Winning admission into the University of California’s most competitive majors — including computer science, engineering and business — is about as likely as hitting a home run your first time at bat. Yet even those subjects are not the hardest to get into. That honor belongs to nursing, for which you might have to hit two home runs. In a row.
Just 1% of the nearly 6,000 yearly applicants to UC’s undergraduate nursing programs, at UCLA and UC Irvine, are permitted to walk through the door...
By 2030, with every baby boomer locked into old age, the need for nurses will only skyrocket, he said. So what’s stopping California’s universities from welcoming every applicant? At UC Irvine and UCLA — which together admitted 118 nursing students out of 11,776 who applied in 2023, the most recent data available — the answer is money.
UC Irvine’s engineering school, for example, spends less than $10,000 a year to educate each student. The nursing school spends at least twice that amount... A lecture hall packed with engineering students needs but one professor. But in nursing, where the stakes are about patient survival, every group of 10 students needs a single, attentive instructor. Also expensive: computerized mannequins, which reside in hospital simulation rooms and suffer sudden heart attacks and massive strokes. These cost a couple hundred thousand dollars each...
You may have seen the lead article in the print edition of the LA Times' California section dealing with an individual who has threatened a mass shooting at UC-Irvine. The article suggests that there is a deficiency in available remedies in such situations. The UC Regents are meeting next week and will meet again in September.
The governor, an ex officio regent, is interested in gun control legislation in response to a recent US Supreme Court ruling. Other ex officio regents include the lieutenant governor (technically the presiding officer of the state senate), the speaker of the assembly, and the superintendent of public instruction. All of these officials have an interest in gun control, particularly on university campuses. It may be that additional legislative remedies are needed in cases such as the one described below:
He’s behind bars again — for now: Prosecutors believe former student still plans to commit mass shooting at UC Irvine.
By Hannah Fry, LA Times, 7-15-22
Sebastian Dumbrava seemed like an ordinary UC Irvine student, studying computer science and applying for summer internships. Then his life unraveled, beginning with several Reddit posts that led campus police to place him on a psychiatric hold, even though he denied writing them. He sued the University of California Board of Regents, angry that his prospects of working for the federal government had probably evaporated. He tweeted about suicide and about “serious consequences.” He shared a quote about “blood on your hands” from the gunman who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech in 2007.
In January 2020, Dumbrava was arrested after police found a trove of ammunition, large-capacity magazines and the parts to build an AR-15 in his bedroom. Orange County prosecutors believe he intended to shoot up the UC Irvine campus. Because he had not committed violence or explicitly threatened it, Dumbrava was convicted only of having the ammunition and unlawfully possessing a gun. He was released from prison after seven months. The judge in the case expressed deep misgivings that Dumbrava was not getting the mental health help he needed and was still a danger to others.
Days after his release, Dumbrava emailed a University of California official and an attorney, demanding $50,000. Now he is behind bars again, facing new charges. Prosecutors think he still intends to commit a mass shooting at his alma mater. The new charges — encompassing the emailed monetary demand, which prosecutors characterize as attempted extortion, as well as a revival of previous charges for possessing large capacity magazines — carry a maximum sentence of four years and four months. Dumbrava’s case highlights the challenges of preventing a mass shooting — even after a potential shooter has come to law enforcement’s attention...
In one of Dumbrava’s last tweets before his latest arrest, he hinted that mass murder was on his mind. A few years ago, he noted, he had vacillated about his plans, concluding that it would not “feel good to kill students at UC Irvine.” Now, he wrote, “things are very different.”
Blog readers from UCLA will recall a suspension of classes on campus when a related situation developed - although it turned out in that case that the individual was out of state at the time:
The Regents meeting this morning dealt with budgetary issues.There were reports by three chancellors (from Santa Cruz, Irvine, and Berkeley) on the impact of the budget squeeze on their campuses.The Regents had various reactions to the situation.Plans were offered by Peter Taylor to generate more cash through portfolio management.He argued that even though somewhat more risk was entailed, the proposals were sufficiently conservative to insulate UC from a crisis.
There was discussion of a new plan under which UCOP would pass state funding down to the campus level so that campuses would operate more autonomously.The campuses would then pay a tax to support UCOP.It was said by President Yudof that quasi-mandates by the legislature could no longer be honored automatically, given the fund cutbacks from the state.Students urged the Regents to support the governor’s proposed tax extensions, assuming these make it to the ballot.There was also a brief reference to the anti-Asian YouTube issue at UCLA.(See the earlier post.)
The videos (actually audios with a still picture) below cover the morning session on the budget in nine parts. There was a continuation in the afternoon. Other obligations prevented yours truly from recording that session. I again raise the question of why the audio of Regents meetings is only streamed live and not archived online for future use.
