Watch the Regents Meeting of Sept. 16, 2026 - Part 2

We continue our (delayed) coverage of the third day - Sept. 16 - of the most recent Regents meetings. Part 1 is at:

https://danmitchellsblogcontinues.blogspot.com/2026/10/watch-regents-meeting-of-sept-16-part-1.html

At the Academic and Student Affairs Committee, there was a report about UC STEM outcomes. The math problem was acknowledged but it was stated that there was a growing math issue starting before the pandemic. It shows up on tests in high school. One (partial) solution was suggested in the form of a math course for life sciences majors at Berkeley. It focuses on the math thought to be needed for biology. In the subsequent discussion, it was noted that such a course would not work for other sciences. Regent Park felt that there still seemed to be a math problem. Some of the discussion suggested a need for UC to intervene at the high school level.

There followed a discussion of AI and student career readiness. Although there was a lot of emphasis on maintaining "engagement" in the face of AI, much of the discussion was predicable. Will there be job loss? What kinds of new jobs and skills will be needed? It was suggested that work-based learning (internships) should be encouraged. There should be more hands-on work and oral presentation. Career education would not be one-and-done, but would have to continue throughout worklife. Although the A-G requirements in high school would seem to be affected by the development of AI, there was no real discussion connecting the A-G issue with AI.

Following the AI discussion, the student observer - who was a former STEM high school teacher, commented that many high schools can't afford to offer advanced coursework. UC students could be helpful as mentors.

At Finance and Capital Strategies, there was discussion and approval of a CEQA report and other elements for a proposed project - in cooperation with NASA - of the Berkeley Air & Space Center. The Center has a history going back to Sputnik days. A full proposal will be made in 2028. The site - which will have some housing for students and visiting scholars - requires decontamination. UC was said to have protections against lawsuits related to the contamination cleanup.

Approval was also given to part of the UCLA research project which is being housed in the former Westside Pavilion. A mix of funding from the state and external sources is involved. The Institute - which would receive funds from Prop 38 if passed by voters - is an independent entity with UCLA representatives on its board. However, the Institute and overall project is not dependent on Prop 38. Although the committee approved the proposal, Regent Montasantos voted "no" for unexplained reasons. (She later abstained in the vote to approve the committee report at the full board.)

Finally, the committee discussed the UC budget proposed for 2027-28 which totaled $65 billion. Fifty-five percent of that budget is now UC Health, which has been growing relative to the rest of UC. While there was much praise for the "compact" with the state that has now ended. Yet it was reported that UC is $86 million short compared to what the compact was supposed to deliver. 

After the budget discussion, the student observer noted the importance of student support services, especially for disabilities and for international students. In general discussion, there was a call for some measure of "quality" rather than the focus on number of students enrolled.

The National Labs committee heard a presentation by Lawrence Livermore director Kim Bodil. LLNL has a budget of $3.5 billion/year and 9,000 workers. The contract UC and its consortium associates have for managing LLNL was renewed for five years beginning October 1, 2026. It was said that two thirds of its activities involve nuclear security. Biosecurity, cybersecurity, and space security were also mentioned. Other activities involve such areas as quantum computing. It is interesting that those who have called for "military" divestment seem unaware of LLNL (and Los Alamos).

At the end of the meeting, the full board approved the various committee reports and passed a resolution thanking former provost Newman.

As always, we preserve recordings of Regents meetings since the Regents have no policy on duration of retention.

You can find Academic and Student Affairs starting at 2:55:15 of:

https://ia601003.us.archive.org/31/items/regents-9-16-2026/Board%2C%20Academic%20and%20Student%20Affairs%209-16-2026.mp4

Finance and Capital Strategies and the full Board wrap-up is at:

https://ia601003.us.archive.org/31/items/regents-9-16-2026/Finance%20and%20Capital%20Strategies%2C%20National%20Laboratories%2C%20Board%209-16-2026.mp4

The general web page for Sept. 16 is:

https://archive.org/details/regents-9-16-2026. 

For the record

As we posted on Tuesday, the Regents had a two-day retreat at Lake Arrowhead. Technically, you could have attended the open sessions, but only in person. Technically, you could have made a public comment by phone if you didn't attend in person. But there was no live streaming, so whether anyone other than the Regents and their staff participated is unknown.

Below is the agenda for the retreat:

Regents Retreat Agenda: October 6-7, 2026, Lake Arrowhead  (not live streamed)

==

Tuesday, October 6, 2026 

8:30 am Board - (open session - includes public comment session) 

Public Comment Period (30 minutes)

Remarks of the Chair of the Board

Remarks of the President of the University

Reimagine Where and How UC Happens

Break

Artificial Intelligence and the Future of UC

Lunch

2026 Federal and State Matters

Long-Term Sustainability

Chancellor’s Panel

--

Upon end of open session:

Board - (closed session) 

Artificial Intelligence and the Future of UC

Long-Term Sustainability

Closed Session Statute Citation: Collective bargaining matters [Government Code §3596(d)]

==

Wednesday, October 7, 2026

8:30 am Board - (open session - includes public comment session) 

Public Comment Period (30 minutes)

Risks in the Health Enterprise

Health Governance 

Upon end of open session:

Board - (closed session) 

Public Comment Period (30 minutes) [This additional public comment period is likely a mistake on the published agenda since a meeting can't be both closed and public.]

Risks in the Health Enterprise

Closed Session Statute Citation: Collective bargaining matters [Government Code §3596(d)]

Leadership Priorities

Closed Session Statute Citation: Litigation [Education Code §92032(b)(5)]

==

Source: https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/meetings/agendas/oct2026.html.

==

What can we learn from the agenda?

1) AI is a Big Deal. 

2) A major risk in the eyes of the Regents (or at least in the eyes of whoever created the agenda) to UC and UC Health is collective bargaining - since it is listed as the reason for closing the sessions on both days.

3) Litigation is a Big Deal. One surmises that the reference is to the current litigation with the feds. 

Watch the Regents Meeting of Sept. 16, 2026 - Part 1

Blog readers may have noted we are slow in summarizing the final day (Sept. 16) of last month's Regents meetings. Indeed we are, although we have covered the first two days. But it takes time to go through the recordings (which we always preserve). So we are going to break Sept. 16's meeting into two parts and deal with part 1 here. We will get to part 2 when we can.

The meeting began with public comments. Many comments opposed the closing of a childcare program at UCLA. There were also several anti-SAT comments. There was also a pro-SAT comment. Other comments included opposition to Prop 38, housing for student-parents, renewable electricity, financial rewards at UCLA Health, support for the Berkeley litigation settlement on antisemitism, anti-Israel, and limits on the entity that will occupy part of the former Westside Pavilion.

After public comments, there was a grad student presentation expressing concerns about federal funding, basic needs, and childcare among other issues. An undergrad presentation expressed concerns about a privatized model of UC, ICE, disabled students, childcare, diversity, TPM, AI, and the SAT. A brief demonstration occurred but not enough to lead to a clearing of the room or a significant interruption. 

There followed a presentation on AI and UC. Topics included cybersecurity, cost, data centers, access, a faculty and student usage. There was a theme about a need for a systemwide approach, partnerships with outside firms and DOE, the need for a legal framework including liability, the impact on student assessment and teaching and the inconsistent policies currently in effect. Centralization seemed to be favored, in part due to the costs of infrastructure. It was noted that unlike the various early dot-coms, AI is being monetized upfront. It was suggested this difference could lead to inequity. The idea of a "kill switch" was discussed and it was said there isn't such a thing now. 

There was discussion of the history of testing at UC. It was stressed that this was a discussion item only; no decisions would be taken. Testing, it was said, arose out of the Master Plan of 1960 and concern that UC was admitting more than the top one eighth of California students. However, when the SAT was required in 1968, there was never an official cutoff score. Reviews of the SAT were undertaken in 2002 and 2009. A 2019 task force recommended continued use. But a combination of the pandemic and litigation led to the current test-free policy.

Two admissions officers - one from UC-Riverside, one from UCLA - made presentations. And a member of the committee that proposed continuing the SAT also testified, although he seemed to be a dissenter. Editorial comment: Would you really expect admissions officers to say that they are doing a deficient job now due to the absence of testing? They didn't, of course. All is well, they said. And if you wanted to hear a diversity of views, they clearly could have been on offer, given the campaign by many faculty for resuming use of the SAT. Regent Sures wanted to know what other universities are doing. Regent Park wanted to hear about the impact on STEM (as opposed to general data on graduation rates). Regent Arias was concerned about high schools that don't offer advanced courses and other problems in K-12.

We will get to the rest of the meeting (Part 2 of Sept. 16) when we can. 

Meanwhile, the full meeting of Sept. 16 is at https://archive.org/details/regents-9-16-2026. The specific recording of what is summarized above is at:

https://ia801003.us.archive.org/31/items/regents-9-16-2026/Board%2C%20Academic%20and%20Student%20Affairs%209-16-2026.mp4. (Beginning through 2:55:15) 

Something Added

We have previously blogged about the missing January Regents meeting. But today and tomorrow, the Regents have added a meeting: a retreat. No, you're not invited unless you want to travel to Lake Arrowhead.

Source: https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/meetings/.

Actually, not surprising

Anyone following the controversy over the termination of the woman's equestrian program at UC-Davis, will not be surprised that the matter is heading for the courts. As blog readers will know, the issue was repeatedly raised in public comments at Regents meetings. From the Sacramento Bee:

Months after the University of California, Davis eliminated its women’s varsity equestrian program, 19 former members of the team filed a class action lawsuit... against the UC Board of Regents over sex discrimination. UC Davis, they say, deprived all its female athletes of equal athletic financial aid for at least a decade, amounting to a violation of federal civil rights law...

Full story at https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article317429796.html. 

Something Missing?

The Wayback Machine of the Internet Archive allows views of internet pages as they were at selected dates in the past. At some point after July 10, 2026, the January 2027 Regents meeting that would have been at UCLA disappeared. It went missing. See the July image of the schedule on the left below and the current image on the right. The result is a four-month gap between regularly scheduled meetings rather than the normal two. And no meeting at UCLA until May 2027. Seems like a lot of things are likely to be happening in that interval. At the state level, a new governor will be taking office in January. At the federal level, there may be changes in which party has the majority in the House and/or in the Senate.

Just saying...

Left: https://web.archive.org/web/20260710082420/https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/meetings/

Right: https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/meetings/ 

Tempest in a Teapot? Still Boiling.

Blog readers may recall our earlier post on this matter of Sept. 4. From the Daily Bruin:

Seven current and former UCLA employees alleged in at least 22 separate whistleblower and retaliatory reports that the university’s head of strategic communications fostered a toxic work environment and mismanaged department funds, according to court documents. Mary Osako, UCLA’s vice chancellor for strategic communications since 2019, filed a lawsuit against the UC Board of Regents on Aug. 26 to block the release of an investigative report that she claimed would damage her reputation. The investigation – which was conducted by Grutman Law, P.C. and commissioned by the UC Board of Regents – includes details about Osako’s conduct and workplace relationships, according to court filings. 

UCLA posted in its whistleblower portal Feb. 20 that Grutman’s investigation substantiated multiple allegations brought forth in the whistleblower reports and that they forwarded the findings to Chancellor Julio Frenk’s office, according to court documents. Osako has remained in her position since... Paul Rigali, Osako’s lawyer, said in an emailed statement on behalf of Osako that the accusations are false and that Osako has not faced any disciplinary action. He added that Frenk’s support of Osako “speaks volumes.” ...

During the spring 2024 pro-Palestine encampment, Osako removed a team of strategic communications staff from UCLA’s emergency response center due to personal disagreements with other leaders, Wileen Wong Kromhout, associate director of operations in the strategic communications department, alleged in an April 2025 whistleblower report... “This directly impeded information flow and essential team coordination during a high-risk campus event that turned out to be one of the worst crisis in the university’s history,” Kromhout said...

Full story at https://dailybruin.com/2026/09/19/a-narcissist-ucla-employees-alleged-top-administrator-misused-funds-bullied-staff.

Although the reports leaking out are unclear, one wonders whether what occurred is connected to the campus events of 2023-24.

Watch the Regents Meeting of Sept. 15, 2026

We continue catching up with the Regents meetings of September 14-16. Below is a summary of the meeting of the 15th. 

The meeting began with public comments. Topics included a nurse payroll system problem, opposition to testing for admission, concern about the closing of a UCLA childcare program, a nurse AI scheduling problem, opposition to project labor agreements, support for SB 98 (emergency alerts to ICE on campus), aid to undocumented students, internships for international students, anti-Israel, dropping of Medi-Cal patients at UCLA, Philippine military investments, support for reinstating the SAT for admission, a nurse issue related to floating holidays, and disabled student funding.

After public comments, Chair Anguiano reviewed the upcoming agenda including A-G requirements. President Milliken discussed goals for students including the ability to evaluate evidence. He also referred to UC infrastructure needs. Faculty rep Susannah Scott spoke about admissions issues, shared governance, and political issues facing UC. She also referred to overcrowded classes as enrollments rose faster than faculty. And she took note of awards won by junior faculty.

There was then a presentation by two UC Pulitzer winners and discussion of the UC accountability report. Concerns were expressed about cutbacks by the federal government in research. Regent Makarechian asked why student debt load varied across the UC campuses. There was no clear answer. He also noted that student debt load at the various UCs compared favorably to other public universities.

At a joint meeting of Health Services and Finance and Capital Strategies, a major health facility development at UC-San Diego was approved. There was discussion - but general support - for planning of this development including adverse developments in federal health research funding. UCLA provided an update on the West Valley Medical Center that was acquired for $290 million in 2024 to reduce overcrowding at Reagan Hospital and UCLA Santa Monica Hospital. The plan is for it to service various UCLA clinics in the San Fernando Valley. The acquired facility needs seismic and other upgrading. UCLA has also acquired neighboring office buildings near the acquisition for doctors' offices.

The Health Services Committee reviewed the public payor situation (Medi-Cal, Medicare) in view of coming federal cutbacks. Spokesperson from the various health campuses made individual observations regarding the impacts. There was mention of a possible $1 billion/year cost. Some Medi-Cal participants will lose coverage due to work requirements and the paperwork needed to document work. UC is a major provider of Medi-Cal services in the state.

Finally, the Governance Committee, in a brief open session, approved an executive pay matter and changes in documentation of various UC rules. It was said that the Academic Senate approved the cleanup of the rules since no substantive changes were involved.

As always, we preserve Regents meetings since the Regents have no policy on duration of retention. You can find the September 15 meeting at:

https://archive.org/services/img/uc-regents-9-15-2026. 

Food for Thought - University Investments

From an online/emailed book review in the Journal of Economic Literature of Mission and Margin: A Practical Guide to University Finances:

In the last 40 years many universities have followed the lead of Yale University under its legendary chief investment officer David Swensen and have tried to increase expected returns through judicious risk taking in multiple asset classes. A riskier asset allocation delivers a higher expected return and hence a higher sustainable spending rate, but it worsens the university’s risk management problem. The trade-off should be transparent but can be obscured when universities invest in illiquid assets, such as real estate and private equity, whose valuations are only gradually adjusted to reflect market conditions.

--

Note: Our recent coverage of the Regents' Investments Committee which met on Sept. 14 pointed to the large chunk of illiquid assets in the portfolio. 

Veto

From CalMatters: California college students without legal immigration status still cannot work at public colleges and universities after Gov. Gavin Newsom again vetoed a bill Sunday that would have given them that right. Assembly Bill 713 would have adopted an untested legal theory that argues that a 1986 federal law barring employers from hiring workers in the country without authorization doesn’t apply to state governments. The logic? That 40-year-old law doesn’t mention state governments as a type of employer that cannot hire workers without proper status.

But for the second time in three years, Newsom decided that adopting that theory for California would expose the state’s higher-education system to the wrath of the federal government...

Full story at https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/09/newsom-veto-students-wtihout-legal-status/.

As we have pointed out previously, the bill did not in fact impose a mandate on UC, unlike CSU and the community colleges. It left the ultimate decision to the Regents:

This article shall apply to the University of California, unless it is found to be inapplicable to the university, then, consistent with Section 67400, this article shall apply to the university only to the extent that the Regents of the University of California, by appropriate resolution, make it applicable.

See https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB713/id/3191073.

News accounts tend to omit this fact. Presumably, it was included in the bill because of the constitutional autonomy of the Regents.

Remember what they used to say?

They don't say that anymore:

University of California leverages systemwide expertise to advance purposeful, human-centered uses for AI

UC Office of the President, September 16, 2026

https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/press-room/university-california-leverages-systemwide-expertise-advance-purposeful-human-centered

Under President Milliken’s direction and leadership, the University of California launched the AI Steering Committee to highlight and focus UC research on harnessing AI for the public good.

At the September UC Board of Regents meeting, the UC AI Steering Committee provided its first report to the Board, detailing the progress of its working groups and announcing showcase events involving each UC campus over the next year that will highlight campus AI initiatives and research in the fields identified by those working groups.

Formed by President Milliken in May of 2026, the University of California’s AI steering committee was established to leverage the university’s extraordinary scale of 10 campuses, six academic health centers, and three national labs in navigating AI’s increasingly broad impacts on everyday life and the university’s mission of education, research, patient care, and public service. The Steering Committee created five working groups focused on AI applications and their impact across the following areas: health and longevity; learning and work; discovery and innovation; protecting humans and humanity; and AI for the public good.

“AI is transforming the way we learn, work, and live,” said UC President James B. Milliken. “We hear every day about the increasing potential and the risk of AI. The task force is sharpening our focus on how UC can advance human potential, not diminish it. As a public university with a commitment to California and the nation in its DNA, UC is also ideally positioned to contribute to the broader public discussion on managing the benefits and risks of AI.”

Amid calls for a slowdown of AI development, the University of California's AI Steering Committee informed the Board of Regents today of its work in establishing a different path for AI, one of responsible public adoption for the public good. 

The report began by addressing the risks of unconsidered AI adoption, including security breaches, fragmented regulation, and increased energy and utility consumption. It established that UC was among the first in the country to adopt a formal set of AI Principles, and the first university to address artificial intelligence explicitly in a Digital Risk Appetite statement, a formal declaration of how much technology risk the institution will accept, and where.

AI Steering Committee Co-Chair Van Williams highlighted the need to responsibly govern AI capacity for UC and detailed existing initiatives to broaden access to AI tools for researchers, employees, and students while promoting ethical and responsible use. These include research awards and computing credits from Amazon and Google, the latter of which has granted more than $32.7 million across 61 funded projects, spanning AI safety and trust research, frontier research, workforce development, and public impact applications at the campuses. 

The Steering Committee is seeking coordinated, systemwide approaches with AI developers and cloud providers to ensure UC is not reliant on a single vendor. The committee is also exploring the creation of a systemwide learning platform to support the responsible adoption of AI tools and use of resources. 

Sharing perspectives in cybersecurity and in education were two of the steering committee’s working group leaders who presented alongside Williams: Giovanni Vigna, distinguished professor in the Department of Computer Science at UC Santa Barbara, head of the working group on protecting humans and humanity, and Rita Raley, professor of English at UC Santa Barbara, who leads the working group on AI for learning and work.

Professor Vigna, who also directs the UC Santa Barbara-based, National Science Foundation-funded Institute for Agent-based Cyber Threat Intelligence and Operation (ACTION), described the sophistication of AI agents in exploiting security flaws, a source of increasing concern. “There is hope,” he said. “We need to make an investment in educating people in AI tools and create coordination between all the stakeholders so that threat intelligence between different parts of critical infrastructure can be shared at a scale and pace that is required to make progress in protecting our networks.”

Professor Raley, co-director of the new Center for the Humanities and Machine Learning (HUML) at UC Santa Barbara, described a course she developed, “Critical Artificial Intelligence,” and the scope of her working group, which will provide systemwide recommendations on what each student needs to know about AI. “The University will continue to certify students on the basis of disciplinary knowledge attained. But, no less important, we must now give students the critical judgment to ask what this technology is, who needs to be accountable for it, how to use it, when to refuse it — and what it could be instead.”

Among the examples highlighted by co-chair Williams of AI’s potential for public good was the work done at UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco to restore speech back to a patient named Ann, who had lost her speech to a brainstem stroke nearly two decades ago. A joint UC team built a brain-computer interface to convert her attempted speech into audible, natural-sounding words in approximately a second. 

“The technology will keep getting more capable whether or not any of us are ready for it,” Steering Committee Co-Chair Van Williams said. “How it gets used is still a choice. The university that helped give Ann her voice back intends to keep making that choice deliberately, in public, and for the public.” 

Watch the Regents Meeting of September 14, 2026

We will catch up with the Regents as time permits. As blog readers will know, their meetings were shifted to a Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday schedule this week. Usually, regular meetings of the Regents do not occur on Mondays.

The Monday meeting began at 3 pm in the UCLA Luskin Hotel and Conference Center with public comments. Topics included the announced closure of a childcare center at UCLA, a complaint that the ACT requires students to sign an unfair contract, accommodations for disabled students, UCLA Health's discontinuation of a contract providing coverage to Medi-Cal patients, calls to protect international students, and a thank you for Chancellor Frenk's expression of concern about a law school conference related to the 25th anniversay of 9-11.

After public comments, the meeting of the Investments Committee began. Chair Makarechian - who has mainly attended Regents meetings by Zoom after a major accident - appeared in person and introduced a student observer. CFO Bachhar reviewed investment returns during the 2025-26 fiscal year and beyond, which were strong. In particular, on a market basis, the pension became fully funded due to those returns. Data presented indicated that the portfolio was 63.3% in stocks, 14.5% in bonds, 1% in cash, and 21.2% in private assets (private equity, real estate, other real assets, and private credit). It might be noted that "private" means that the assets' value is more subjective than stocks, bonds, and cash which have regular objective market prices.

The Committee had Stephen Schwarzman of Blackstone as a guest speaker via Zoom. Among other things, he echoed the general public discussion about AI being a Big Deal including - he noted - affecting the demand for electricity and thus utilities. 

Because Blackstone was the parent of the BREIT that UC bailed out to the tune of $4.5 billion, there was a defense by Bachhar of that investment. I won't go through all the controversy about BREIT but he emphasized that UC was getting an 11.25% return as promised. The return itself was not the controversial element. What was controversial was that it was objectively a risky investment that Bachhar made entirely on his own initiative. 

Moreover, his explanation now indicates that the 11.25% was somehow being maintained by drawing down "collateral." Exactly what that means is not clear. But let's assume that in the end, the investment pays off as promised. That outcome does not mean it was an advisable investment given the circumstances at the time. If the CFO took a big chunk of UC assets and bet on a horse, we would not say that decision was appropriate even if the horse came in. As our numerous blog posts at the time pointed out, there was very little discussion of the financial aspect of the bailout at the Investments Committee - although presumably it is the job of that Committee to ask questions about risk and return.

===

As always, we preserve recordings of Regents meetings on the Internet Archive since the Regents have no policy on retention. Their YouTube recordings are unlisted, i.e., not searchable by the public. You can see the Sept. 14 recording at:

https://archive.org/details/regents-investments-committee-9-14-2026. 

Does the Barnum Rule Still Apply - Part 2

From the Daily Bruin: Dozens of physicians protested on campus at noon Tuesday to denounce the termination of a Medi-Cal contract that allowed low-income patients to access UCLA Health services. Nine thousand patients lost access to UCLA Health providers after it did not renew its contract with Health Care LA, a non-profit group of doctors, on June 30... The Committee of Interns and Residents, a local affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, and Doctors United organized the protest, which coincided with a UC Board of Regents meeting, outside the Meyer and Renee Luskin Conference Center...

Full story at https://dailybruin.com/2026/09/15/ucla-physicians-protest-end-of-contract-providing-free-care-for-low-income-patients.

Note: Absent other information, this appears to be a contract dispute between an outside healthcare provider* and UCLA Health. It's unclear from what has appeared in the news whether the termination is in some sense the "final" outcome or whether - as in other types of negotiations - the external publicity is being used as a negotiating tactic in a dispute that remain unresolved, but is ongoing.

Exactly what the contractual relationship with UCLA Health consisted of before the June 30 expiration is unclear. Yours truly used the Wayback Machine of the Internet Archive to look for a reference to UCLA before that date. He found one for the previous June (2025) that lists contracts with various insurers but does not mention UCLA:

https://web.archive.org/web/20250613192011/https://healthcarela.org/our-health-plans

So it remains unclear what the relationship with UCLA was, even apart from the (unknown) monetary terms of the agreement.

He also used the Wayback Machine to look at hospitals that had contracts with Health Care LA as of Nov. 2025:

https://web.archive.org/web/20251118194049/https://healthcarela.org/contracted-hospitals

There is no listing of UCLA there, although other hospitals are listed. (Olive View-UCLA Medical Center was listed for "limited scope" - whatever that means. But it continues to be listed beyond June 30, 2026.)

===

*https://healthcarela.org/

Afterwords

Outgoing systemwide Academic Senate Chair Ahmet Palazoglu wrote a long letter to UC President Milliken reflecting on shared governance.* It's too long to reproduce but the key points were listing areas in which there was lack of consultation. These included discontinuation of a fellowship program, creation of a program at two campuses which augment degrees with a paid internship, creation of a program to assist junior faculty which replaced a diversity program, and enhancement of a language program. 

Prof. Palazoglu then goes on to highlight two programs that, he said, developed without consultation and which directly affect the pay and working conditions of faculty. I will reproduce that segment:

Both the Total Remuneration Study (Deloitte) and the Systemwide Assessment of Online Education (Noodle/Huron) could have benefited from early Senate engagement. Both studies were developed and contracted without meaningful early consultation with Senate faculty with relevant expertise. When faculty were eventually given an opportunity to review the work, significant methodological and design concerns became apparent, but only after the scopes of work had been established and contracts executed. In both cases, earlier engagement with faculty experts would not simply have increased faculty confidence in these studies; it could have materially improved their design, methodology, and usefulness to the University.

The two programs involved bringing in outside consultants to do evaluations. "Total Remuneration" involves assessing the value of noncash benefits such as pensions and health care. Longstanding methodology has involved looking just at cash pay in comparison with other universities. The total remuneration approach looks at wider definition of compensation. Note that the direct cost of a benefit is not the same as its value to the recipient. To take an example, there was a long period in which no contributions were made to the pension plan because it was deemed overfunded. But clearly, having a pension during that period was not seen by pension participants as having no value. As regards online education, there are issues of cost, convenience, and assessment of actual learning.

Prof. Palazoglu notes issues related to litigation with the feds which are typically discussed at Regents meetings behind closed doors. He acknowledges a need for nonpublic discussion, and it is somewhat unclear what he proposes. He also points to the (huge) health enterprise that is growing somewhat autonomously on campuses with such activities and for which shared governance is "far less developed." Again, exactly how that issue should be addressed is unclear.

===

*https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/reports/senate-chair-to-president-state-of-shared-governanace-report-9-10-26.docx.pdf.

What's Military?

The Regents in their current set of meetings will hear a review of the activities of Lawrence Livermore National Lab, run by UC:

https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/sept26/n1.pdf.

Edward Teller, the "father of the H-Bomb," was a co-founder of LLNL. And, of course, UC also has a management role in Los Alamos. Both units are outgrowths of the WW2 Manhattan Project. Although there have been calls to divest from "military" enterprises, yours truly hasn't heard any recent calls to shed either or both of these UC involvements.* One might think that nuclear weapons are inherently "military." Just an observation...

====

*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2026/03/watch-regents-meeting-of-march-17-2026.html. 

More on Admissions

As the Regents prepare to discuss A-G admissions requirements, this summary of the requirements from the San Francisco Chronicle may be helpful:

....UC requires a more rigorous set of specific classes in history and science than the California State University system does to satisfy these requirements. UC also has slightly stricter rules than CSU, including fewer ways to fix course failures or omissions, and requiring more of those earlier poor grades to be submitted. UC also lets students submit more honors points.

...Two groups of Californians are automatically eligible for admission — though not necessarily to the UC campus of their choice:

• Students who score in the top 9% at their high school in UC-approved courses during junior and senior year.   
• Students who score in the top 12.5% of the state’s high school graduates.

...Most freshman applicants complete far more than the minimum of 15 A to G courses required to qualify for UC admission. Here is a look at the share of applicants admitted in 2025 compared with how many A to G classes they took: 

• 15 to 19: 5% of applicants. Admitted: 3%
• 20 to 24: 38% of applicants. Admitted: 27%
• At least 25: 58% of applicants. Admitted: 43%

...UC has not offered specifics about what changes, if any, could come from the [A-G] review. Among the possibilities are:

• Changes to the subject areas themselves.
• Changes to the number of required courses in each subject.
• Recommendations for going beyond the minimum requirements.

...The earliest the regents could consider any recommended changes would be in the second half of 2027. Even if they agreed to make changes, the new rules could take time to kick in...

Full story at https://www.sfchronicle.com/college-admissions/article/uc-a-g-requirements-review-22368092.php.

Repeat from Sept. 20, 2022: Background About Admissions as the Regents Discuss the Topic

A new podcast called Gatecrashers is being unveiled about college admissions. At this posting, there are so far episodes about the history of such admissions at Columbia, Princeton, and Dartmouth - with more to come.* From the Gatecrashers description:

What topic is more controversial, sensational, and endlessly captivating than college admissions? It’s a billion-dollar industry. It sends celebrities to jail. The Supreme Court is weighing in on who gets in and why. We might think we have read all there is to read on the issue, and heard all there is to hear. But if you want to understand everything that’s going on with college admissions today—not just the battles over diversity, but the very existence of college applications, the essays and interviews and standardized tests—you have to look at the first group that tried to diversify elite schools. You have to look at the Jews. Gatecrashers, an 8-part podcast series launching September thirteenth, twenty twenty-two, tells the story of how Jews fought for acceptance at elite schools, and how the Jewish experience in the Ivy League shaped American higher education, and shaped America at large.

The Columbia episode, edited to remove extraneous announcements, follows and can be heard - along with the description above - at the link below:

https://ia601402.us.archive.org/25/items/big-ten/columia%20admissions.mp3

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*The full set of the Gatecrashers podcasts can be heard at:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gatecrashers/id1640617083.

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Originally at:

https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/09/admissions-history-you-didnt-know-about.html.

Flock

From the Daily Californian: Resistance to UC Berkeley’s employment of controversial surveillance technology company Flock Security is intensifying as campus faces growing criticism and a lawsuit over records related to its data-sharing practices. The UC Board of Regents is facing a lawsuit over UC Berkeley’s alleged failure to disclose certain public records relating to UCPD’s automated license plate reader system. At the same time, student organizers have begun calling for campus to DeFlock, or end its contract with Flock. The petition was filed Friday, Aug. 28 in the Superior Court of Alameda County by Daniel Negrete, director of The Ellis Collective, a student-led research group under the Students’ Civil Liberties Union...

Campus spokesperson Dan Mogulof said UC Berkeley had received the suit. He said in an email that campus does not generally comment on litigation but that “the records have been released.” ... Mogulof told The Daily Californian in May that UC Berkeley does not permit sharing of ALPR data for immigration enforcement purposes and that it does not share data with federal agencies. According to Mogulof, campus’s Flock system has been used in more than 100 investigations to generate leads, identify suspects and make arrests. He also noted that Flock cameras have been “instrumental” in closing several “significant” felony investigations.

According to Negrete, a separate lawsuit he filed over UC Riverside’s alleged failure to furnish similar public records remains ongoing...

Full story at https://www.dailycal.org/news/campus/uc-berkeley-faces-lawsuit-over-flock-records-as-surveillance-controversy-grows/article_086da292-7cee-43c3-b12e-50f556c6d21b.html. 

New Interim Provost

From UCOP:

University of California President James B. Milliken today announced the appointment of Ralph J. Hexter as systemwide interim provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs, effective September 1, 2026. Hexter will serve in the role until the University’s next permanent provost is appointed. 

“Ralph is an accomplished scholar and experienced academic leader who understands the University of California and shares our commitment to its public mission,” Milliken said. “His sound judgment, collaborative approach, and breadth of experience as a faculty member, dean, provost, chancellor and college president will serve UC exceptionally well. I am grateful that he has agreed to return to help lead the University’s academic mission during this important period.” 

As interim provost, Hexter will work closely with campus leaders, the Academic Senate, Regents, UCOP leaders, and other partners to advance the University’s academic mission...

Full news release at https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/press-room/ralph-j-hexter-appointed-interim-provost-university-california.

Presumably, the new provost will play some role at the upcoming September Regents meetings.

More information at https://complit.ucdavis.edu/people/ralph-hexter.

Less than meets the eye - Part 2

Undoubtedly, there will be public comment on AB 713 now on the governor's desk for signature or veto at the September Regents meeting (unless he vetoes it before the meeting). As we have noted previously (see Aug. 13 on this blog), the bill actually leaves the decision on whether UC can hire undocumented students to the Regents. It is a mandate for CSU and the community colleges but permissive for UC. 

From CalMatters: Is this the year that Gov. Gavin Newsom allows students without legal status to legally work at California’s public colleges and universities? A state bill with wide support from Democrats but opposed by Republicans seeks to do just that by adopting an untested legal theory that argues a 1980s federal law banning employment for people without legal status doesn’t apply to state agencies. But university leaders and Newsom worry that acting on the theory could put the state on another collision course with the Trump administration.

The bill easily cleared the Legislature Friday, including a yes vote from one Republican. The bill now heads to Newsom’s desk. Assembly Bill 713 by Assemblymember José Luis Solache, a Democrat from Lakewood, is seemingly straightforward: The University of California, California State University and community colleges cannot disqualify students without legal status from campus employment. If it becomes law, it would kick in Jan. 6...

Full story at https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2026/08/students-without-legal-status-california/.

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Bill at https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB713/id/3191073. "This article shall apply to the University of California, unless it is found to be inapplicable to the university, then, consistent with Section 67400, this article shall apply to the university only to the extent that the Regents of the University of California, by appropriate resolution, make it applicable."