Watch the Regents Morning Meetings of March 16, 2022

The Regents met as a full board on the morning of March 16 and initially took public comments on various topics including putting syllabi online, grading, student funding, labor relations, outsourcing of childcare, pay for childcare, nurse outsourcing, nurse staffing, apprenticeship in the skilled trades, preservation of murals at UC-San Francisco, Cal Grants, ethnic studies, abortion, fossil fuel, interpreters in medical centers, and telecommuting. 

Noteworthy in the various statements after public comments was that of systemwide Academic Senate Chair Robert Horwitz on student demands for universal online and hybrid courses. Horwitz made the point - which we have made on this blog - that substantial resources would be needed for any such undertaking and that it is, as such, impractical. He also noted privacy concerns for both students and faculty when courses are broadcast and recorded. You can see his statement on this topic below:

or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzBbeahfUbo.

The Compliance and Audit committee took up the issue of cybersecurity. Various Regents noted concerns about vulnerability to cyber attack, given the world situation. At Public Engagement and Development, much of the time was devoted to a proposed state constitutional amendment that would require the Regents to appoint two student regents, up from the current one student regent.

As always, we preserve the Regents' sessions since the Regents - for unknown reasons - delete the recordings after one year.

Morning session: https://archive.org/details/board-compliance-and-audit-committee-3-16-22

Direct to Board plus Compliance and Audit: https://archive.org/details/board-compliance-and-audit-committee-3-16-22/Board%2C+Compliance+and+Audit+Committee+3-16-22.mp4

Direct to Public Engagement and Development: https://archive.org/details/board-compliance-and-audit-committee-3-16-22/Public+Engagement+and+Development+Committee+3-16-22.mp4

New Medicare Advantage Report Raises Old Issue

From time to time, we have noted that Medicare Advantage (MA) plans have been increasing their share of the Medicare marketplace. A Medicare Advantage option - which is currently the cheapest option - is available under UC's retiree health insurance program. Under Medicare Advantage, a private insurer receives risk-adjusted premiums from Medicare, and takes the place of "traditional" Medicare. It administers the plan, determines eligibility for treatment, etc.

At one point, it appeared that UCOP wanted to replace its entire traditional wrap-around options for Medicare retirees with Medicare Advantage. While such a policy seems to be currently off the table, the fact that the Medicare Advantage option is the cheapest choice could lead to an increasing share of UC's retirees ultimately electing that option. The traditional wrap-around plans could become unsustainably costly as the better risks gravitate to Medicare Advantage. We have blogged about this matter in the past.*

Nationally, 46% of Medicare recipients were under privatized Medicare Advantage in 2021 and the share has been growing. If the growth continues, a majority of Medicare recipients will be under Medicare Advantage in a few years. (As we have noted in the past, those calling for "Medicare for All" - by which they seem to mean a federally-operated single-payer plan - don't seem to realize that Medicare is fast becoming a privatized program dominated by a few major insurance companies.)

A federal agency - the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) - has recently reported on Medicare Advantage.** It notes that the share Medicare Advantage of the Medicare market has been growing and finds that, contrary to congressional hopes, Medicare Advantage costs more per participant than traditional Medicare. The report makes three points of special relevance: [page 409]

• Increasingly robust MA enrollment, plan availability, and rebates [offered by private MA insurers are being] financed by higher payments relative to FFS (fee for service, i.e., traditional Medicare) spending.
• Risk adjustment: Coding intensity inflates payments to MA plans, i.e., private insurers are finding ways to bill more to Medicare.
• Quality in MA is difficult to evaluate.

Congress at the moment has deep divisions and other priorities. Eventually, however, it may decide to cut back on Medicare spending as more and more of the baby boom retires. At that point, it might crack down on Medicare Advantage spending, an eventuality that would likely lead to higher premiums for retirees and possibly fewer private insurers competing for Medicare Advantage business.

====

*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/02/an-advantage-to-provider-of-uc-advantage.html; https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2021/11/what-happens-at-uc-if-medicare.html.

**https://www.medpac.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Mar22_MedPAC_ReportToCongress_SEC.pdf.

The Hastings Saga Continues

Serranus Clinton Hastings

We have previously blogged about the name-change issue at the Hastings Law School, which is under the UC Regents.* Apparently, no decision has been reached on the name. From the NY Times:

A New Name for California’s Oldest Law School? It’s Not Easy.

The University of California, Hastings College of the Law has decided to dissociate itself from its founder for his role in massacres of Native Americans.

By Thomas Fuller, March 17, 2022

When a New York Times article last year detailed the involvement of the founder of the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in state-sponsored massacres of Indigenous Californians, an outcry ensued. The law school’s board swiftly and unanimously agreed to change the school’s name. But in the months since, university administrators have learned that deleting a tainted name might be the easy part. Choosing a new one is proving to be a fraught and costly process. There is disagreement on what the new name should be, a debate that encapsulates an era in America in which we are reassessing our history, reanalyzing our heroes and trying to agree on who should be honored by institutions — and who should not.

A small but vocal group of people at Hastings believe that the university should keep its name after all. “It seems like it would make more sense to use the money for things that would be more beneficial,” said Marsha N. Cohen, a professor at the law school who has also worked in the admissions office. (A spokeswoman for the law school, Liz Moore, says it will cost at least $2 million to $3 million to change the name on building signage, email and web addresses, stationery, brochures and more.) The law school’s board has proposed that the new name should be the University of California, College of the Law, San Francisco, according to David Faigman, the chancellor and dean.

“San Francisco is a world-class city, well known for dynamism and innovation — qualities that distinguish our law school as well,” Faigman said in a written answer to my questions. “The San Francisco name also conveys the useful information of where we are located and aligns us with the naming convention of every other campus of the University of California.”

A group of Yuki tribe members is pushing back on that name. It was Yuki Indians who were massacred in campaigns in the mid-1800s that historians say were bankrolled and masterminded by Serranus Hastings, the founder of the law school. Some members of the Yuki tribe are urging Hastings to rename the school with a name from the Yuki language. Steve Brown, the president of the Round Valley Yuki committee, proposes “Powen’om,” which means “one people.” 

“I want payback,” Brown told me. “You can call it reparations or social justice or whatever. I want our name on there.” Brown and other Yuki tribe members say the massacres did much more than decimate the Yuki populations. The area now suffers poverty and drug abuse. “Our futures were stolen,” he said.

The massacres occurred in the Round and Eden Valleys in Mendocino County. Today the Round Valley Indian Tribes are an amalgam of seven distinct tribes, including the Yuki, that was created after a coerced 19th-century relocation by the U.S. government. This creates a challenge for the law school as it seeks to change the name and put together a package of reparations and restorative justice initiatives. Who should be the school’s interlocutors? The Yuki or the legally recognized Round Valley Indian Tribe? The university has decided to deal with both. The leadership of the Round Valley Indian Tribes met on Wednesday to discuss the name but did not reach a decision, Brown said. Ultimately it is up to the California Legislature to choose the name. The law school says a lobbying firm that it retains in Sacramento will be involved in pushing through the legislation...

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/17/us/new-name-california-law-school.html.

===

*http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2021/11/hastings-or-not-hastings-part-2.html; http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2021/10/hastings-or-not-hastings.html.

Experian Monitoring Extended for Two Years - Part 2

A recent blog posting noted that UC is now providing a two-year extension of data monitoring by Experian due to the Accellion breach that exposed sensitive personal data of UC-affiliated individuals.*

If you signed up originally for the one year of monitoring, your free monitoring will automatically be extended. 

You should receive an email indicating there will be an automatic extension such as the example below. If you didn't sign up originally, signing up now is highly recommended. 

===

*http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/03/experian-monitoring-extended-for-two.html.

Where Have All the Librarians Gone? (at Berkeley)

From the Daily Cal: When UC Berkeley students return from spring break, there will be one fewer space for community members to work and study in. The Physics-Astronomy Library will be closed starting March 21 due to ongoing staffing shortages. The library will likely remain closed through the summer semester. 

“With budget reductions over the last two decades, and recent unexpected staff resignations, we have to continue to make difficult decisions about which of our services to scale back,” said university librarian Jeff MacKie-Mason in a press release.

Library users will still be able to request and pick up items from the Physics-Astronomy Library’s collections via UC Library Search, the press release reads. The Physics-Astronomy Library’s closure comes amid other campus library closures — both the proposed and realized.

The Anthropology Library was originally scheduled to permanently close Feb. 28, also due to staffing shortages. After students and professors held a sit-in at the library Feb. 25 protesting the closure, campus backtracked on its plans and said in a press release that the library will remain open Monday through Friday from 1-5 p.m. as a study and browsing only space. 

Moffitt Library, which first opened in 2016 and was hailed by campus in press releases as a “24-hour library” where students could “roll out a prayer rug, sleep in a nap pod, hold a meeting (and) practice for a job interview” has been closed since December 2021 for seismic upgrades. The library is anticipated to reopen in the fall 2022 semester. 

Some students have previously raised concerns regarding limited library hours, noting that many students do not have access to quiet places to work as a result of the housing crisis in Berkeley. “We have nowhere good to go as an alternative,” said campus student Skyler-Myles Clinton Cobb to The Daily Californian in December 2021, adding that having 24-hour campus libraries would “make a lot more sense.” Campus has responded by planning extended hours at a number of libraries, including the Doe, Engineering, C.V. Starr East Asian and Environmental Design libraries, in addition to Main Stacks, though these plans are contingent on whether campus is able to hire additional employees amid reduced budgets, according to Elizabeth Dupuis, senior associate university librarian, in a February email to the Daily Cal.

Source: https://www.dailycal.org/2022/03/16/physics-astronomy-library-to-temporarily-close-citing-staffing-shortages/.

Privacy in Hybrid and Online Courses: Is Anyone Thinking It Through?

We have previously noted on the blog that there have been demands for "hybrid" options on courses, i.e., courses that would be both in person and on Zoom or some other remote platform. Apparently, there will be moves in that direction although not mandated (or really possible) for all courses:

From the Bruin: UCLA administration agreed to most of the demands of the student leaders who organized the 16-day sit-in protest occupying Murphy Hall that took place in early February. UCLA community members staged a sit-in demonstration in front of Chancellor Gene Block’s office in Murphy Hall starting Jan. 31 to demand hybrid learning options and more support for marginalized student groups. The advocacy was organized by the Disabled Student Union, Undergraduate Students Association Council and Mother Organizations coalition. The sit-in ended on Feb. 16.

University leaders met in person with students throughout the protest to discuss the 40 requests they made, UCLA spokesperson Bill Kisliuk said in an emailed statement. University leaders did not agree to require that all instructors offer hybrid learning options. The Academic Senate sent the DSU a letter explaining that it could not do so due to academic freedom, a university policy that guarantees that instructors can control the content of their classes. Kisliuk said in an emailed statement that the campus currently lacks the capacity to live stream and record all classes and that classroom attendance policies are under the jurisdiction of individual instructors themselves, rather than university administration.

However, the university agreed to several DSU demands, including hiring Zoom assistants and additional Center for Accessible Education staff, writing letters to faculty in support of live-streaming lectures and supporting the creation of a Disability Cultural Center, Kisliuk said. The university will also hire an Americans with Disabilities Act compliance officer through the UCLA Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, he said...

Full story at https://dailybruin.com/2022/03/15/ucla-administrators-agree-to-several-sit-in-demands-from-student-organizations.

At around the same time the Bruin article was being published, yours truly - who was teaching in winter quarter - received an email from the IT folks who are running the new Bruin-Learn/Canvas system noting that his course was "published" (public) and so could technically be viewed by anyone who had the URL. The email indicated that if any student component was recorded and on the course website, it could violate certain federal rules unless the students consented. 

I don't want to go into the details but I questioned this objection, noting a) that only persons who had the actual class URL could see the "published" course and that the URL could not be found by just Googling the course, b) that, in any case, even someone who had the URL could not see the video contents without being able to log in using a Bruin account, and c) that in any hybrid or online situation, in practice there is nothing to stop anyone viewing the course from also recording it. Of course, with regard to "c," you can announce that the rule is not to record and hope that the rule will be followed, but an online viewer can be anywhere and is not in control of the instructor. (For that matter, even someone sitting in a regular, in-person classroom can easily record at least the audio component of what is going on surreptitiously by switching on a smartphone or other device.) 

Yours truly received back a message saying issues such as those mentioned above are being investigated. That's fine, but the reality is that a policy of encouraging hybrid or online courses cannot be compatible with a policy of total privacy.

A door cannot be both open and closed at the same time.

Watch the Regents Investments Committee: 3-15-2022

The March Regents meeting began yesterday with the Investments Committee. Public comments dealt with vaccination requirements, nurse labor relations, nurse staffing, student regents, low emissions, and Cal Grants. After the comments, there was the usual discussion of the portfolio, although without the many charts, etc., that usually accompany such discussions. It was said that with the current volatility in the stock market, the overall $160 billion portfolio was currently about where it was in value a year ago. The market funding ratio for the pension, until recently in the 90%+ range, was said to now be in the 80s.

Chief Investments Officer Jagdeep Bachhar indicated that he now believes that inflation is going to be persistent, not transitory. He also mentioned in an off-hand remark that UC now had no Russian assets. It was unclear if it had sold off what ever Russian assets it had, or if it didn't have such assets to begin with. There was much discussion of global political risks.

A second item dealt with rules regarding regents and advisors to the committee giving advice to the investments office. This item appeared to be related to some recent incident that led to an investigation, but no specifics were given. The general rule since 2018 seems to be that Regents are not supposed to recommend specific investments in which they have a financial interest - with financial interest defined in extensive terms. And Regents are not supposed to direct anyone to do anything. There was some pushback about these rules. Some Regents indicate that they are approached by folks who want to do business with the Regents and they simply pass the information along without any recommendations. Do they have to fill out a conflict-of-interest form in such cases? The general counsel seemed to want them to do so. At one point, UC president Drake indicated that doing so would avoid appearance of conflict and the need for expensive investigations.

As always, we have preserved the recording since the Regents delete their recordings after one year. You can see the session at:

https://archive.org/details/regents-investments-3-15-22.

The segment dealing with inflation and the absence of Russian investments can be seen at:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_q84Xk_UEw.