UC regents to discuss funding, campus climate at meeting

The University of California Board of Regents will meet on Wednesday and Thursday for its bimonthly meeting at UC San Francisco’s Mission Bay campus. The board oversees the UC and decides how to spend its money, handles lawsuits for the University, sets compensation for high-level employees, sets tuition and performs other tasks.

This week, the board’s agenda will focus on campus climate, University audits and capital project funding, among other issues. Regents meetings are open to the public.

The UC Board of Regents will announce findings from the UC-wide campus climate survey the University launched in October 2012. The survey gathered data about how members of the UC identify themselves, what their campus experiences are like, and how campus climate affects their learning and work. It is the University’s first-ever campus climate survey. The results were supposed to come out in summer and fall of last year, but were delayed to this spring because they took longer than officials had expected.
It will also detail the UC system’s progress in implementing recommendations from the Robinson-Edley report, commissioned after the UC Davis pepper spray incident, in which campus police pepper sprayed nonviolent protesters. A year and a half has passed since the official report was issued, recommending minimized use of force, increased communication between administrators, police and protesters, and more responsibility for administrators to manage protests on campus, among other things.
The board will approve further steps to establish the UC’s future Thirty-Meter Telescope, a $1.21 billion project to be constructed on the Big Island in Hawaii. The project has been in the works since 2003 and now includes international partners from Japan, the People’s Republic of China, India and Canada. The new observatory is expected to open for operation in 2022.
Regents will give an update on the UC’s medical centers, which are expected to face decreases in revenue in the near future due to anticipated decreases in Medicaid and Medi-Cal and the expiration of certain commercial contracts. The regents will discuss ways to reduce UC Health’s expenses. The medical centers currently bring in $7.5 billion in revenue annually.
The board will also approve changes to its fundraising policy to allow campuses to carry out larger fundraising campaigns without needing regents’ approval. The changes would only require regents to approve the implementation of fundraising campaigns with a goal of over $250 million, instead of the current $50 million.
The regents will give an update on the UC’s 2014-2015 budget. Under Gov. Jerry Brown’s current proposed budget, the UC would have no tuition increase for 2014-2015 and would receive a $142 million increase. Brown will release a May revise of his proposed budget for the state and the UC in two months, and the state legislature is expected to finalize a 2014-2015 state budget in June.