ICE Barrier

Note that the item below, while referring to UC-Berkeley, presumably would apply to all UC campuses.

From the Daily Californian: Campus international undergraduate students can no longer receive academic credit for most internships completed in study abroad programs, including the University of California Washington Center program, or UCDC. This comes as a response to two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement guidance memos sent to campus in August. The federal guidance memos stated that international students can only use internship experience to receive academic credit if it is integral to the completion of their degree, and is “directly related to the student’s major area of study.” If campus does not ensure this requirement is followed, it may lose its ability to enroll international students.

As a result, campus indefinitely paused the processing of applications for Course Credit Curricular Practical Training, or CPT, a program that allows international students to receive credits toward their degree when pursuing internships and work experience. “We will need more time to consult with legal counsel, and to develop new processes that align with ICE requirements,” said Berkeley International Office Director Ivor Emmanuel.

Under Department of Homeland Security standards, international students living in the United States through an F-1 visa are required to enroll in a full-time course load to keep their visa status, unless exempted by special circumstances. According to Emmanuel, international students who had planned to use current internships for academic credit still have to meet this requirement and “will have to identify alternate courses.” ...

Full story at https://www.dailycal.org/news/campus/administration/international-students-interning-abroad-lose-course-credit-due-to-ice-warning/article_ffbcd825-4248-4aec-8b60-c5319d9d713c.html. 

Straws in the Wind - Part 458

From the Brown Daily Herald: It is “highly unlikely” that the Dec. 13 mass shooting could have been prevented by Brown, according to the executive summary of an after-action review conducted by global consulting firm Teneo. But Teneo found that low DPS staffing levels were disadvantageous to their response and the University’s siren system should have been activated in the wake of the shooting...

The summary identified leadership gaps and understaffing in the Brown Department of Public Safety as well as a history of trespassing in Barus and Holley — the site of the shooting — but ultimately concluded it is unlikely that these security concerns affected the outcome of the shooting... Teneo found that DPS officers responded “rapidly, effectively and heroically” to the shooting...

Full story at https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2026/08/external-review-finds-dec-13-shooting-likely-could-not-have-been-prevented.

Ad Hoc or Master Plan - Thanks, but no thanks

Assemblymember Dorothy M. Donahoe
who pushed the 1960 Master Plan through the 
Legislature (Donahoe Act)
 but died before it was signed.

We have been noting the erosion of the old Master Plan and the substitution of ad hoc legislative enactments, essentially at the behest of the community colleges. It seems the community colleges got the bills they wanted through the legislature and now that they are sitting on the governor's desk, they don't like what they got. From CalMatters:

California’s community colleges have been trying for several years to offer more bachelor’s degrees. This year, they put their hopes in two sweeping bills designed to help them do that. But lawmakers made massive, last-minute changes that prompted the state’s community colleges to now oppose the legislation. The abrupt change of heart, spurred by new limits on how much the colleges could grow their bachelor’s programs, didn’t influence the outcomes of the bills, Senate Bill 960 by Sen. Christopher Cabaldon, a Democrat from Napa, and Assembly Bill 2694 by David Alvarez, also a Democrat from Chula Vista. Both passed...

Colleges would be able to offer an additional two to 12 bachelor’s degrees starting in 2028 depending on their students’ certificate, degree and transfer completion rates. No college district could propose more than three new degrees per year and districts would need to prove that there’s a workforce need in their region to justify the creation of a bachelor’s degree. That’s a claim the state’s labor secretary would step in to validate if the California State University system objects, as has regularly occurred in the pitched policy disputes between the community colleges and the university...

“We’re being asked to … support a process that is not completely understood or vetted at the last minute, and so that’s just not great policymaking,” said Larry Galizio, president and CEO of the Community College League of California, an association representing community college presidents and board leaders...

Full story at https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/09/community-college-bachelors-degrees-california/. 

Parallel Blogs / Subscribing

We have been putting out this blog since 2009 under the heading "UCLA Faculty Association" using the link:

https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/

The blog site was originally created by the then-executive director of the Faculty Association. As such, yours truly does not have control of the site; he is simply a blogger on it. So when technical issues arise, that can be a problem. Given that issue, we have been adding a parallel site with the same blog entries since July 23rd:

https://danmitchellsblogcontinues.blogspot.com/

We will be running the two in parallel for the indefinite future. Possibly, at some point we will switch to the new link.

If you read the blog using the Facebook page of Yousee Elayemeriti, you can continue to do so:

https://www.facebook.com/yousee.elayemeriti

===

Want to subscribe?

You can't subscribe directly. But you can subscribe indirectly to this blog via a service called Blogtrottr. Go to blogtrottr.com and fill in the URL for the blog:

https://danmitchellsblogcontinues.blogspot.com/ 

or

https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/

and put in your email address. 

You will then receive an email at the email address you provided asking you to confirm. After you confirm, you will receive an email notification of new postings whenever they appear. If there are, say, three postings on a particular day, you will receive three notifications (one for each one). 

Note and full disclosure: There are ads on these notifications.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 197

From the Harvard Crimson: Faculty soured on Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra amid broad-scale austerity measures this year, according to The Crimson’s annual FAS survey. Thirty-one percent of respondents said they were either “somewhat satisfied” or “very satisfied” with Hoekstra’s tenure as FAS dean, a sharp reversal from last year, when 57 percent said they were satisfied with her leadership. That figure marks the lowest approval rating she has had on the survey since stepping into the role.

Satisfaction with Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 also saw a notable dip, falling from 74 percent at the acme of Harvard’s battle with the White House to roughly 56 percent this spring. Hoekstra drew the highest dissatisfaction of the three senior administrators measured in the survey: 43 percent said they were “very” or “somewhat” dissatisfied with her tenure, compared with 35 percent who said the same of Harvard Provost John F. Manning ’82 and 26 percent of Garber...

Full story at https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/9/4/fas-2026-survey-hoekstra/. 

Ad Hoc or Master Plan

Assemblymember Dorothy M. Donahoe
who pushed the 1960 Master Plan through the 
Legislature (Donahoe Act)
 but died before it was signed.

In an earlier post (Aug. 26), we noted that bills were moving through the legislature that would enhance the ability of community colleges to offer 4-year degrees. And we called for a new Master Plan process rather than ad hoc policy from the legislature. The bills are now on the governor's desk. Whether he will sign or veto is unknown. The immediate issue regarding community colleges is more a concern for CSU than UC. But the absence of a Master Plan is a long run concern for UC.

From the LA Times: ...Newsom has not signaled his view. He has rejected previous attempts since 2024 to let community colleges grant nursing bachelor’s degrees, when he warned such moves could cause conflict among the state’s three higher education systems...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-09-01/california-community-college-bachelors-degrees-newsom-bills. 

Straws in the Wind - Part 457

From the Cornell Daily Sun: All first-year undergraduate students at Cornell will be enrolled in the University’s newly-developed AI Critical Literacy Program after its Spring 2026 launch... The two-hour long Canvas course discusses four different topics related to AI: how AI works, the ethical implications of AI, the impact of AI on education and tools to create a personal “AI policy.” The course is required for all first-year students at the beginning of the fall semester. The program aims to “help participants make more informed decisions about how and whether to use AI in general, and to inspire conversations where faculty and students can learn from each other,” according to its website.

While first-year undergraduate students are automatically enrolled in the course, other members of the Cornell community, including upper-level undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty and staff, are able to self-enroll in the course for their own personal interest...

Full story at https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2026/08/cornell-launches-ai-critical-literacy-program-for-all-first-year-undergraduate-students.