UCLA and the Covered California Exchange (the State Component of "Obamacare")

Just FYI.  For persons in the individual health care market that has been set up as part of the federal Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), UCLA is advertising for business.  This option is not for UC employees or retirees covered by a university health plan.  However, the info might be useful if you know folks shopping in the individual market.

The image above is from http://www.uclahealth.org/body.cfm?id=2895

Advice to Whoever is Appointed Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion: Buckle Up!

You may have gotten today's email from Chancellor Block:  [excerpts]

Today I am announcing a significant step in our efforts to respond to incidents of bias and discrimination on our campus and to build an environment of inclusion and tolerance: the creation of the new position of Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. The new Vice Chancellor, who will report directly to me, will provide leadership across the campus in these important areas. Although we have many dedicated individuals deeply committed to this work, I have come to see that we need a clear and powerful voice at the highest levels of the campus administration in order to advance our fundamental commitments to equity, diversity and full inclusion...

We also have begun to implement recommendations advanced by the independent committee chaired by former California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno...

All of this was precipitated by various incidents that led to the Moreno report on the climate on campus for minority faculty.  Now we don't know for sure what advice Justice Moreno might give to the new Vice Chancellor when he or she is appointed.  But we do know what advice Judge Cunningham, recently stopped DWB* by UCLA police in Westwood for driving without a seat belt.  (Faithful readers of this blog will know about that event but others can simply scroll back on this block.)  The Cunningham advice is at the link below.  And by the way, whatever happened to the campus climate survey for UC (and UCLA)?

*DWB? Google it.

Loneliness of the long distance MOOC runner

In a recent study at the U of Pennsylvania, it turned out - as many other studies have noted - that few takers of MOOCs actually complete the course.  What's interesting about the study is that many takers don't even start them.

Emerging data from a University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education (Penn GSE) study show that massive open online courses (MOOCs) have relatively few active users, that user “engagement” falls off dramatically—especially after the first 1-2 weeks of a course—and that few users persist to the course end. Presented today by Laura Perna and Alan Ruby at the MOOC Research Initiative Conference in Texas, the findings are from the newly established Alliance for Higher Education & Democracy at Penn GSE...

Across all courses, about half of those who registered viewed at least one lecture within their selected course...

Full article at http://www.gse.upenn.edu/pressroom/press-releases/2013/12/penn-gse-study-shows-moocs-have-relatively-few-active-users-only-few-persisti

Core Competencies for Regents?

Yours truly noted with interest this item from the State Worker blog of the Sacramento Bee:

CalPERS’ governing board aims to up its collective understanding of everything from financial statements to financial markets with a new set of “core competencies” that will help shape education and training. The policy, which the board is imposing on itself, also requires board members to have familiarity with topics ranging from health care and pension plans to board governance and communication... 

Full story at http://www.sacbee.com/2013/12/05/5974549/calpers-sets-knowledge-standards.html

Now if the Regents were to adopt such a policy, what would their core competencies be?  Pension funding?  Capital projects evaluation skills?  Business plans?  Just a thought!

But maybe they know all that:

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/12/05/5974549/calpers-sets-knowledge-standards.html#storylink=cpy

New Normal for UC in the UCLA Anderson Forecast

Above are two charts from yesterday's UCLA Anderson Forecast. [Click on them to enlarge and get a clearer image.]  There is a much overused phrase nowadays: the "new normal."  But when you combine those two charts with the chart below (slightly modified) from the recent Legislative Analyst's report on the state budget outlook, the phrase takes on special meaning for UC.

As can be seen on the Forecast charts, California's economic base was hard hit around 1990 by the end of the Cold War.  Its population stopped growing relative to the nation as a whole.  And it lost jobs as a share of the nation's total employment that have not been recovered.  [Both developments can be seen on the top left-hand chart.]  The upper-right hand chart shows that the state's payroll employment trend that existed before the end of the Cold War was never resumed despite the dot-com boom of the 1990s and the housing boom of the 2000s.

The Legislative Analyst used to say that California had a chronic "structural" state budget deficit, meaning that ongoing spending tended to outrun revenues over the long run.  Now, thanks to Prop 30 (which eventually expires) and sluggish growth - which is sufficient nonetheless to pick up on the state revenue side when Prop 30 turns off - the state will tend to run surpluses (receipts > spending).  The surpluses projected also result in part from diminished spending  plans that no longer outrun forecast revenues.

However, as the governor and the legislative leaders have indicated, there will be only limited benefits from the shift away from a structural deficit for UC.  The Leg Analyst doesn't acknowledge that UC's unfunded pension liabilities are the ultimate responsibility of the state, unlike those of CSU.  UC tuition is not supposed to rise as part of what can be considered a one-sided deal.  Other state programs which were cut during the Great Recession and its aftermath - notably K-14 funding under Prop 98 - will absorb the slack.

Note that the Leg Analyst's projection assumes no recession or economic setback through 2020.  The UCLA Anderson Forecast goes only through calendar 2015; no one can really forecast the business cycle out to 2020.  All that can be done in that longer horizon is to assume trend growth.  Under Prop 30, the volatility of state funding - due to heavy reliance on income tax revenues - was increased, making the state more vulnerable to any setback that might occur.  The intent of the governor is to build up a rainy day fund to deal with such vulnerability.  How much cooperation he gets from the legislature remains to be seen, but significantly more funding than the governor wants for UC seems unlikely.

In short, for UC, the end of the Cold War is not over.

You can find the media release on the UCLA Anderson Forecast at http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/lib/email/html/forecast-december-press-release.html

The Leg Analyst's report - about which we have blogged previously - is at http://lao.ca.gov/reports/2013/bud/fiscal-outlook/fiscal-outlook-112013.aspx

Again

From Facilities Management:

Northbound I-405 (all lanes) will be closed between Wilshire Boulevard and Moraga Drive from midnight until 5 am on the mornings of Thursday, December 5th and Friday, December 6th. Southbound I-405 will remain open during this time.

When: Midnight-5 am on Thursday, December 5th and Friday, December 6th

Where: I-405 Northbound between Wilshire and Moraga 

And note that  the friendly folks on the 405 project often start blocking things as early as 10 pm.

Coffee break at the Grand Hotel?

Yours truly has been traveling out of town until yesterday.  So he hadn't visited the site of the UCLA Grand Hotel for awhile.  He did go by yesterday around 3:30 pm and took the photos above.  All he saw was folks leaving.  In fact, the gate was wide open (see the top two photos) to let the cars exit.  Must have been coffee break time.