Do we still have time to converse about that?

From the Daily Bruin:

A bill that would allow certain California community colleges to grant four-year degrees passed unanimously in the California State Senate Tuesday.  Community colleges are currently allowed to grant two-year associate degrees, but existing California law does not allow community colleges to instruct students beyond the second-year college curriculum.  California is one of 29 states that do not allow their community colleges to grant four-year degrees, according to the bill...

Senate Bill 850 was introduced in January by Sen. Marty Block (D–San Diego) and would authorize the California Community Colleges Board of Governors to create a bachelor’s degree program in up to 15 community college districts... 

The University of California has yet to take an official stance on the bill.  “Exactly how this would impact us isn’t very clear,” said Brooke Converse, UC spokeswoman. “It isn’t written in a way that it would impact UC students.”  Converse said she wants the bill to make sure that it respects the boundaries between the UC, the California State University and the state’s community colleges. “(We hope) it won’t replicate any existing programs,” she said.

Full story at http://dailybruin.com/2014/05/28/calif-senate-passes-bill-on-four-year-degrees-at-cccs/

Clearly, there is something to converse about here from the UC perspective?  Four-year degrees from community colleges is a major change in the Master Plan.  No?  So let's start with some obvious effects.  Transfer students to UC?  Possibly fewer of them?  State budget?  More for X means less for Y, if not now, then in future Hard Times.  So how can UC have no position?  Maybe - all things considered - this is the way to go in California public policy on higher ed?  But the idea that the bill has no "impact on UC students" is positively dangerous.  No matter how constrained and limited the bill may be, it is a Big Deal.

If the bill was introduced in January, UC has had plenty of time to determine possible impacts and take a position.

A unanimous vote in the state senate?  Has the train left the station while UC dawdled on the platform?

Wondering why we have no recording of the May 22 Regents meeting on investments?

It's not for trying on our part  But the link provided by the Regents' website seems to be out of order.  The authorities have been notified by yours truly.  (Yes, governor; technology in higher ed doesn't always work as well as might be hoped!)

In the meantime, we have a (working) link to the article below which deals with some of that meeting:

The University of California is working to form a task force that will look at the possibility of divesting from fossil fuel companies, following numerous student protests and other major universities’ decisions to divest.  “It’s the issue that’s on the minds of many people and students have been expressing their concerns about it,” said Shelly Meron, a UC spokeswoman. “We want to look into it further.”  At the UC Board of Regents Committee on Investments meeting on Thursday, committee chair and Regent Paul Wachter said the task force will include regents, environmental consultants and outside investment advisors to the UC. Wachter said regents have asked the UC’s new chief investment officer, Jagdeep Singh Bachher, to lead the task force...

Full story at http://dailybruin.com/2014/05/23/uc-to-create-task-force-to-explore-fossil-fuel-divestment/

The Committee evidently did not hear from the former investments officer - Peter Taylor - on this effort.  However, blog readers will recall our recent post which contained his views. For those who can't recall, here they are again:

Trigger Issue or Too Lazy to Work on a 3-Day Weekend?

After all the silliness about trigger warnings - which seems to have its roots at UC-Santa Barbara - being used on syllabi and to justify misconduct comes a tale from Calbuzz that suggests that the trigger issue was what was behind the "official" student paper at UC-SB not to cover the killings there while the unofficial student paper did provide coverage:

The Daily Nexus, the independent, student-run newspaper at UC Santa Barbara, posted its first story about the mass murders in Isla Vista at 10:27 p.m. Friday night, one hour after the earliest law enforcement report of  ”shots fired.”  The paper’s reporters, photographers and editors haven’t stopped working since.  The Bottom Line, their student government-financed, journalistic rival, posted its first story two days later, an op-ed that carried this stunning headline: “Why We Have Not Yet Published Anything on the Isla Vista Shooting.”

Whenever tragedy strikes, emergency responders and journalists are some of the first on scene and are, consequently, more likely to suffer from emotional trauma because of it. As stated in the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics, a code we at The Bottom Line strive to uphold every day in our reporting, we are to minimize harm, whether physical or emotional. Ethical “journalists should show compassion for those who may be affected adversely by news coverage.”  After extensive discussions among our Editorial Staff, advisor and alumni, we have decided to not immediately publish an article on the recent tragedy in our community of Isla Vista to minimize the emotional harm for our reporters, photographers and multimedia journalists. Before we are journalists, we are Gauchos and feel we need our time to mourn, process and recover from this senseless violence.

Triggers: The murders come at a time when “trigger warnings,” a buzzword that suddenly seems wildly inappropriate, have become a high-profile issue among students at UCSB and elsewhere.  “Trigger warnings” are start-of-class disclaimers which some students have sought professors to provide about potentially uncomfortable discussion or reading content in classes, such as suicide, rape or racism, “that may trigger the onset of symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.”  It’s impossible to escape the conclusion that The Bottom Line’s decision arose from its fundamentally conflicted identity as both a purveyor of campus news and an organ for elected student body leaders and, presumably, their constituents...

Full story at http://www.calbuzz.com/2014/05/tale-of-two-papers-mass-murder-and-student-media/

As our blog title notes, maybe the trigger thing had something to do with it.  Or maybe it was the temptation to find an excuse not to work over the Memorial Day, 3-day weekend.

Sometimes it is hard to get out of bed:

Strawberry Industry Seems to Be Giving UC-Davis the Raspberry

I haven't figured out the lesson to be learned from this issue.  (Maybe someone at Davis can help us out.)

On an ocean-facing hillside with stunning views of Monterey Bay, Douglas Shaw circulates among thousands of strawberry plants he has helped to breed and grow. But the man who is considered California's most esteemed strawberry expert declines to choose his all-time favorite.
The UC Davis plant sciences professor is a bit like a father unwilling to favor one child above his others — patented strawberry varieties with names such as Albion, Benicia, Portola, Monterey and San Andreas. He's also an unsentimental scientist with an eye toward hardier and tastier descendants...

Across town, the quasi-governmental California Strawberry Commission has its headquarters in an office suite decorated with photos of strawberry baskets and harvests and a floor rug in the shape of a berry. At the office entrance, as if emphasizing the connection to the world of fields and supermarkets, a white board lists temperatures throughout the state, prices and production statistics... The stakes are substantial as the dispute unfolds beyond the fields of leafy plants that sprout delicate white blossoms and red fruit.  For universities, it spotlights their role in the nation's agribusiness and the rights to intellectual property that, in this case, just happens to be edible. And for California farmers, it could mean the end of easy access to the sweetest strawberries that best survive the journeys from field to warehouse to kitchen tables.  

The whole thing was set into motion when the 60-year-old Shaw, after nearly three decades at the university, said he and his research partner, UC breeding expert Kirk Larson, planned to leave UC and start a private company for strawberry crop development.  Asserting that UC was no longer interested in their work, he also said they wanted to take a share of a valuable UC inventory of strawberry specimens dating back to the 1930s...

For many years, the commission helped fund the UC research to the tune of $350,000 annually. In a related deal, strawberry nurseries throughout the state got discounts on the royalties they paid to grow and sell the UC varieties. The lawsuit alleges that the end of both arrangements two years ago was a breach of contract.  The suit also claims the university is not properly safeguarding the so-called germplasm, a living museum of 1,600 strawberry types sustained over decades of careful reproduction, plantings and refrigeration at UC's farm properties in Davis, Watsonville and Irvine. UC is ceding control to Shaw and Larson "in a classic case of the fox guarding the henhouse," the lawsuit says...

Accusing the commission of spreading alarmist and false information, the university says its staff has cultivated and will protect extra copies of all strawberry specimens in the inventory.  "This breeding program is really important to the university, this state and worldwide," said Jacob Appelsmith, UC Davis' chief counsel. [Blog editor's note: Maybe someone with a different name would have been better!] "For whatever reasons, there has been some anxiety given that these breeders are retiring. But we are doing everything we can to expand and improve it." ...

Full story at http://www.latimes.com/local/great-reads/la-me-c1-strawberries-20140527-story.html

OK.  Can someone help us out with this story?

Will the litigation go on forever?

YouTube - The Beatles - Strawberry Fields... by heatrash

We thank Hieronymus Bosch for his illustrations.

UC-Santa Barbara Incident

Our condolences to the UC-Santa Barbara community and Prof. Chris Newfield who writes an associated blog.  Chris has a link to a message he sent to students in a class of his related to the incident at Isla Vista which led to the death of one of his students:

http://utotherescue.blogspot.com/2014/05/on-isla-vista-murders.html

Skipped

Blog readers may have noticed that we skipped an entry for yesterday.  Yours truly was temporarily hospitalized for the last couple of days but is out of the hospital today, Memorial Day.  We will resume regular blogging tomorrow.

UCLA History: Kerckhoff

Kerckhoff Hall in 1933 looks pretty much the way it does today, but, of course, there is no Ackerman Union attached.