Apples to Apples

UC is planning to embark on a "total remuneration" study of faculty pay, i.e., a study that compares the total value of salary and benefits with those of other universities. While salary comparisons are relatively easy, valuing the various benefits that are offered is more complicated. The Academic Senate is insisting that the survey be done using the same methodology as an earlier study done ten years ago, an apples-to-apples approach.

 ...The Senate believes that it is critical for the 2024 results for faculty be compared directly with the 2014 results to determine precisely how UC’s total remuneration competitiveness was affected by adopting the 2016 Retirement Tier and its PEPRA cap. The only way that a valid comparison can be made is to replicate the methodology used in the 2014 study. To fail to do so would confound the effects of retirement plan changes with changes in study methods, likely yielding erroneous estimates of the effect of retirement plan changes on UC’s competitiveness. The Senate will not accept the results of a confounded study.

Second, because the recruitment of outstanding faculty is more of a campus-based process than a systemwide process, the Senate has asked for a breakdown of total remuneration by campus. Divisional Senates want to know how their total remuneration has changed over the past ten years, not only relative to external peers, but also to other UC campuses. Again, no such valid comparisons can be made unless the methodology for the 2024 study mirrors the 2014 study, where data for each UC employee occupies a row of a spreadsheet...

Full statement at https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/reports/js-cl-total-remuneration-study-2024.pdf.

The sentence saying the Senate won't accept a study with changed methodology is pretty definitive. If anyone was planning a change, all we can say is how do you like them apples?

Or direct to https://www.tiktok.com/@englishmakesnosense/video/7095855518572399915.

The Regents are meeting Friday

The Regents are now scheduled for a closed-door meeting about you-know-what.

Source: https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/meetings/agendas/april262024.html. 

Mysterian - Part 2

We recently posted about issues people were having with enrolling or staying enrolled with Experian, the credit rating service.* A blog reader emailed me with concerns about the more general issue of being enrolled with Experian. My response:

The university has made you eligible to enroll with Experian for free. It hasn't enrolled you. That is your choice. So if you don't want to enroll, you don't have to. Normally, people who choose to enroll with Experian pay for the service. If you choose to enroll, you get it free - presumably at the university's expense. It is true that when you enroll, you have to give personal information such as your Social Security number. But Experian already has that information. Anyone who has ever gotten a credit card, mortgage, etc., is already recorded at Experian and the other credit rating companies. So, giving the information when you enroll is essentially an ID check to see if you are really who you say you are. 

What I would suggest doing, whether you enroll or not, is to freeze your credit. You don't need to enroll to freeze your credit. Thanks to the various data breaches that have occurred at UC and elsewhere, bad actors already have your information. Freezing your credit will make identity theft less likely. Freezing your credit won't 100% stop all forms of fraud, but it will help. The downside of freezing your credit is that if you need to do something such as obtain a new credit card, you have to unfreeze temporarily, which can be a nuisance. I personally have frozen my credit - long before the more recent breaches - and have enrolled with Experian.

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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2024/04/mysterian.html.

New Title IX Regs

New tentative regulations regarding Title IX (sexual harassment and assault) are now out. From Higher Ed Dive: 

The U.S. Department of Education on Friday issued its long-awaited Title IX rule, which for the first time enshrines protections for LGBTQI+ students and employees, as well as pregnant students and employees, under the civil rights law that prevents sex-based discrimination in federally funded education programs... 

Among other changes, the new rule defines sex-based harassment as including harassment based on sex stereotypes, sex characteristics, pregnancy and related conditions, and gender identity and sexual orientation. It cements federal protections for LGTBQI+ students and employees that have swung between administrations for over a decade.

The regulations also broaden the conditions triggering Title IX protections by changing the definition of sex-based harassment from conduct that is “severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive,” to either “severe or pervasive” conduct that must be considered both “subjectively and objectively offensive.” 

The new regulations also:

• Require that schools assume an accused student is innocent at the outset of an investigation.
• Give schools the ability to offer an informal resolution process, except in cases of student allegations against employees. 
• Require schools to provide breastfeeding rooms for students and employees.
• Protect students and employees with medical conditions related to, or who are recovering from, termination of pregnancy. 
• Revive the single-investigator model, which allows an individual to serve as both the case decision-maker and Title IX investigator.
• Provide more discretion to schools and colleges to tailor Title IX policies based on their size, age of students, and administrative structures. 
• Make questioning at live hearings optional for colleges and universities.
• Have institutions largely rely on the “preponderance of the evidence” standard often used in civil lawsuits, making optional the “clear and convincing” standard.
• Change the definitions and requirements of a complaint to allow oral requests and not require signatures.
• Slightly narrow the previously widened pool of employees who must notify the Title IX coordinator of discriminatory conduct to excludeconfidential employees, such as guidance counselors or sexual assault response center staff.
• Provide postsecondary institutions flexibility to set their own reasonable time frames to allow parties to review and respond to evidence.
• Removes written notice requirements in elementary and secondary schools...

Source: https://www.highereddive.com/news/education-department-final-title-ix-rule-2024-2022-lgbtq-protections/713684/.

As we have noted before, decisions under Title IX get in trouble with the outside courts when they seem to depart from due process as courts understand the concept. Combining the investigator and decision maker is something that could trigger such concerns. Not having questioning at live hearings could be another. As we have pointed out, courts have a long history of deferring to grievance arbitration as long found in union-management settings including in higher ed because it is seen as providing reasonable due process. Emulating that system, which features decisions by an outside neutral would best insulate Title IX cases from external reversal.

Get Together

From the Bruin: Hillel at UCLA hosted its first interfaith Passover Seder [last] Monday, bringing together students and administrators to build connections across campus. The celebration – jointly hosted by the Interfaith Living Learning Community and Dialogue Across Differences at UCLA – featured readings, Jewish prayers and teaching about Passover traditions. Representatives of local elected officials and university administrators attended the seder, including Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Monroe Gordon Jr. and Dean of Students Jasmine JS Rush...

The seder was also sponsored by the University Religious Conference at UCLA and the Council of Chaplains at UCLA. The event was designed to include reflections from students who were not from Jewish backgrounds, said David Myers, the Sady and Ludwig Kahn Chair in Jewish History and an organizer of the event. The event featured readings by student leaders taken from the writings of a Catholic priest and about Martin Luther King Jr...

Religious ceremonies can unify different communities of faith because of the similarities of practice between different religious traditions, including historical similarities between Passover and Easter celebrations, said Myers, who also leads Dialogue Across Difference at UCLA – an initiative dedicated to discussing difficult issues without widening tensions...

Overall, Myers said the event aimed to allow people to come together at a difficult time for the campus community. “Many people feel deeply passionate about what is going on, and we want to create an opportunity and space for people who come from different places to join together in expressing and manifesting hope and dedicating ourselves to activity and action to advance the cause of freedom and redemption,” he said.

Full story at https://dailybruin.com/2024/04/17/hillel-at-ucla-hosts-first-interfaith-passover-seder-brings-students-together.

A buried lede at UC-Berkeley

Sometimes, you have to read between the lines of an article. And sometimes, you can read the lines directly but they are buried in a larger story. 

In a story in the Daily Cal entitled "Students, ASUC officials grill chancellor on controversial campus speaker, Justice4Ivonne" which deals with a meeting of students and student representatives with outgoing Chancellor Christ, we read, "Christ attended the meeting over Zoom after going back on her decision to come in person, citing safety concerns."* What does that statement tell you about the campus climate at Berkeley, apart from anything else reported in the article? 

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*https://www.dailycal.org/news/campus/asuc/students-asuc-officials-grill-chancellor-on-controversial-campus-speaker-justice4ivonne/article_ee1ca4c6-fe13-11ee-b761-dfc432a6753c.html.

Too Much Mom and Apple Pie?

There is currently a questionnaire being circulated about a revision or update of "True Bruin Values." The problem is that it seems unrelated to recent issues on campus and provides a long list of alternative "values" - all of which are positive and many of which overlap. You can choose among such things as "boldness" and/or "courage." The survey seems to be largely a Mom-and-Apple-Pie PR exercise.

According to the documentation, the purpose of the survey is to:

• create an active source of inspiration and accountability for the UCLA community;
• unite staff, faculty and students with a shared sense of purpose; 
• strengthen and cultivate diverse perspectives; and
• create values that are not just words, but principles that drive the way people navigate UCLA and collaborate with one another.

Hard to see how the survey will do any of these things.