Pages

Friday, March 29, 2024

The Way We Live Now (at Berkeley) – Part 3 (final?)

We have been noting on this blog the efforts of some UC-Berkeley parents to pressure the campus administration to add more security. The parents hired private guards for a short period to pressure the university into doing more. The LA Times reports on the now-concluded episode:

...The program ran from March 6 to 23 and was formed in response to what SafeBears organizers see as an inadequate response from the university to a growing crime problem in and around the school. The parent group paid roughly $42,000 for six unarmed guards to patrol around the student housing and south of the campus. “There were some requests for service, escorts or directions. But really the No. 1 service these guys provided was just their physical presence being a deterrent to crime,” said SafeBears founder Sagar Jethani, who is a Southern California resident and father to two UC Berkeley students...

University officials say they believe the parents’ funds would be better spent hiring more sworn and non-sworn police officers, a UC Berkeley spokesperson said in a statement. “Parents who want to donate funds toward additional campus security can do so via a university fund that has been established,” the statement said. “We do not believe that private security should take precedence over hiring sworn officers.”

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-03-27/uc-berkeley-parents-hired-private-security-fearing-for-their-kids.

Replacing Dormzilla

Remember the proposed Munger Hall, aka Dormzilla, that was supposed to be built at UC-Santa Barbara? As blog readers will know, Dormzilla - like its semi-namesake Godzilla - died at the end of the story. It appears that a more pleasant plan for student housing is now on the way. From The Architect's Newspaper:

Officials from the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) announced recently that SOM and Mithun have been selected to design new dormitories on a site at the corner of Mesa and Stadium Roads in San Benito County. The effort is part of a broader initiative to increase student housing across the campus by 2029. The announcement marks the first student housing project on the campus in a decade as part of the University’s 2010 Long Range Development Plan. In total, SOM and Mithun are designing seven buildings for nearly 2,140 students on the northwest corner of the main UCSB campus in phase one of the project... 

Moving forward, the architects are engaging with students, staff, administration, and faculty. Planning and design on phase two—which encompasses residential buildings on the southeast end of the campus—should start this summer. The design team seeks to gain approval from the UC Board of Regents in May 2024, and begin construction in 2025.

Full story at https://www.archpaper.com/2024/03/som-mithun-design-new-student-dorms-ucsb/.

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Something to Worry About

Inside Higher Ed today carries a story about a university that wanted to find out whether students taking online tests could cheat despite the services of companies that are supposed to prevent such cheating. Basically, these companies take control of the student's camera and look for any signs that the student is looking away from the screen or that there is someone in the room assisting.

But there are also companies that, for a fee, say they can take the test for a student and defeat the anti-cheating protections. They do so by taking control of the computer the student is using. The cheating student just has to stare at the screen and seem to be taking the test. And their methodology apparently works! 

But there is a catch - for the cheater. The cheating company in taking over the computer acquires access to anything that is on it, things like bank records, etc. And it is in a position to blackmail the cheater since it has proof of cheating which it could reveal to the university (or anyone else).

All of this was revealed when a university hired someone to see if cheating online was possible. Indeed, it was possible and all the other bad things were also found to be possible. You can read about it at:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/students/academics/2024/03/28/sting-operation-fools-proctoring-service-blackmail-attempted.

The FAFSA Drama Continues - Part 7 (more delay)

There seems to be no end to the FAFSA fiasco. From Inside Higher Ed: The Education Department announced Monday that students will not be able to make corrections or adjustments to their student aid until “the first half of April”—potentially weeks later than had been predicted at the beginning of the month. 

The department also said it would only start reprocessing the 200,000 forms affected by last week’s calculation error after the forms had been opened for student corrections, meaning most colleges won’t be able to send out complete and accurate financial aid offers until May. While many institutions have pushed back commitment deadlines to May 15 or June 1 due to the FAFSA delays, May 1 remains the standard decision deadline for the majority of colleges.

The department also gave an update on FAFSA processing and Institutional Student Information Record (ISIR) delivery, the latter of which began two weeks ago but was bogged down by software issues. As of March 25, the department said it had processed 4.3 million forms—up from 1.5 million last Friday—and delivered ISIRs to “the majority of schools, states, and designated scholarship organizations.” Officials say they’re on track to complete both processing and transmission by the end of the month.

Source: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2024/03/26/students-cant-make-fafsa-corrections-until-april.

No word so far that anyone in charge is being held accountable.

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

The Trust Building Downtown

From UrbanizeLA: Nine months acquiring the historic Trust Building in Downtown Los Angeles to use as a satellite campus, UCLA is shedding light on what's coming to 433 S. Spring Street.

The 11-story building, which was the recently the subject of a head-to-toe restoration by Rising Realty Partners., was completed in 1928 as corporate offices, and features approximately 334,000 square feet of interior space. The initial 31 occupants of the property range from programs addressing climate change to those touching on employment, housing, immigration, public health, and criminal justice reform. Sorted by category, they include:

===

Academic

Center for Justice and UCLA Prison Education Program

Center X Community Learning Hub

Division of Continuing Education and UCLA Extension

Global Los Angeles Commons

Humanities DTLA: From Word to Action

Labor Studies at UCLA Downtown

Latino Policy & Politics Institute Voting Rights Project

UCLA Law Centers and Institutes Downtown Engagement Space

===

Arts

Department of Theater Faculty Collaborative Research Studios

DTLA Community Media Lab

Extended Reality and Artificial Intelligence Research Studio

UCLA ARTS DTLA

World Arts & Cultures / Dance Downtown Arts Center

===

Community Outreach

Advancing Climate Action, Environmental Justice and Community Engagement

Advancing Worker Justice in Los Angeles

Making History in Los Angeles

The People’s Library

UCLA Community Youth Programs

UCLA Government and Community Relations Satellite Office

UCLA School of Law Clinical Programs Downtown Hub

UCLA Skid Row Partnership

Center for Community College Partnerships

===

Research

California Policy Lab at UCLA

Community Engaged Research, Innovation, and Social Transformation Lab

Center for Research on the Acquisition of Languages of Los Angeles

Downtown Luskin

Los Angeles Education Research Institute

Research Justice Hub

Sustainable LA Grand Challenge

UCLA Center for LGBTQ+ Advocacy, Research & Health

UCLA Pritzker Center DTLA Community Catalyst

===

“We are thrilled that this initial cohort of programs will engage members of the local community, position UCLA as a trusted leader and collaborator in our global city, and have a positive impact that will be felt in downtown and far beyond,” said Chancellor Gene Block and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Darnell Hunt in a written message to the UCLA campus.

The Trust Building is one of two major acquisitions made by UCLA in the 2023 calendar year. In December, the university capped off the year by closing on the shuttered Westside Pavilion mall, which will be converted into a cavernous research park housing the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy at UCLA, the UCLA Center for Quantum Science and Engineering, and other programs. 

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Watch the March 21, 2024 Regents Meetings

The session opened with the full board hearing public comments. Topics covered were antisemitism, opposition to the Hawaiian telescope (TMT), decarbonization (anti-fossil fuels), staffing problems, staff pay, item J1 (departmental political statements - deferred to May meetings), substance abuse services, sexual abuse services, undocumented students, climate change, and FAFSA deadlines. A talk by an undergraduate student leader also picked up on FAFSA problems and substance abuse. Regent Makarechian, who had been attending meetings on Zoom after a major accident appeared in person. A graduate student leader spoke about professional tuition supplements and protested against unpaid internships required in some professional programs. There was then a presentation on CRISPR technology by Prof. Jennifer Doudna. A brief disturbance occurred during her remarks but the meeting continued.

The second part of the full board meeting featured a presentation on UC basic needs programs. A disturbance occurred but the session continued after a warning. A presentation on UC sustainability policies followed. 

The Investments Committee featured a presentation by students in the "Investment Academy" sponsored by the Investments team. Some kind of unheard disruption occurred but, after warning, the presentation continued. There was then some discussion of a UC program to invest in its own medical IT - a kind of internal venture capital program modeled after a program at CalTech. A disturbance at that point led to the room being cleared. After the meeting resumed, CIO Bachhar cited AI, climate change, demographics, and "deglobalization" as factors affecting the investment outlook along with the two current wars. Regent Makarechian indicated that the Investments Committee should focus less on past and current events and performance and more on how future events would affect the long term outlook. He wondered if the expectation for the pension of a return of 6.25%/annum was realistic. Should it be raised or lowered?

As always, we preserve recordings of Regents meetings since the Regents have no fixed policy on retention.

The general link for the March 21 meeting is at:

https://archive.org/details/regents-board-part-1-3-21-2024.

Part 1 of the full board is at:

https://ia800205.us.archive.org/9/items/regents-board-part-1-3-21-2024/Regents-Board%20Part%201%203-21-2024.mp4.

Part 2 of the full board is at:

https://ia800205.us.archive.org/9/items/regents-board-part-1-3-21-2024/Regents-Board%20part%202%203-21-2024.mp4.

The Investments Committee is at:

https://ia800205.us.archive.org/9/items/regents-board-part-1-3-21-2024/Regents-Investments%20Committee%203-21-2024.mp4.

Monday, March 25, 2024

The FAFSA Drama Continues - Part 6 (inaccuracy)

From the Chronicle of Higher Education: A technical problem with the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, has resulted in inaccurate estimates of some applicants’ aid eligibility, the U.S. Department of Education announced on Friday. The latest snag in a series of complications with the new form will require the department to reprocess and resend a few hundred thousand aid applications to colleges this spring, probably delaying when those students will receive financial-aid offers.

The problem, which the department said had been fixed, affected applications from dependent students who reported assets on their FAFSA, according to the announcement. Previously, the FAFSA-processing system was not including all the data fields required to correctly calculate the Student Aid Index, a number that colleges use to determine how much federal aid an applicant should receive. The department said that the problem, which affected student-aid records delivered before March 21, resulted in an inaccurate total of what a student can contribute — and thus an “SAI that was lower than expected.”

That’s important because the lower students’ SAIs are, the greater their financial need. And the greater their need is, the more federal aid — grants, loans, work-study — they’re eligible for...

Justin Draeger, president and chief executive of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, described the miscalculation as “another unforced error” that would probably prolong some students’ wait for aid offers...

Full story at https://www.chronicle.com/article/miscalculation-in-fafsa-formula-is-another-unforced-error.