.

===

*RPSP = Research and Public Service Professionals. SSAP = Student Services and Advising Professionals.

**Since we don't have access to the negotiations, we don't know what these articles were. However, it should be noted that union contracts typically have a good deal of boilerplate provisions that repeat from contract to contract. An example would be language recognizing the union as the exclusive bargaining agent. It would not be surprising if such language in one UAW-UC contract was found in others.

Watch the Regents Meeting of September 14, 2026

We will catch up with the Regents as time permits. As blog readers will know, their meetings were shifted to a Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday schedule this week. Usually, regular meetings of the Regents do not occur on Mondays.

The Monday meeting began at 3 pm in the UCLA Luskin Hotel and Conference Center with public comments. Topics included the announced closure of a childcare center at UCLA, a complaint that the ACT requires students to sign an unfair contract, accommodations for disabled students, UCLA Health's discontinuation of a contract providing coverage to Medi-Cal patients, calls to protect international students, and a thank you for Chancellor Frenk's expression of concern about a law school conference related to the 25th anniversay of 9-11.

After public comments, the meeting of the Investments Committee began. Chair Makarechian - who has mainly attended Regents meetings by Zoom after a major accident - appeared in person and introduced a student observer. CFO Bachhar reviewed investment returns during the 2025-26 fiscal year and beyond, which were strong. In particular, on a market basis, the pension became fully funded due to those returns. Data presented indicated that the portfolio was 63.3% in stocks, 14.5% in bonds, 1% in cash, and 21.2% in private assets (private equity, real estate, other real assets, and private credit). It might be noted that "private" means that the assets' value is more subjective than stocks, bonds, and cash which have regular objective market prices.

The Committee had Stephen Schwarzman of Blackstone as a guest speaker via Zoom. Among other things, he echoed the general public discussion about AI being a Big Deal including - he noted - affecting the demand for electricity and thus utilities. 

Because Blackstone was the parent of the BREIT that UC bailed out to the tune of $4.5 billion, there was a defense by Bachhar of that investment. I won't go through all the controversy about BREIT but he emphasized that UC was getting an 11.25% return as promised. The return itself was not the controversial element. What was controversial was that it was objectively a risky investment that Bachhar made entirely on his own initiative. 

Moreover, his explanation now indicates that the 11.25% was somehow being maintained by drawing down "collateral." Exactly what that means is not clear. But let's assume that in the end, the investment pays off as promised. That outcome does not mean it was an advisable investment given the circumstances at the time. If the CFO took a big chunk of UC assets and bet on a horse, we would not say that decision was appropriate even if the horse came in. As our numerous blog posts at the time pointed out, there was very little discussion of the financial aspect of the bailout at the Investments Committee - although presumably it is the job of that Committee to ask questions about risk and return.

===

As always, we preserve recordings of Regents meetings on the Internet Archive since the Regents have no policy on retention. Their YouTube recordings are unlisted, i.e., not searchable by the public. You can see the Sept. 14 recording at:

https://archive.org/details/regents-investments-committee-9-14-2026.

Does the Barnum Rule Still Apply? - Part 2

From the Daily Bruin: Dozens of physicians protested on campus at noon Tuesday to denounce the termination of a Medi-Cal contract that allowed low-income patients to access UCLA Health services. Nine thousand patients lost access to UCLA Health providers after it did not renew its contract with Health Care LA, a non-profit group of doctors, on June 30... The Committee of Interns and Residents, a local affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, and Doctors United organized the protest, which coincided with a UC Board of Regents meeting, outside the Meyer and Renee Luskin Conference Center...

Full story at https://dailybruin.com/2026/09/15/ucla-physicians-protest-end-of-contract-providing-free-care-for-low-income-patients.

Note: Absent other information, this appears to be a contract dispute between an outside healthcare provider* and UCLA Health. It's unclear from what has appeared in the news whether the termination is in some sense the "final" outcome or whether - as in other types of negotiations - the external publicity is being used as a negotiating tactic in a dispute that remain unresolved, but is ongoing.

Exactly what the contractual relationship with UCLA Health consisted of before the June 30 expiration is unclear. Yours truly used the Wayback Machine of the Internet Archive to look for a reference to UCLA before that date. He found one for the previous June (2025) that lists contracts with various insurers but does not mention UCLA:

https://web.archive.org/web/20250613192011/https://healthcarela.org/our-health-plans

So it remains unclear what the relationship with UCLA was, even apart from the (unknown) monetary terms of the agreement.

He also used the Wayback Machine to look at hospitals that had contracts with Health Care LA as of Nov. 2025:

https://web.archive.org/web/20251118194049/https://healthcarela.org/contracted-hospitals

There is no listing of UCLA there, although other hospitals are listed. (Olive View-UCLA Medical Center was listed for "limited scope" - whatever that means. But it continues to be listed beyond June 30, 2026.)

===

*https://healthcarela.org/