Community briefs

Monday, November 23, 1998

Community briefs

Regents approve

1999-2000 budget

Friday, the UC Board of Regents approved their budget for
1999-2000, which will provide for enrollment growth of 4,000
students, expand the university’s investment in technology and
maintain competitive salaries.

If passed by the state legislature in January, the operating
budget plan adopted by the Regents will mean a 5.7 percent increase
in UC’s state-funded budget over 1998-99, bringing the total budget
to $2.7 billion.

Final university spending decisions for 1999-2000 will not be
made until the governor and Legislature complete the annual state
budget process.

"This budget details the funding required for the university to
meet its commitments to the people of California," said UC
President Richard Atkinson.

"The budget reflects what is needed to maintain the quality of
our research and instructional programs, to offer a space to all
eligible California high school graduates, and to provide the
classes that students need to graduate in a timely fashion," he
said.

Mandatory system-wide student fees for resident undergraduates
will remain level under the budget plan, consistent with
legislation approved last year.

The 4,000 additional students planned for in the budget include
800 additional students in engineering and computer science –
fields that UC has targeted for enrollment growth to address state
work-force needs.

It also includes 200 students in a new UC program that will
allow students to earn a teaching credential over two summers of
study.

A $210 million capital budget – entirely financed by the passage
of Proposition 1A – was also approved during the board’s meeting in
Covel Commons.

Among the 22 facilities-projects funded in the capital budget is
a health-sciences laboratory building at UCLA to replace facilities
damaged in the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Of the 22 budgeted
facilities projects, 10 address seismic and life-safety needs.

UC Irvine criminology department ranks fifth

UC Irvine’s Department of Criminology, Law and Society is ranked
fifth among the nation’s top criminology and criminal justice
doctoral programs in a study published in the Fall 1998 Journal of
Criminal Justice Education.

The UCI program was compared with criminology and criminal
justice programs at 20 U.S. universities registered with the
American Association of Doctoral Programs in Criminal Justice and
Criminology.

The programs were ranked according to the number of times
faculty publications were cited in six major American criminology
and criminal justice journals, as well as the average number of
publications per faculty member.

UCI professor Joan Petersilia also received a fifth-place
ranking among the criminology and criminal justice faculty members
most frequently cited in the journals studied. Her current research
focuses on the criminal justice system’s treatment of people with
developmental disabilities.

"We are very pleased that the quality of UCI’s Department of
Criminology, Law and Society is receiving national recognition in a
scholarly journal," said Henry Pontell, chair of the department in
UCI’s School of Social Ecology.

The ranking is all the more significant for its comparison of
UCI’s criminology, law and society department with more narrowly
focused programs in criminology and criminal justice, Pontell
emphasized.

"Ours is the only criminology, law and society program in the
country with a broad-based interdisciplinary program that looks at
policy, law and society as well as criminology and criminal
justice," he said.

Compiled from Daily Bruin staff reports

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