Slipping

Story from EdSource: https://edsource.org/2026/uc-freshmen-math-failure-doubled/767983.
 

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.)

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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.

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/. 

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:

Flock

From the Daily Californian: Resistance to UC Berkeley’s employment of controversial surveillance technology company Flock Security is intensifying as campus faces growing criticism and a lawsuit over records related to its data-sharing practices. The UC Board of Regents is facing a lawsuit over UC Berkeley’s alleged failure to disclose certain public records relating to UCPD’s automated license plate reader system. At the same time, student organizers have begun calling for campus to DeFlock, or end its contract with Flock. The petition was filed Friday, Aug. 28 in the Superior Court of Alameda County by Daniel Negrete, director of The Ellis Collective, a student-led research group under the Students’ Civil Liberties Union...

Campus spokesperson Dan Mogulof said UC Berkeley had received the suit. He said in an email that campus does not generally comment on litigation but that “the records have been released.” ... Mogulof told The Daily Californian in May that UC Berkeley does not permit sharing of ALPR data for immigration enforcement purposes and that it does not share data with federal agencies. According to Mogulof, campus’s Flock system has been used in more than 100 investigations to generate leads, identify suspects and make arrests. He also noted that Flock cameras have been “instrumental” in closing several “significant” felony investigations.

According to Negrete, a separate lawsuit he filed over UC Riverside’s alleged failure to furnish similar public records remains ongoing...

Full story at https://www.dailycal.org/news/campus/uc-berkeley-faces-lawsuit-over-flock-records-as-surveillance-controversy-grows/article_086da292-7cee-43c3-b12e-50f556c6d21b.html.

Getting In - Part 5

Professor Emeritus Dan Hare of UC-Riverside sent me a link to a San Francisco Chronicle article on the use of AI in college admissions essays:

...My students had already been using ChatGPT for months for their homework and personal advice. When application season began, the bot remembered these details. It knew their preferences and interests through the Memory feature and could tailor their essays accordingly. That wasn’t enough, though. Students first brainstormed essay topics and writing outlines without AI assistance. They then gave that information to ChatGPT along with past self-written essays. It began mirroring their voice. 

In a 2025 study, Cornell University researchers concluded that large-language model-generated college essays were generic compared to human-written ones, but they didn’t use elaborate prompting or engage with the models beforehand. That’s not the way people are using ChatGPT now. The college essay isn’t a novel or a blank canvas. It’s less ambiguous. It serves a purpose: to show who you are outside of grades and test scores. With a defined purpose, training and prompting, models can now write compelling essays for students to pick from and refine. 

Throughout the application cycle, I worried that my students would get caught using these tools. When submitting applications on the Common App, students sign a statement certifying that all the work is their own. But a policy is only as strong as its enforcement, which so far seems nearly impossible. The Common App and most universities likely don’t use AI detection tools because they’re unreliable. Despite warnings that admissions officers are trained to spot AI indicators, recent studies show that most people mistake AI-generated text for human writing. In fact, one study fine-tuned ChatGPT on award-winning authors’ works and found that readers favored AI-generated text over human writing for stylistic fidelity and quality. This suggests that students may actually gain an advantage by using these tools on their college essays...

Full story at https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/ai-college-admission-essay-application-22156396.php.

Bottom line: AI written essays are now not being written "cold." Instead, the models learn the style of the purported student author and "improve" it. So trying to detect them is very difficult, if not impossible.

====

Meanwhile, there seems to be an endless supply of former admissions officer who will tell you how to get in. (There are so many former admissions officers. Are there any left who are still employed to staff the admissions offices?)

Fast Movers

The San Francisco Chronicle notes there is a small but rising group of undergrads who finish in three years:

"Of the 31,550 students who began studying at a UC campus in 2005, fewer than 1,000 of them, 3%, went on to earn a diploma in three years. By 2021, more than 3,300 students — 6.4% of the 51,934 students who entered UC that year — had their a degree by 2024, just three years after landing on campus."

Full story at https://www.sfchronicle.com/college-admissions/article/uc-three-year-graduation-21251145.php.

UCLA ahead in the Wikipedia editing sweepstakes

The Daily Cal calculated the total number of Wikipedia edits - additions and deletions - by campus IP addresses across the UC system. It turns out that since its inception to late 2025, UCLA addresses made over 54,000 edits.

It's not clear whether that's a Good Thing, a Bad Thing, or just a Thing. Below is a chart from the article which can be found at https://data.dailycal.org/2025-12-24-wikiedits. 

Graduate Degrees After Undergraduate

The San Francisco Chronicle provides a listing of the percent of undergrads who go on to get graduate degrees from the various UC campuses. (UC-San Francisco is excluded because it has no undergraduate program.) The chart below highlights Berkeley, but all the other undergraduate campuses are shown:

Source: https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2025/uc-graduate-degrees/.

Watch the Regents Afternoon Meeting of Sept. 17, 2025

We continue our coverage of the most recent Regents meetings with the afternoon of Sept. 17th. As blog readers will know, the Sept. 16-17 meetings were unusually truncated since there was no third day. This shortening meant that there were periodic references to things that would be more fully dealt with at the November meetings.

At Finance and Capital Strategies, the consent items approved included an upgrade to a power system for UCLA health. There was discussion of the state budget outlook. It was noted that the so-called "compact" expires at the end of the coming year. Of course, it is unclear that one can say the compact was actually honored, particularly by the governor. As for the feds and the conflict there, UC gets about $17 billion in federal revenue from all sources (and UCLA gets $2.8 billion). Enrollment is running ahead of what the compact required although the extra students are not funded. Capital spending is not getting supported by the state.

The tuition cohort plan is up for renewal in some form, although that was put off for decision in November. The proposal for its replacement on the table retains the 5% per annum cap, reduces the proportion of tuition that is recycled into student aid, contains an alternative to the Consumer Price Index as an escalator with a price index for higher ed plus 1%, with the 1% to go to capital spending and other purposes. One might have expected some pushback to be expressed to the plan but there was little discussion.

At Academic and Student Affairs, Regent Leib started with an explanation of what happened to the $7 million that former President Drake had allocated after the disturbances began post-Oct. 7, 2023. Drake seemed to want the money to support some kinds of educational programming related to the history of the Middle East conflict, more or less similar to what occurred at some other universities, notably Dartmouth. According to Leib, however, $5.3 million was spent on training in cooperation with Hillel, mental health, and a "climate" survey. The rest apparently has not been spent. More detail will be made public in November.

There was then discussion of programs of career paths for students in coordination with employers. They involve occupational certificates and internships. San Diego and Santa Barbara have pilot programs looking specifically at the implications of AI. There was also discussion of teacher preparation in K-12 at Riverside and Merced.

The full Board heard discussion of AI and UC partnerships with major corporations in the field. President Milliken said there would be more information in November. But there was talk about infrastructure needs, cybersecurity, training for UC employees at all levels.

The Compliance and Audit Committee approved police purchase equipment defined as military. Finally, the Governance Committee took some executive pay actions and the full Board approved the various committee reports.

===

As always, we preserve recordings of Regents meetings since the Regents have no policy on duration of retention. The links are below:

Finance and Capital Strategy: https://archive.org/download/2-board-8-30-am-9-17-2025/3-Finance%20and%20Capital%20Strategies%20Committee%209-17-2025.mp4

Academic and Student Affairs: https://archive.org/download/2-board-8-30-am-9-17-2025/4-Academic%20and%20Student%20Affairs%20Committee%209-17-2025.mp4

Board and Compliance and Audit: https://archive.org/download/2-board-8-30-am-9-17-2025/5-Board%201_30%20PM%2C%20Compliance%20and%20Audit%209-17-2025.mp4

Governance and Board: https://archive.org/download/2-board-8-30-am-9-17-2025/6-Governance%20Committee%2C%20Board%209-17-2025.mp4

General webpage for Sept. 17: https://archive.org/details/2-board-8-30-am-9-17-2025

As already noted

Blog readers will have noted yesterday our view that UCLA reaching a Columbia-type monetary settlement with the feds is hard to imagine.* Others agree. From the LA Times:

Mark Yudof, a former UC president who led the system from 2008 to 2013, said he felt the Trump administration was targeting a public university as a way to “make a statement” about the president’s higher education aims going beyond Ivy League institutions. “But this is not Columbia,” Yudof said, referring to the $221-million settlement the New York campus recently reached with the White House to resolve investigations over alleged antisemitism amid its response to pro-Palestinian protests...

“The University of California is much more complex,” said Yudof... “For one, an issue that may affect UCLA is not going to affect UC Merced or UC Riverside. But do you come to an agreement on all campuses? If there is a settlement payment, does it affect all campuses, depending on the cost?” 

George Blumenthal, a former chancellor of UC Santa Cruz, said he “just can’t see UC making the kind of deal that Columbia did or that Harvard contemplates. Committing public funds to Washington to the tune of tens or hundreds of million dollars strikes me as politically untenable in California.” ...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-08-02/ucla-doj-trump-settlement-or-lawsuit.

===

*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2025/08/no-relief-from-this-court-what-are.html.

Watch the May 28, 2025 Special Meeting of the Regents (Appointment of Riverside Chancellor)

The UC Regents met on May 28, 2025 in a special meeting to name a new student Regent (not yet announced) and to name the new UC-Riverside chancellor, Dr. Jack S. Hu, about whom we previously posted.*

Although time was allotted for public comments, there were no sign-ups.

In the open portion of the meeting, the new chancellor was announced and introduced. He made brief remarks and the session was adjourned.

During the closed portion, litigation was discussed. Although no particular case is recorded in the agenda, it is likely there was discussion of litigation related to the current conflict between UC and the Trump administration.

Below is the full agenda and a link to the recording.

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

Special Meeting: May 28, 2025

Meeting of the Special Committee on the Selection of a Student Regent in Closed Session at UC Center Sacramento, 1115 11th Street, Sacramento, 11:30 a.m.

==

Board Meeting: Agenda

Date: May 28, 2025

Time: 3:45 p.m.

Location: UC Center Sacramento, 1115 11th Street, Sacramento, and teleconference locations

Agenda – Closed Session

B1(X) Discussion: Appointment of and Compensation for Chancellor, Riverside Campus

B2(X) Discussion: Update on Chancellor Search, Santa Barbara Campus

B3(X) Discussion: Trial Court Developments and Updates

--

Agenda - Open Session

Public Comments (none were received)

B1 Action: Approval of Appointment of and Compensation for Chancellor, Riverside Campus as Discussed in Closed Session [Dr. S. Jack Hu]

Source: https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/may25/spclmay28.pdf; https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/meetings/agendas/may282025.html.

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

As always, we preserve recordings of Regents meetings indefinitely because the Regents have no policy on duration of retention. You can see the open portion of the May 28th special meeting at:

https://archive.org/details/board_202506.

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

*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2025/05/new-uc-riverside-chancellor.html.

The Numbers

Note: UC-Merced is listed separately at $28.6 million.

Source - EdSource: https://edsource.org/2025/california-research-grants-federal-funding-trump-administration/733468.
 

New UC-Riverside Chancellor

University of California President Michael V. Drake, M.D., announced... the selection of Dr. S. Jack Hu, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost at the University of Georgia, as UC Riverside’s next chancellor. The UC Board of Regents approved the appointment during a special meeting held at the UC Student & Policy Center in Sacramento.

In Dr. Hu, UC Riverside welcomes a leader with nearly 40 years of experience in higher education. He joined the University of Georgia as provost in 2019, following an illustrious tenure at the University of Michigan, where he began his academic journey as a graduate student in 1985, ultimately rising to serve as the university’s vice president for research. Dr. Hu will begin serving as UC Riverside’s chancellor on July 15.

“Over his distinguished career at leading public research institutions, Dr. Hu has championed innovation and academic initiatives that have increased opportunities for students and faculty and have positively impacted their lives and the communities they serve,” said President Drake. “UC Riverside has established itself as a global leader in providing world-class scholarship. Dr. Hu has the academic acumen and collaborative mindset to move the campus forward with integrity and purpose.”

Dr. Hu has served as the University of Georgia’s senior vice president for academic affairs and provost since July 2019. In this role, he leads the academic enterprise by overseeing instruction, research, public service and outreach, information technology, and the 19 schools and colleges at the university. Since Dr. Hu began serving as provost, the University of Georgia has invested in multiple rounds of interdisciplinary faculty hires and increased its research and development expenditures year-over-year, exceeding $620 million in 2024. This significant investment in research has helped the University of Georgia maintain its status as a top U.S. university for research-to-market products every year over the previous decade, ranking first in 2024. Dr. Hu also serves as a UGA Foundation Distinguished Professor at the College of Engineering. 

“I am honored to join this outstanding University whose mission is to transform lives through discovery, dissemination and application of knowledge,” said Chancellor-designate Hu. “As a nationally recognized institution for academic excellence and social mobility and an engine for innovation and economic opportunity in the state, nation, and world, UC Riverside has immense potential ahead that I believe will put the campus at the forefront of shaping the future of higher education. Leading the campus into its next chapter of preeminence and realizing its ambitions is an exciting opportunity for which I am deeply grateful.”

As vice president for research at the University of Michigan, Dr. Hu oversaw a $1.5 billion research enterprise across the university’s campuses in Ann Arbor, Dearborn, and Flint. In 2015, the university launched “MCity” as a public-private partnership to support innovation and testing of connected and automated vehicles. He also led the development of several international initiatives to support education and research. At the University of Georgia, Dr. Hu made strategic investments in electric mobility-related research projects a priority, working with several automobile companies with manufacturing facilities in the state and hosting regular summits that convened leaders of government, academia and industry. Faculty hiring initiatives in precision agriculture, Parkinson’s research, data science and artificial intelligence led to research centers and institutes in these areas to support and sustain interdisciplinary collaborations. In addition, Dr. Hu created the Humanities Council to support faculty research, scholarship and collaboration. The provost office also sponsors the annual Spotlight on the Arts festival in partnership with the UGA Arts Council as an annual celebration of the literary, visual and performing arts.

“On behalf of the UC Board of Regents, we are proud to welcome Dr. Hu as UC Riverside’s next chancellor,” said Janet Reilly, UC Board of Regents Chair and member of the search advisory committee. “Dr. Hu’s reputation as a results-oriented team player makes him the ideal partner to bolster UC Riverside’s impact on students and the region through robust research, economic development, and community engagement.”

Dr. Hu has dedicated his career to strengthening undergraduate and graduate education and promoting student success. While at the University of Georgia, he worked to expand experiential and engaged learning opportunities through research, internships and study abroad. Notably, his tenure concludes with the University of Georgia being one of only nine public universities in the U.S. with a six-year graduation rate of at least 90 percent. Graduate enrollment has also increased by more than 20 percent since 2019.

An area of focus for Dr. Hu has been increasing collaboration between the University of Georgia and rural communities in the state. Dr. Hu helped create the Rural Engagement Workshop for Academic Faculty as a means of expanding faculty understanding of rural needs to better develop research-focused partnerships. Since the program launched in 2021, workshop alumni have secured nearly $12.5 million in funding as a direct result of the projects they started in the program. The program also won the National Award of Excellence in the Innovation category from the University Economic Development Association.

“In Provost Hu we have found an energetic leader with an unwavering commitment to academic excellence, student achievement, and community engagement,” said Steven W. Cheung, M.D., chair of the Faculty Academic Senate. “His extensive experience supporting the interests of students and faculty for the betterment of universities and communities across the country gives me great confidence that he will advance UC Riverside to its next great chapter of impact and growth.”

Dr. Hu is renowned for his engineering research, with much of his work focused on the quality and productivity of manufacturing systems. As a researcher, he has secured $46 million in external funding from federal agencies and industry to support research conducted by students, faculty and staff in his laboratory. In 2011, he joined then-President Barack Obama’s Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, a national initiative by the president to unite industry, universities and the federal government to strengthen American manufacturing. Dr. Hu is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and an elected fellow of four professional societies. He is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the William T. Ennor Manufacturing Technology Award and the DeVor/Kapoor Manufacturing Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Gold Medal from Society of Manufacturing Engineers, and several best paper awards.

Dr. Hu will become UC Riverside’s 10th chancellor, following the retirement of Chancellor Kim A. Wilcox. Appointed in 2013, Chancellor Wilcox has overseen tremendous growth at UC Riverside. Under his leadership the campus has added schools of medicine and public policy, increased overall enrollment more than 25 percent, and raised the campus’s four-year graduation rate by 18 percent. In 2023, UC Riverside was invited to join the Association of American Universities (AAU), a 10-year goal of Chancellor Wilcox, establishing the school as one of America’s leading research universities. Chancellor Wilcox will remain in his role as chancellor through July 14 to ensure a smooth leadership transition.

“I’m overjoyed that the selection committee has chosen Dr. Hu, one of our nation’s foremost academic researchers and leaders, to take the helm at UC Riverside,” said Chancellor Wilcox. “Dr. Hu has proven himself to be a thoughtful and collaborative leader who cares deeply about the faculty and students he leads and the communities he serves. With decades of academic leadership, his ability to translate vision into action positions the University for a promising future.”

Born in Hunan Province, China, Dr. Hu earned his bachelor’s degree from Tianjin University. Following his undergraduate studies, he moved to Michigan, where he earned both master’s and doctoral degrees in mechanical engineering.

Off campus, Dr. Hu’s interests include Chinese literature and Chinese calligraphy, which he practiced regularly during winters in Ann Arbor. His wife, Jun Du, is a pianist with a degree from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music.

The UC Board of Regents approved Dr. Hu’s annual salary at $824,000.

===

Full news release at https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/press-room/university-california-president-michael-v-drake-md-names-new-uc-riverside-chancellor.

Missing Persons?

The statement below was released this past week by the American Association of Colleges and Universities. Lots of signatories from university and college leaders, but none from UC with the exception of Chancellor Kim Wilcox of UC-Riverside were on the original. UCLA Chancellor Frenk added his name subsequently as did the chancellors of Merced, Berkeley, Santa Cruz, and San Diego. Still later, UC President Drake and the remaining chancellors signed on.

A Call for Constructive Engagement

As leaders of America’s colleges, universities, and scholarly societies, we speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education. We are open to constructive reform and do not oppose legitimate government oversight. However, we must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses. We will always seek effective and fair financial practices, but we must reject the coercive use of public research funding.

America’s system of higher learning is as varied as the goals and dreams of the students it serves. It includes research universities and community colleges; comprehensive universities and liberal arts colleges; public institutions and private ones; freestanding and multi-site campuses. Some institutions are designed for all students, and others are dedicated to serving particular groups. Yet, American institutions of higher learning have in common the essential freedom to determine, on academic grounds, whom to admit and what is taught, how, and by whom. Our colleges and universities share a commitment to serve as centers of open inquiry where, in their pursuit of truth, faculty, students, and staff are free to exchange ideas and opinions across a full range of viewpoints without fear of retribution, censorship, or deportation.

Because of these freedoms, American institutions of higher learning are essential to American prosperity and serve as productive partners with government in promoting the common good. Colleges and universities are engines of opportunity and mobility, anchor institutions that contribute to economic and cultural vitality regionally and in our local communities. They foster creativity and innovation, provide human resources to meet the fast-changing demands of our dynamic workforce, and are themselves major employers. They nurture the scholarly pursuits that ensure America’s leadership in research, and many provide healthcare and other essential services. Most fundamentally, America’s colleges and universities prepare an educated citizenry to sustain our democracy.

The price of abridging the defining freedoms of American higher education will be paid by our students and our society. On behalf of our current and future students, and all who work at and benefit from our institutions, we call for constructive engagement that improves our institutions and serves our republic.

Signed, [original signatures only]

Jonathan Alger, President, American University

Barbara K. Altmann, President, Franklin & Marshall College

Suzanne Ames, President, Peninsula College

Carmen Twillie Ambar, President, Oberlin College

Denise A. Battles, President, SUNY Geneseo

Ian Baucom, Incoming President, Middlebury College

Allan Belton, President, Pacific Lutheran University

Hubert Benitez, President, Saint Peter's University

Joanne Berger-Sweeney, President, Trinity College (CT)

Michael A. Bernstein, President, The College of New Jersey

Audrey Bilger, President, Reed College

Erik J. Bitterbaum, President, SUNY Cortland

Sarah Bolton, President, Whitman College

Mary H. Bonderoff, President, SUNY Delhi

Eric Boynton, President, Beloit College

Elizabeth H. Bradley, President, Vassar College

Brian Bruess, President, College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University

Adam Bush, President, College Unbound

Alison Byerly, President, Carleton College

Wendy Cadge, President and Professor of Sociology, Bryn Mawr College

Nancy Cantor, President, Hunter College CUNY

Alberto Jose Cardelle, President, SUNY Oneonta

Brian W. Casey, President, Colgate University

Ana Mari Cauce, Professor and President, University of Washington

Andrea Chapdelaine, President, Connecticut College

Thom D. Chesney, President, Southwestern College (NM)

Bryan F. Coker, President, Maryville College

Ronald B. Cole, President, Allegheny College

Soraya Coley, President, Cal Poly Pomona

Jennifer Collins, President, Rhodes College

John Comerford, President, Otterbein University

Marc C. Conner, President, Skidmore College

Joy Connolly, President, American Council of Learned Societies

La Jerne Terry Cornish, President, Ithaca College

Grant Cornwell, President, Rollins College

Isiaah Crawford, President, University of Puget Sound

Gregory G. Dell'Omo, President, Rider University

Kent Devereaux, President, Goucher College

Jim Dlugos, Interim President, Landmark College

Bethami Dobkin, President, Westminster University

Harry Dumay, President, Elms College

Christopher L. Eisgruber, President, Princeton University

Michael A. Elliott, President, Amherst College

Alexander Enyedi, President, SUNY Plattsburgh

Jane Fernandes, President, Antioch College

Roland Fernandes, General Secretary, General Board of Higher Education and Ministry

Damian J. Fernandez, President, Warren Wilson College

David Fithian, President, Clark University

Lisa C. Freeman, President, Northern Illinois University

Robert Gaines, Acting President, Pomona College

James Gandre, President, Manhattan School of Music

Alan M. Garber, President, Harvard University

Jay D. Gatrell, President, Eastern Illinois University

Michael H. Gavin, President, Delta College

Mark D. Gearan, President, Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Melissa Gilliam, President, Boston University

Lane A. Glenn, President, Northern Essex Community College

Jorge G. Gonzalez, President, Kalamazoo College

Jonathan D. Green, President, Susquehanna University

David A. Greene, President, Colby College

William R. Groves, Chancellor, Antioch University

Jeremy Haefner, Chancellor, University of Denver

Yoshiko Harden, President, Renton Technical College

Anne F. Harris, President, Grinnell College

James T. Harris, President, University of San Diego

Marjorie Hass, President, Council of Independent Colleges

Richard J. Helldobler, President, William Paterson University

Wendy Hensel, President, University of Hawaii

James Herbert, President, University of New England

Doug Hicks, President, Davidson College

Mary Dana Hinton, President, Hollins University

Danielle R. Holley, President, Mount Holyoke College

Jonathan Holloway, President, Rutgers University

Robin Holmes-Sullivan, President, Lewis & Clark College

Robert H. Huntington, President, Heidelberg University

Nicole Hurd, President, Lafayette College

Wolde-Ab Isaac, Chancellor, Riverside Community College District

Karim Ismaili, President, Eastern Connecticut State University

J. Larry Jameson, President, University of Pennsylvania

Garry W. Jenkins, President, Bates College

Paula A. Johnson, President, Wellesley College

John E. Jones III, President, Dickinson College

Katrina Bell Jordan, President, Northeastern Illinois University

Cristle Collins Judd, President, Sarah Lawrence College

David L. Kaufman, President, Capital University

Colleen Perry Keith, President, Goldey-Beacom College

Marisa Kelly, President, Suffolk University

Julie Johnson Kidd, President, Endeavor Foundation

Jonathan Koppell, President, Montclair State University

Sally Kornbluth, President, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Julie Kornfeld, President, Kenyon College

Michael I. Kotlikoff, President, Cornell University

Paula Krebs, Executive Director, Modern Language Association

Sunil Kumar, President, Tufts University

Bobbie Laur, President, Campus Compact

Frederick M. Lawrence, Secretary and CEO, Phi Beta Kappa Society

Linda M. LeMura, President, Le Moyne College

Hilary L. Link, President, Drew University

Patricia A. Lynott, President, Rockford University

Heidi Macpherson, President, SUNY Brockport

John Maduko, President, Connecticut State Community College

Lynn Mahoney, President, San Francisco State University

Daniel Mahony, President, Southern Illinois University

Maud S. Mandel, President, Williams College

Christine Mangino, President, Queensborough Community College

Amy Marcus-Newhall, President, Scripps College

Felix V. Matos-Rodriguez, Chancellor, City University of New York (CUNY)

Anne E. McCall, President, The College of Wooster

Richard L. McCormick, Interim President, Stony Brook University

Michael McDonald, President, Great Lakes Colleges Association

James McGrath, President and Dean, Cooley Law School

Patricia McGuire, President, Trinity Washington University

Maurie McInnis, President, Yale University

Elizabeth M. Meade, President, Cedar Crest College

Scott D. Miller, President, Virginia Wesleyan University

Jennifer Mnookin, Chancellor, University of Wisconsin–Madison

Robert Mohrbacher, President, Centralia College

Chris Moody, Executive Director, ACPA-College Student Educators International

Tomas Morales, President, California State University San Bernardino

Milton Moreland, President, Centre College

Kathryn Morris, President, St. Lawrence University

Ross Mugler, Board Chair and Acting President and CEO, Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges

Krista L. Newkirk, President, University of Redlands

Stefanie D. Niles, President, Cottey College

Claire Oliveros, President, Riverside City College

Robyn Parker, Interim President, Saybrook University

Lynn Pasquerella, President, American Association of Colleges and Universities

Laurie L. Patton, President, American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Beth Paul, President, Nazareth University

Christina Paxson, President, Brown University

Rob Pearigen, Vice-Chancellor and President, University of the South

Deidra Peaslee, President, Saint Paul College

Eduardo M. Peñalver, President, Seattle University

Ora Pescovitz, President, Oakland University

Darryll J. Pines, President, University of Maryland

Nicola Pitchford, President, Dominican University of California

Kevin Pollock, President, Central Carolina Technical College

Susan Poser, President, Hofstra University

Paul C. Pribbenow, President, Augsburg University

Vincent Price, President, Duke University

Robert Quinn, Executive Director, Scholars at Risk Network

Wendy E. Raymond, President, Haverford College

Christopher M. Reber, President, Hudson County Community College

Andrew Rehfeld, President, Hebrew Union College

Suzanne M. Rivera, President, Macalester College

Michael S. Roth, President, Wesleyan University

James Ryan, President, University of Virginia

Vincent Rougeau, President, College of the Holy Cross

Kurt L. Schmoke, President, University of Baltimore

Carol Geary Schneider, Acting Executive Director, Civic Learning and Democracy Engagement Coalition

Sean M. Scott, President and Dean, California Western School of Law

Zaldwaynaka Scott, President, Chicago State University

Philip J. Sisson, President, Middlesex Community College (MA)

Suzanne Smith, President, SUNY Potsdam

Valerie Smith, President, Swarthmore College

Paul Sniegowski, President, Earlham College

Barbara R. Snyder, President, Association of American Universities

Stephen Snyder, Interim President, Middlebury College

Rachel Solemsaas, President, North Seattle College

Weymouth Spence, President, Washington Adventist University

Terri Standish-Kuon, President and CEO, Independent Colleges of Washington

G. Gabrielle Starr, President, Pomona College

Karen A. Stout, President, Achieving the Dream

Tom Stritikus, President, Occidental College

Julie Sullivan, President, Santa Clara University

Aondover Tarhule, President, Illinois State University

Glena Temple, President, Dominican University

Steven J. Tepper. President, Hamilton College

Kellye Y. Testy, CEO, Association of American Law Schools

Tania Tetlow, President, Fordham University

Strom C. Thacker, President, Pitzer College

Scott L. Thomas, President, Sterling College

Stephen Thorsett, President, Willamette University

Joel Towers, President, The New School

Deborah Trautman, President and CEO, American Association of Colleges of Nursing

Satish K. Tripathi, President, University at Buffalo, SUNY

James Troha, President, Juniata College

Kyaw Moe Tun, President, Parami University

Brad Tyndall, President, Central Wyoming College

LaTanya Tyson, President, Carolina Christian College

Matthew P. vandenBerg, President, Ohio Wesleyan University

James Vander Hooven, President, Mount Wachusett Community College

Laura R. Walker, President, Bennington College

Yolanda Watson Spiva, President, Complete College America

Phil Weilerstein, President, VentureWell

Michaele Whelan, President, Wheaton College

Manya C. Whitaker, Interim President, Colorado College

Julie A. Manley White, Chancellor and CEO, Pierce College

Kim A. Wilcox, Chancellor, University of California, Riverside

Sarah Willie-LeBreton, President, Smith College

Safa R. Zaki, President, Bowdoin College

==

Source: https://www.aacu.org/newsroom/a-call-for-constructive-engagement.

Low Applications Campuses Grow the Most

The San Francisco Chronicle provided the table above. It shows:

1) UCLA received the most applications of all the undergraduate campuses.

2) The low application campuses (Merced and Riverside) experienced the largest increases in applications, whether gauged from last year or pre-pandemic 2019. (Merced provided free applications to drive up applications this year.)

3) All campuses have significantly increased applications since 2019. But growth over last year at the high-application campuses stalled relative to last year.

Reminder: Applications are not the same as final enrollments. Enrollments are determined by the acceptance rate of the campus and within it, the acceptance rate of applicants.

Source: https://www.sfchronicle.com/college-admissions/article/uc-applications-20238586.php.
 

Lost Funding

The NY Times provides a search option that allows information on how much NIH grant recipients would lose in fiscal year 2024 under a cap of 15% on indirect costs. Yours truly focused on UC in the table below. As can be seen, the total loss for all institutions in California is almost $800 million, about half of which falls on UC:

Loss of NIH funding in fiscal 2024 if indirect costs limited to 15%.

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

University of California, San Francisco   -$121 mil.

University of California, San Diego       -$102 mil.

University of California, Los Angeles      -$65 mil.

University of California, Davis            -$49 mil.

University of California, Irvine           -$41 mil.

University of California, Berkeley         -$25 mil.

University of California, Santa Cruz        -$7 mil.

University of California, Riverside         -$7 mil.

University of California, Santa Barbara     -$3 mil.

UC Lawrence Berkeley Lab                    -$6 mil.

University of California, Merced            -$1 mil.

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

  Total UC                                -$427 mil.

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

Total State of California                 -$796 mil.

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

Note: UC as percent of California               54%

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

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/02/13/upshot/nih-trump-funding-cuts.html.

Something's Happening - Part 2 (Where's UCLA?)

We noted on Monday that an unusual meeting of the systemwide Academic Senate had been called for this coming Friday by petition.* The meeting was called to discuss faculty unhappiness with regard to three issues:

1. The lack of consultation for implementing the Information Security Investment Plan and the potential negative effects of the plan on faculty’s research, teaching, and merits and promotions.
2. UCOP’s differential treatment of faculty and administrators regarding compensation and cost-of-living adjustments.
3. The University of California’s continued decrease in percent contribution to medical plans.

When you look at the petition (attached to the meeting agenda), you find the names and campuses of those who called for the special session.** Represented among the petitioners are Davis, Irvine, Berkeley, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, and Riverside. Merced, Santa Cruz, and UCLA are not represented. So, that does mean that at UCLA in particular, nobody was particularly concerned with at least one of the three issues? Is UCLA somehow out of the loop? Just asking...

It might be noted that yours truly became aware of this matter after being forwarded an announcement from UC-Irvine's Senate, not from the UCLA Senate. 

NOTE: I notified the UCLA Senate about the upcoming systemwide meeting on Jan. 13.

==

*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2025/01/somethings-happening.html.

**https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/assembly/assembly-agenda-special-meeeting-1-17-25.pdf.

Multicampus Research

The University of California Office of the President has awarded $15.5 million in grants to teams of UC researchers on the cutting edge of medicine, artificial intelligence, agriculture and climate justice.

Awarded every two years through a highly competitive process, the Multicampus Research Program Initiative (MRPI) draws on the world-class resources and capabilities of UC’s $7 billion research enterprise, uniting teams of cross-disciplinary experts from at least three UC campuses to pursue ambitious questions with immediate applications.

“The MRPI program funds discoveries that are made possible only by the convergence of disciplines to improve the lives of Californians and draws world-class student, faculty and staff talent to our university and our state,” said UC Vice President of Research and Innovation Theresa Maldonado. “UC programs like this help keep California at the forefront of breakthrough research, technological innovation and equitable opportunities to thrive.”

Since 2009, the university has made 125 MRPI grants totaling $156.6 million and involving 739 UC faculty members. This year, 153 teams applied for grants. These are the 14 winners.

--

Four teams will advance health and medical science, studying autism, active matter, sepsis and maternal health.

Scientists from UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz and UC San Francisco will use cell samples from patients with autism spectrum disorder to grow self-organizing, 3D clumps of neurological tissue in a lab. These “brain organoids” are an efficient, less invasive way to narrow the search for the molecular, cellular, and developmental factors that lead to autism spectrum disorder, an untreatable condition that affects 1 in 22 California kids.

Organoids are one example of active matter, an emerging paradigm at the intersection of physics and biology that studies instances of individual entities organizing themselves into coherent structures. Scientists at UC Merced, UC Santa Barbara and UC San Diego will use MRPI funding to establish the UC Active Matter Hub, seeding global leadership in a field with potential to reshape adaptive technologies and wearable devices.

A team from UC San Diego, UC Irvine and UCLA aim to scale up a proven method for detecting sepsis, an infection so dangerous that it kills 16 percent of people who contract it. UC scientists developed a life-saving algorithm that scans real-time data from electronic health records, assessing over 150 variables to detect early signs of infection so doctors can begin treatment. By rolling out this algorithm to more emergency departments across California, researchers aim to save 8,000 lives annually. 

A lack of maternal health data is making it harder to fight the nation’s escalating rates of illness and death among pregnant and postpartum patients. Experts from UC San Francisco, UC Irvine, UCLA and UC San Diego are joining forces to create a central clinical data repository for every pregnancy and birth across four major hospitals, which they’ll use to study variations in care within the system and the impact on maternal and neonatal health outcomes.

--

Three teams will make advances in agriculture.

Experts from UC’s five Agricultural Experiment Stations will convene to study barriers and opportunities for California farms to adopt practices and principles of agroecology. The team from UC Davis, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, UC Merced, UC Riverside and UC Agriculture and Natural Resources aims to boost the agriculture industry’s climate resilience, biodiversity, equity and economic viability.

Researchers from UC Riverside, UC Davis and UC Santa Barbara will develop and test new ways to decontaminate wastewater, destroying or filtering out toxic “forever” chemicals and disease-causing microbes so the water can be used to irrigate crops. That should ease water scarcity, a major constraint for California farmers that will only get worse as the climate warms.

Scientists at UC San Diego, UC Berkeley and UC Riverside aim to climate-proof agriculture by redesigning dirt. They’ll use the grant to develop 3D-printable hydrogels to use in place of soil in hydroponic or vertical farms. This high-tech dirt substitute will be infused with microbes that will help crops resist stress, grow faster and use less water.

--

Four teams are devising solutions to challenges facing Californians on the front lines of climate change.

Researchers at UC Santa Barbara, UC Davis, UC Irvine and UC San Francisco aim to better understand how hotter and more frequent heat waves are affecting California’s 6 million public school students. Working with students, teachers, administrators and families at nine schools across the state, they’ll gather data on heat stress and pilot school-level changes that communities can use to protect themselves.

UC scholars have long engaged in climate justice partnerships across California. A team from UC Irvine, UC Santa Cruz, UC Santa Barbara and UCLA will analyze existing youth climate engagement programs at each campus and develop common principles to replicate these programs’ impacts in California and around the world.

As record numbers of people seek asylum in the U.S., climate change multiplies the forces that cause people to leave their homes. Immigration scholars from UC San Diego, UC Berkeley, UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara are teaming up with asylum organizations in the U.S. and Mexico to better understand how federal policies and practices affect migrants, particularly kids and families.

Led by UC Santa Cruz, eight campuses aim to use arts and culture to spur climate action. The UC Climate Action Arts Network will build on a previous MRPI grant to fund artists and communities across California to design creative approaches to grappling with the stark realities of climate change and injustice.

--

Four teams are breaking new ground in AI and basic research.

California is America’s most linguistically diverse state: nearly half of us speak a language besides English. And yet language-based artificial intelligence like ChatGPT has overwhelmingly been trained on English — which could become a problem as AI’s influence expands into government, health care and culture. A six-campus team led by UC Santa Cruz will study whether and how prevailing AI technologies leave Californians behind and propose new ways to develop large language models that work equally well, no matter the user’s mother tongue.

Scholars from UC Berkeley, UC San Diego and UC Davis are taking on what they call “one of the grand challenges of algorithms research.” The team aims to speed up one of modern computing’s foundational processes, matrix multiplication. Streamlining matrix multiplication could break through a bottleneck that’s limiting advances in machine learning, data mining, physics simulations, ushering in the next generation of computational discovery.

Physicists use photons, or light particles, to investigate the fundamental laws of nature, gleaning insights on everything from gravitational waves to supernovae. But the photon-emitting X-ray devices used for research are big, expensive, finicky and hard to control. A team from UCLA, UC Irvine and UC San Diego aims to bring emerging quantum X-ray technology from theory to reality. By demonstrating quantum X-ray emission, they’ll open the door to advances in basic sciences and commercial and medical applications.

==

Source: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/uc-awards-155m-research-grants-tackle-big-questions-health-ai-agriculture-and-climate-justice.

Application information for new proposals: https://www.ucop.edu/research-initiatives/programs/mrpi/files/mrpi-rfp.pdf.

It's your move, Chancellor Wilcox

On December 11th, an op ed appeared in the Wall Street Journal titled "UC Riverside’s DEI Guardians Came After Me: The university censured me after I spoke out against race taking over the faculty hiring process."* The author was Professor-Emeritus Perry Link, identified by UC-Riverside as a Chancellorial Chair for Teaching Across Disciplines, Ph.D. in East Asian Languages & Civilizations, Harvard University, 1976.** 

Prof. Link was recently the subject of a lengthy and lauditory article in the UCR Magazine which details his expertise in Chinese affairs and how he has been barred from China for his work on behalf of a Chinese dissident scholar.***

The Wall St. Journal op ed opens with: Kim Wilcox, chancellor at University of California, Riverside, wrote me a letter of censure on Aug. 16. I was, in the administration’s view, guilty of “discrimination” against “individuals seeking employment.” I had made “unwarranted comments” about race. Mr. Wilcox based his claim largely on the following statement, which I had written to colleagues on a faculty search committee in December 2022: “[Candidate X] is lively and charming—and yes, Black, which is great—but I can’t say that I found his sophistication and experience up to the level of our top candidates.” I expressed my worry that some of my colleagues would, as they had in the past, make the applicant’s race their “overriding criterion.”

It then goes on to describe various procedures and tribunals that became involved and the intervention of the chancellor. It closes with: 

As Mr. Wilcox was contemplating his final decision on my case, I offered to visit his office to hear face-to-face his decision and reasoning. He didn’t answer. A few months later I got a message from university counsel warning that all of what happened to me is confidential and that my writing about it “may result in discipline.”

By publishing his op ed, it appears that Prof. Link has now written about what happened, despite the warning. So now Chancellor Wilcox, who is due to retire at the end of the academic year, has to respond - or not. His choice. But if he doesn't respond, Prof. Link's version of the events he describes stands as the public record.

It's your move, Chancellor Wilcox.

===

*https://www.wsj.com/opinion/uc-riversides-dei-guardians-came-after-me-39d8e26e.

**https://complitlang.ucr.edu/people/faculty/link/.

***https://news.ucr.edu/ucr-magazine/winter-2024/the-accidental-dissident. The article begins: “Blacklisted by the Chinese Community Party” is a badge of honor Perry Link has worn for almost 30 years. On any night, Link, a UCR professor of comparative literature, may be heard on Voice of America or quoted in The New York Times. He’s a leading voice on the human rights violations of the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP. But reducing his role to that of a commentator on the CCP and the dissidence it has inspired does Link an injustice. He played a pro-democracy role in a significant episode of Chinese history, the spring 1989 Tiananmen Square tragedy. In a series of events that could be storyboards in an espionage thriller, Link helped in the escape of the communist party’s “public enemy No. 1,” the dissident Fang Lizhi. In Link’s telling, he never intended any of it — he is an accidental dissident...