UC Regents recap – Nov. 16

Board

• Judith Gutierrez, UC Student Association president, said UCSA released a report that featured the stories of 13 undocumented students.
• Gutierrez added UCSA is releasing a regents report card that assigns regents with grades on their visibility on campuses and voting stances. She added she hopes this will establish communication between UCSA and regents, and that regents will consider student perspectives on issues before voting. Gutierrez said regents should ban Regent Norm Pattiz from UC campuses and remove him from the chair position of any committee.
• The board approved items passed by the Financial and Capital Strategies Committee, the Governance and Compensation Committee and National Laboratories Subcommittee and accepted the report of the health committee.
• Regent Sherry Lansing said UCLA Health could potentially work with two Chinese companies to develop two hospitals in Guangzhou, China. She said her committee discussed its potential on the UCLA brand and financial risk but has not made a decision yet.
• Lansing said UC campuses have received more than $2 billion in philanthropy and there have been a lot of first-time donors.
• Mark Baldassare and Hans Johnson from the Public Policy Institute of California Higher Education Center said a statewide survey showed 80 percent of California thinks the state’s higher education system is important to the state’s economic vitality.
• Baldassare added 63 percent of California adults said they think 2018 gubernatorial candidates’ positions on higher education are very important.
• Johnson said economic and demographic projections show that by 2030 the demand for a job requiring a bachelor’s degree or more would exceed the supply.
• Johnson added California has the highest share of older adults in the country who have completed a bachelor’s degree but added California ranks near the bottom for percentage of younger adults with bachelor’s degrees.
• Regent Monica Lansing said 33 percent of tuition goes back to student aid and said she thinks many individuals do not know that 56 percent of students do not pay tuition.

Special Meeting

• Regents Chair George Kieffer admonished UC President Janet Napolitano for approving a plan that coordinated survey responses for a state audit of her office. The board also released results of an investigation on after the state auditor said UCOP tampered with survey results.
• Napolitano said she regretted her actions and has taken steps to ensure it does not happen again.