Defining the Pension Funding Gap

Defining the Pension Funding Gap

With the pension report and its dissent now posted, the California Professor concludes, at the end of a helpful analysis, that "these proposals are an effort to replace the furloughs with permanent cuts in total compensation." The Daily Cal summarizes the decline narrative, and includes the kind of odd sound bites that often emerge from our UC Oakland non-campus.  A Senate...

Why Did Mark Yudof Discuss the Pension Report Ahead of its Release?

Why Did Mark Yudof Discuss the Pension Report Ahead of its Release?

UPDATE: The Report of the Post Employment Benefits Task Force has now been posted. So has the 10-page "Dissenting Statement" (without appendicies). Mark Yudof has released a statement about the Task Force report on the UC pension system that has itself not yet been make public.   The Yudof  message contains perfectly OK principles regarding pension attractiveness...

A letter to my students

A letter to my students

by Michael O'Hare, professor of public policy Welcome to Berkeley, probably still the best public university in the world. Meet your classmates, the best group of partners you can find anywhere. The percentages for grades on exams, papers, etc. in my courses always add up to 110% because that's what I've learned to expect from you, over twenty years in the best job in the world. That's...

Right-Wing Talking Points Are Spreading

Right-Wing Talking Points Are Spreading

By Michael Meranze As some of you may have seen, the Goldwater Institute has issued a new report on administrative bloat in universities.  Not surprisingly, the report points to the incredible growth of administrators (relative to faculty, students, and staff) over the last decade and a half.  But there are several things that should give us pause--especially since...

What Happened This Summer?

What Happened This Summer?

By Michael Meranze Compared to last year, when the University was mobilized around the issues of furloughs and the President’s emergency powers, this summer has seemed quiet. But this appearance is misleading. If nothing quite as contentious as furloughs has been bandied about, the impulse that underlay the expansion of UCOP’s authority has not diminished. We would do well...

Creator of Berkeley's First On-Line Course Tells All

Creator of Berkeley's First On-Line Course Tells All

Dear Dean Edley: I've been following with interest what you're saying in the press about UC online education. I teach Statistics N21, the first online course at Berkeley to be approved by COCI.  It was approved in 2007.  I've been teaching it for four years, this year to 400 students. The current syllabus is here. Statistics N21 a gateway course: probably one...

For Profits and Accreditors Finally Feel the Heat

For Profits and Accreditors Finally Feel the Heat

The Chronicle covers the Senate investigation into the illegal and unethical recruiting practices at for profit colleges and universities. Regulation of the industry was loosened in 2002. As reported by the Berkeley Planet and the LA Times Blum’s firm, Blum Capital Partners, has been the dominant shareholder in two of the nation’s largest for-profit universities, Career Education...