Faculty Call on UC to Settle with UAW

Over 250 faculty from across the University of California have signed a petition to UC President Janet Napolitano supporting a fair contract with the union representing graduate Teaching Assistants, graders and readers. The petition is posted on the UC Santa Cruz Faculty Association website. It reads in part:

Although encouraged by recent settlements with some union-represented employees, we are dismayed by the failure of University leadership to come to an agreement with the Student-Workers union. Increasing class sizes and inadequate graduate student support are issues that concern us all. Last fall, many UC department chairs wrote to their deans of graduate study, concerned that relatively low pay for graduate student workers was threatening the quality of their graduate programs. As well, good labor relations are integral to our ability to carry out the core mission of the University of California.

We urge you to negotiate in good faith with the Student-Workers union and to settle with a contract that gives our graduate student TAs, Graders, and Readers the respect, wages, and work climate they need and ought to have.

Read the full petition and sign on if you support it here: http://ucscfa.org/petition2/

Collective Bargainng Settlement with Grad Student Workers Described

From Inside Higher Ed:

In what advocates are calling an extremely significant development in the fight for gender-neutral restrooms on college campuses, graduate student workers across the University of California System say they’ve reached a tentative contract agreement on language that establishes access to such facilities as a “right.” The workers also reached a similar agreement on language regarding access to lactation stations...

Full story at: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/04/23/uc-grad-student-employees-bargain-right-gender-neutral-bathrooms-lactation-stations

UCLA Legislative Assembly to Review Anderson Self-Supporting MBA Proposal

On June 7th, the Legislative Assembly will be taking up an appeal filed by faculty members of the Anderson Graduate School of Management regarding the Graduate Council’s rejection of a proposal to convert the “regular” MBA program to a self-supporting basis.

In the Academic Senate letter transmitting this decision to the Chancellor, it is reported that “the MBA proposal in particular revealed significant and deep divisions of opinion within the Senate faculty regarding the advisability of converting programs, and in particular a ‘cornerstone’ program, to self-supporting status. The AGSM faculty voted overwhelmingly in favor of the proposal, the school’s FEC voted narrowly in favor, the Council on Planning and Budget provided an overall positive opinion, and a majority of Graduate Council members were opposed. The bylaws of the Senate specify that the Graduate Council’s opinion is final on new degree programs.” [Leuchter to Block 4-10-12].

Below are links at which you can read the Anderson proposal for the self supporting MBA and the Graduate Council’s negative decision.  As the quote above suggests, there is a tendency for outside reviewers and observers to view the Anderson proposal in symbolic terms, i.e., as part of the gradual withdrawal of public support for the academic core of UC and its replacement by tuition. The Graduate Council’s decision was reported as “3 members voted in favor, 7 were opposed, 2 abstained, and 1 registered a ‘no vote’ (7 members were absent); GSA Representatives: 3 were opposed (1 was absent).”

The Anderson faculty seems to be about 2/3 in favor of the proposal and 1/3 against – but less on symbolic grounds and more on the evaluation of the plan’s internal pros and cons and its assumptions.

The Anderson MBA Proposal is at:

Open publication - Free publishing - More mba

The Graduate Council Report on the Proposal is at:

Open publication - Free publishing - More anderson

Note: The document above was extracted by cutting and pasting from a larger pdf file and so may not have the same formatting as the original.  Its wording is the same as the original.

Off Message?

UCLA often points to its environmentalism, particularly when construction projects are an issue.  But in the case described below, someone in the Housing and Hospitality empire seems off message. Below is an email sent today by Prof. Donald Shoup of Urban Planning to Robert Gilbert, Special Assistant to AVC & Sustainability Manager, UCLA Housing and Hospitality Services. It was the latest of a series of emails that went back and forth on the student housing project described in the message.

Subject: Master metering wastes electricity in UCLA apartment buildings

Dear Robert,

Thanks for your message. As I understand our correspondence, no one at UCLA analyzed the economic returns or the environmental consequences of master metering electricity for the 1,384 apartments UCLA recently built in Weyburn Terrace and on Hilgard Avenue. I hope the UCLA administration and the UC Regents’ Committee on Grounds and Buildings will consider the issue of whether and how to meter energy use in future UC housing projects.

Without any analysis of the economic and environmental aspects of master metering, UCLA’s decision not to provide an individual electric meter for each apartment seems to have been based mainly on, as you say, the “value/convenience for our highly recruited graduate student population.” If so, did you ask students what they thought about metering?

I think most highly recruited graduate students know enough about economics and care enough about the environment to understand that master metering for electricity is bad for both students and the environment.

Intelligent graduate students surely understand that the rent for apartments in a master-metered building will be higher than the rent for apartments with individual meters. Because UCLA must increase the rent for apartments in a master-metered building by enough to pay for the “free” electricity, the total cost of electricity in a master-metered building is divided equally among all residents, and it shows up as higher rent.

Students who live in master-metered apartments cannot save money by saving electricity, and students who are conscientious about using electricity subsidize those who waste electricity. In contrast, students who live in an individually-metered apartment can save money by conserving electricity.

Studies have found that bundling “free” electricity into the rent usually increases electricity use by about 25 percent when compared with individual metering. Intelligent graduate students surely understand that they can therefore save money by paying for their own electricity. All else the same, the rent that includes the cost of “free” electricity in a master-metered apartment will be higher than the rent plus the cost of electricity in an individually-metered apartment.

Master metering also has environmental consequences. If it increases electricity use by 25 percent, master metering will increase the resulting air pollution and greenhouse gases produced by generating electricity. In the attached presentation, a graduate student who lives in graduate student housing estimated that individual electric meters at Weyburn Terrace would have reduced UCLA’s greenhouse gas emission by about 1.1 million pounds of CO₂ per year.

So I would argue that highly recruited graduate students surely know enough about elementary economics to understand that master metering is bad for students, bad for UCLA, and bad for the environment. I have heard nothing that amounts to a rational argument for master metering.

I understand the temptation to push “highly recruited graduate students” out in front as a shield for bad decisions about master metering. Please see this “highly recruited graduate students” argument made at great length by the Director of UCLA Housing in 2006 (Note: Prof. Shoup attached the 2006 document to the email.) The “highly recruited” argument for master metering made no sense in 2006, and it makes even less sense in 2012. I do not believe that UCLA’s best graduate students are so economically naive or so environmentally irresponsible that they want “free” electricity.

Naturally, I do not expect you to agree with everything I have said about the benefits of charging residents for the energy they use. Nevertheless, I hope UCLA administrators and the UC Regents’ Committee on Grounds and Buildings will consider seriously the possible economic waste and environmental damage done by master metering in new apartment projects. I will be happy to work with you and Nurit Katz and any others on campus or at UCOP who would like to study the issue.

Donald Shoup, Professor

Department of Urban Planning, UCLA

Doesn’t seem to be a difficult concept to understand:

What Exactly is an Aspirational Graduate Student?

Below is an excerpt from California Watch:

UC commission looks to boost grad student enrollment (excerpt):

Erica Perez, September 2, 2010

A commission that advises the University of California on its long-term goals this week recommended increasing the proportion of graduate students at the UC from 22 percent to 26 percent of the student body.

The 25-member UC Commission on the Future discussed the need for more graduate students at their Aug. 31 saying the move was necessary to serve the university's research mission and educate California's future professors.

Considering the university's tight budget, however, moving to increase graduate students would cost the university hundreds of millions of dollars to recruit the best students with competitive financial aid packages. That makes the commission's goal of increasing graduate student enrollment "purely aspirational," said Daniel Greenstein, the UC's vice provost for academic planning, programs and coordination and a member of the panel.

The recommendation was one of several discussed this week and will be included in a draft report that the commission will review during a meeting Oct. 11.

Full story at http://www.californiawatch.org/watchblog/uc-commission-looks-boost-grad-student-enrollment-4428

Reports to the Regents on Graduate Education

An "Accountability Subreport on Academic and Professional Degree Students" presentation to the Regents on graduate education at UC is available at:

http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regmeet/jul10/j2attach.pdf

The presentation contains data on enrollments, time to completion, etc. Conclusions (last slide) are:

UC Leads Nationally
* Attracting high-quality graduate students, an essential condition to recruit & retain the best faculty
* Training high percentage of URM (Underrepresented Minority) students
* Training a high percentage of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) doctorates
* Training a high percentage of the nation’s Ph.D.s

UC continues to strive for improved student quality
UC has not yet met its aspirational goals for:
* Diversity
* Student Support
* Completion

The presentation is part of a written report to the Regents available at:

http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regmeet/jul10/j2.pdf