Is that a costume you're wearing? Gov. Jerry Brown comes as the Honest Republican, proosing that California seek another Bottom-5 ranking, this one for oldest workforce unable to retire on their pensions.

The relevant UC Senate committee comes as the Partner in Reform, responding that the many good parts of Brown's proposal are the same as recent UC pension changes.

UCLA Management professor David Lewin comes as a Mangement Consultant, but offers the most incisive perspective on pension reform, similar Republican measures in other states, and the downside for both the economy and future retirees.

Student Regents speak out on rising tuition.   Daily Cal has an interview.  And here is a presentation.

Brown Proposes reducing pensions for public employees.   LAT can only discuss it in terms of politics.

Gavin Newsom vows to change the narrative on higher education cuts.  Do you think the Regents would even understand the concept?

There are more concerns being raised about the proposed Negotiated Salary Program.

Surprise! Higher Ed costs continue to rise.  More data can be found here.

An even bigger surprise:  California leads the nation in tuition increases.

Not to worry: Dan Greenstein and other proponents of UC online assure us that it will maintain quality and not be used to downsize faculty.

Students are confused by UC's new admissions guidelines.

Task Force recommends changing the priorities of California's Community College System.

By Joe Kiskis

A previous post here provided a brief description of the proposed APM 668 Negotiated Salary Program (NSP) and comments from Professor Stan Glantz on the detrimental consequences of the similar Health Sciences Compensation Plan (HSCP), long used in the UC health system enterprises. In this post, I offer comments directly related to language of the proposed NSP policy for the general campuses.

The merit and promotion academic personnel system at the University of California is a great asset of the institution. It is a well-documented and carefully followed system that closely associates rank, step, and salary with accomplishment in teaching, scholarship, and service as evaluated by faculty peers.

For many years, UC salary scales have lagged those of comparable institutions. To partially compensate for this, there has been a growing use off scale salaries, which are set on an individual and ad hoc basis.

It is now widely recognized that this decoupling of salary from advancement in rank and step is undermining unique strengths of the UC academic personnel system, and there have been repeated calls to reform the salary scales so that the traditional value of the merit and promotion system is re-established. Unfortunately the proposed NSP would not be a reform but rather an additional administrative mechanism that circumvents the merit and the promotion system.

Opponents of California's Dream Act begin collecting petitions in favor of a referendum to overturn it.

As minority enrollments in California have gone up, state funding has gone down.

UC Riverside Students grade the State on its commitment to Higher Ed and it isn't a good one.

And it looks like it is going to get worse.  The Triggered Cuts seem to be on their way.

Today in Links: The Costs of Athletics; the Destructiveness of Austerity; and the Foolishness of Managerial Ideology plus much more

And don't forget Stan Glantz' post on UCOP's proposal to further erode the salary scales immediately below.

Officials at UC and other universities have been scrambling to replace resources lost to public funding cuts.Most seem still to see extramural research funds as net positive cash flow for the institution, which they are not (one news link from our ample coverage plus one previous post).  But grants do provide funds for salaries, including partial salaries for faculty investigators, and with that in mind the Joint Senate-Administration Compensation Plan Steering Committee has hatched a plan for a new policy -- and new personnel section APM-668 --called the Negotiated Salary Program (NSP).

The basic motive is that the University needs to find funds to retain those faculty most at-risk of being recruited away by competing institutions.  The rationale is that since state funds keep shrinking, the University must look to non-state funds to fill in the gaps, meaning looking to federal as well as private grants and donations.  The model is the Health Sciences Compensation Plan (HSCP), which the prosposal would extend to the campuses.

Agencies tie salary paid from a grant to research effort on that particular grants. The proposal discussion cites NSF and NIH language that forbids use of grant funds to augment a faculty member's salary (pp 4-6).  The NSP is meant to be a workaround. It would allow faculty to apply to members of their campus administration, starting with their department chair, to use some portion of extramural revenues as a salary augmentation ("negotiated salary component") for a finite period (1-2 years).

We post below a comment from Stanton A. Glantz, a faculty member in UCSF's School of Medicine. It discusses the major issues raised by the NSP proposal in the context of his knowledge of the health sciences plan itself.

Looks like Goldman Sachs has moved from the housing bubble to predatory recruiting for online ed.

Protesters heckle Rupert at his Education Summit with Jeb.

Jerry Brown is going to propose a constitutional amendment on Pensions.

New report from Berkeley argues don't blame budget problems on public employees.

Jerry Brown signs California Dream Act.  Vetoes Bill to allow diversity to be considered in admissions.

Dan Greenstein joins Jeb Bush and the President of US University at a cliché hurricaine in Dallas TX on the Future of State Universities.  As you know, it has been decided that the future of state universities is distance learning.  Greenstein, assured all and sundry that there was a need for "leadership that is innovative, has a clear vision, and is willing to take risks."  Greenstein claimed that "as a university we are committed to launching an online program for undergraduate students." This no doubt was a comfort to sponsoring Govs Bush and Hunt, who invoked studies showing that computer are better teachers than teachers are.

The Chilean police responded violently to student protesters; students' leaders targeted.

The LAT has realized that UC may no longer be affordable for middle-class kids.  Yet they don't actually oppose doubling tuition.

Occupy Wall Street (courtesy of Casey Blake)

More today on Banks, protests, international activity on higher education, and even some California news.  All below the fold.

More in today's links about protests and occupations, economic inequality, the defense of higher education and why it is that Harvard's economic influence may not be good for the country.

A number of former University of California chancellors met at the end of June to discuss the state of UC, and recently released a statement we linked yesterday, one called Former University of California Chancellors Urge New Funding Models for UC.  The main result is another call for a high-fee UC, this time set at $24,000 for in-state students.

The word "new" has no place in the title of this document. Nearly all of these chancellors were in office during the twenty years of UC public funding decline, and have come together to advocate the acceleration of what they have been doing all along. This consists of advocating business-as-usual non-public revenue growth on a base of doubled tuition.

I've annotated the text below because it is an interesting expression of the intellectual gridlock that is preventing UC's senior managers from thinking their way to a better place. I am also trying to get you to read this kind of thing.  There's a lot more reading just like it coming up this fall, so get in shape!

My comments are in bold

The text of the former Chancellors' letter:

McKenzie Wark offers up some thoughts on how Occupy Wall Street is offering an allegory to counter an abstraction.  And how that is a good thing.  (H/t to Casey Blake)

The AFT and Bob Samuels offer an update on Occupy LA.  And here is another view.

And there is emerging information about plans for college occupations.

Former Chancellors call for new funding model for UC.  (h/t to Catherine Cole)

Working without the typical UC senior management blind spot, Stanton Glantz and Eric Hays update their "restoration" report to show that moving UC into a future defined as what the state had collectively already built in 2000 (including low tuition) would now, after the Brown Cuts, cost $49 / year instead of $32 (at the median). People who don't like the median (half of all taxpayers), should note that the restoration cost to taxpayers who make $400-499,000 (the top 5%) about $4400.

SDSU establishes second LGBT major in the country.

Bernanke is worried.  Blames everyone else. Maybe it would help if he read this.

Yale's endowment grew 22% last year.

But while some wealth grew poverty grew too.

Lots concerning Occupy Wall Street and its offshoots, student costs and debt, and the economic crises facing California in today's links.  Just check below the fold: