Nathaniel Solley/Staff

About a dozen protesters continue to occupy the steps and facade of the Berkeley post office despite ongoing requests from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service to move off of the post office’s property.

Protesters have been occupying the space for nearly two weeks in a last-ditch effort to prevent the sale of the post office to private developers. The investigators, federal agents dedicated to enforcing Postal Service regulation, warned protesters verbally and provided them with the service’s rules governing conduct on Postal Service property on Friday. Agents have not attempted to forcefully remove the protesters but continue to monitor the scene.

Currently, the protest is being held by four or five activists handing out pamphlets and talking to passers-by as well as a few loiterers who say they will remain despite the threat of law enforcement.

“They’ve threatened to remove us, but we’re still holding our positions and staying there around the clock,” said Mike Wilson of Strike Debt Bay Area, an advocacy group that is organizing the protest.

Augustine Ruiz, a regional Postal Service spokesperson, said that he was concerned that the protest was impeding customers from entering and exiting the facility safely and expressed further concern regarding reported vandalism. Ruiz said that the Postal Service would enforce safety regulation but not stop the protest itself.

“There’s nothing wrong with public congregation, and there’s nothing wrong with what they’re doing, as long as they’re doing it peacefully,” Ruiz said. “We’re not arguing the fact that they have a right to do what they’re doing — we’re saying there’s a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it.”

William Rogers, acting city manager for the city of Berkeley, wrote in a memo on Saturday that Berkeley Police Department will not intervene unless a threat to public safety arises during enforcement action by Postal Service police.

A rally is planned for Saturday, when protesters will march between FedEx, UPS and UC Berkeley’s Blum Center, demonstrating against companies and individuals who are involved in the sale. Protesters cite FedEx and UPS as prospective buyers and allege that Richard Blum — who is chair of the board of CBRE, the corporate real estate company brokering the sale — could make a personal profit if the post office is sold.

Contact Simon Greenhill at sgreenhill@dailycal.org and follow him on Twitter @simondgreenhill.

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Martha Olney/Courtesy

UC Berkeley economics professor Martha Olney and her wife have been together for 30 years. They were married in 1992 at a religious ceremony and had a legal wedding in 2008.

But during those years, Olney has been unable to extend her UC health benefits to her wife, Esther Hargis, a retired reverend, without paying taxes on the cost of those benefits. The couple also could not pay taxes without facing the logistical and financial issues of filing separately.

Now, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s rejection of the Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8 in June, the university is beginning to implement changes, including programming changes to its payroll and human resources systems that will benefit UC employees and retirees in same-sex marriages.

Previously, Olney and other UC employees in same-sex domestic partnerships were forced to pay federal imputed income taxes for health benefits given to their partners through UC health care plans. In addition, Olney said she faced a government penalty if she let her wife, who is over the age of 65 and eligible for Medicare, use UC health benefits.

Filing tax returns was also much more difficult for domestic partners. Olney reported that she and her wife had to file separate returns for their own incomes and then combine the two into a joint return, forcing them to file nearly three times as much paperwork as a heterosexual couple would have to.

“Our taxes will now be immeasurably easier to complete,” Olney said in an email. “A weekend rather than a full spring break of effort.”

The university will save money as a result of the new benefits system. Previously, it had to pay taxes on 50 percent of employees’ imputed income under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act. Dianne Klein, a UC spokesperson, said that about 2,700 UC employees paid taxes on imputed income last year.

A percentage of those people have same-sex spouses, Klein said, and will no longer have to pay taxes on imputed income once they are moved over to the plan for married couples. The system should be able to accommodate married same-sex couples by mid-September — a delay that has frustrated some employees, including Olney, who said that UC forms had not been updated quickly enough to reflect the rulings.

“I don’t think it’s deliberately discriminatory, but I do think it’s annoying and unnecessary, and there’s no good excuse for it,” she said.

Olney emphasizes the importance of being “just as legally married as any other person on the street” over the benefit of having to spend less time and money on taxes.

“There is the intangible: We are now simply ‘married,’” Olney said. “No asterisk. No caveat. No ‘same-sex’ adjective. Just married. We hold hands in public more, something we used to reserve for Provincetown, the Castro and Gay Pride.”

Most significant, she said, is the newfound equality for a younger generation that will not experience the same tax and benefit conundra that she and her wife have faced.

“A 9-year-old boy who’s realizing he’s gay doesn’t have to have this (realization), ‘Oh, I’ll never be able to get married, and I’ll never have kids,’” Olney said. “Instead, it’s ‘Oh, when I get married, it’ll be two guys instead of a guy and a gal.’”

Contact Simon Greenhill at sgreenhill@dailycal.org and follow him on Twitter @simondgreenhill.

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Starting in November, academic papers published by UC researchers will be available for free through eScholarship, a UC scholarly publishing service.

The new policy, adopted on July 24, will cover 8,000 UC faculty members at all UC campuses and will facilitate the publication of up to 40,000 papers each year. Papers will still be published in scholarly journals but must be made available for free through eScholarship.

“(The) council’s intent is to make these articles widely — and freely — available in order to advance research everywhere,” said Robert Powell, chair of the Academic Council, in a press release Friday.

Faculty members, however, will also be given the choice to delay or opt out of the policy on a per-article basis.

The decision is part of a broader academic movement to provide open access to publications across the country, particularly for publicly funded research.

The University of California has openly supported AB 609, a California assembly bill that would require publicly funded research institutions to make their research available freely online.

“Scholars at the University of California have a vested interest in ensuring that their work reaches the widest possible audience, including members of the public whose tax dollars support the University’s research,” the university said in a statement regarding the bill. “This increasing restriction on the dissemination of research results runs counter to the spirit in which UC faculty, researchers and students undertake their scholarly activity.”

The Obama administration mandated in February that federally funded research be made publicly available within a year of publication.

As of May, the university spent about $30 million annually on access to 7,500 academic journals, according to UC officials.

Contact Alison Fu at afu@dailycal.org.

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The study, published last week by a group of four researchers, including two from the Haas School of Business, showed that admissions officers and hiring managers are prone to correspondence bias — ignoring situational context and judging applicants on the same criteria despite differing circumstances.

The study comprised four parts and examined job-hiring decisions and graduate school acceptances in a theoretical experiment and analyzed admissions data from 30,000 applicants at four selective MBA programs.

It found that students who attended schools where grades were inflated were up to 31 percent more likely to be admitted to MBA programs compared to students of similar aptitude at schools where GPAs were not inflated.

“We found that decision-makers routinely fail to take into account the influence of the situation on candidates’ performance, whether that’s GPA or job opportunities,” said Samuel Swift, one of the study’s co-authors and a Haas postdoctoral fellow.

Among other institutions of similar prestige, UC Berkeley reportedly has one of the most stringent grading policies, enforcing GPA caps in its most competitive schools and majors. Such caps may put students at a disadvantage in comparison to similarly qualified students from other institutions where average GPA is higher, according to Don Moore, another co-author and a Haas associate professor.

The problem, according to Moore, is not that students with inflated GPAs have an automatic advantage but that admissions officers lack the information necessary to make fair decisions.

“Admissions officers ought to insist on getting useful contextual information,” Moore said. “It’s not enough to know that a student has a GPA of 3.5. You want to to know class rank, and you want to know what the average GPA of students at that institution is.”

Even so, Moore said, correspondence bias may continue to affect decision-makers even when they are given adequate information.

“The results suggest pessimism,” Moore said. “Even when we gave (test subjects) all the necessary information, they still made this error.”

In March, UC Berkeley considered adding class rank and average class grades to students’ transcripts to better contextualize the school’s grading policies.

Michelle Lam, a UC Berkeley senior, plans to attend medical school and expressed concerns about being at a disadvantage to students from comparable schools with more inflated GPAs.

“I’d probably be annoyed if other students from schools with inflation have a leg up,” Lam said.

Swift said that the admissions process does not rely solely on GPA, but he acknowledged the importance of putting applicants on equal footing.

“It’s still just one ingredient in the process, but it needs to be an ingredient that’s used well,” he said.

The study also found that similar instances of correspondence bias exist in executives’ hiring and promotional decisions, suggesting that professionals working in easier business conditions are more likely to be viewed favorably by superiors than workers performing similarly in more difficult conditions.

“Most people don’t think they are biased,” Moore said. “The truth is that people make this mistake even when they think they’re not.”

Contact Simon Greenhill and Somin Park at newsdesk@dailycal.org.

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Matt Lee/Staff

Berkeley City Council is looking to crack down on the development of “mini-dorms” — privately owned houses that are converted into dorm-style housing for students — by enacting a new ordinance that would limit their development.

At its meeting on July 16, the City Council voted in favor of a zoning amendment that limits bedroom additions in Berkeley homes, limiting conversions to mini-dorms.

Mini-dorms often aim to maximize bedroom space in private homes by converting shared living areas like living rooms, attics, basements and backyards into bedrooms. These bedrooms are rented out to individuals, reducing the cost of what would otherwise be a group lease.

But often, these additions don’t include new bathrooms, kitchens and plumbing — amenities needed to provide adequate living standards for an increase in residents. Nearby residents allege that neighborhoods also have difficulties, as mini-dorm residents produce excessive waste and noise and take up limited street parking.

“(They’re) a major problem for people who want to see the quality of life improve not only for themselves but for students,” said Jean Mudge, a Berkeley resident who spoke during the public comment period of the council meeting. “(My neighborhood) has become a small slum.”

If the amendment is adopted in September, Berkeley homes with four bedrooms will need an administrative use permit before building a fifth bedroom, and homes with five bedrooms will require a use permit public hearing — which takes five to six months and is estimated to cost around $5,000 — to build a sixth bedroom.

The council also requested that the city draft a more comprehensive ordinance specifically regulating mini-dorms. It would warn neighbors before developers added rooms to a home and would increase city oversight so that mini-dorms comply with city codes. The ordinance would only affect neighborhoods around Southside.

Suleyman Erdem, manager of 2521 College Ave., dubbed “Bear House” by its residents for the wooden bear statue in front, said that the property fits the new mini-dorm designation. He also supports the regulation of mini-dorms as they become more prevalent in the area.

“You have slum landlords out here who care only about the money,” Erdem said. “Some of the places I’ve seen are terrible. People’s Park is cleaner than some of these places.”

With Bear House at 13 bedrooms, many of them shared, Erdem said no additions have been made to the building since he took over management 20 years ago, and prior to housing students, the building was an assisted-living facility for the elderly.

Because of this, Erdem said the proper amenities and services can be offered, but that is not the case for many other properties he knows about in the area. Erdem said the city health department should already be more involved in checking up on properties.

“At the end of the day, the most important thing is the safety measures that are in place,” Erdem said. “That, and hygiene is a big thing too.”

Clothilde Labrousse, a UC Berkeley student, currently lives in a mini-dorm and knows the problems that come from a lack of regulation. Before she moved in, her landlord converted the attic of her building into a three-bedroom unit, and multiple units were added in the backyard.

“We don’t feel safe, because we are in an attic that has no fire escape,” she said. “We are a lot of people living on top of each other with no fire escape or anything — with no smoke detectors either — so in that sense, we feel really unsafe.”

She said the inexpensive rent and the flexibility of her lease allow her to overlook safety and hygiene issues.

Sid Lakireddy, president of Berkeley Property Owners, said the rules should be more relaxed in areas near the UC Berkeley campus, where students traditionally live. He said more regulation would drive up rent for students, exacerbating an already expensive rental market.

“Yes, I think Berkeley needs to preserve its neighborhoods,” Lakireddy said. “Yes, Berkeley has to respect its long-term residents and nontransient residents. On the other hand … students do need a cheaper alternative. Otherwise, they are going to leave Berkeley and move farther afoot and further away.”

Contact Chase Schweitzer and Simon Greenhill at newsdesk@dailycal.org and follow them on Twitter @ChaseSchweitz and @simondgreenhill.

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A new application developed by UC Berkeley researchers will harness mobile phones — thousands of mini-computers that often lie idle — for use as the equivalent of a multimillion-dollar supercomputer.

The new app, developed for the Android operating system by the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing, is based on its original Linux-based app for PCs. The mobile app became available Monday and is free.

“Consumers have already bought these computers,” said David Anderson, a Berkeley researcher who directed BOINC. “They’re paying for the electricity; they’re paying for the maintenance. We’re creating a framework where scientists can get access to (that computing power).”

In 2002, BOINC researchers thought to tap the power of idle PC processors and offered the capacity to researchers for free. According to Anderson, BOINC has already harnessed computing power roughly equivalent to that of the largest supercomputer in the world, which is worth more than $100 million.

Anderson said that today’s mobile devices are catching up to desktops and estimated that they are already 20 percent as powerful as the average desktop.

“The power of mobile devices … has increased by a huge factor in the last couple of years — to the point where the power of your phone, even though it’s really small, has a good percentage of the processing power of a big desktop computer,” Anderson said.

The app runs only when the mobile device is plugged in and connected to a Wi-Fi network, avoiding possible risks like overdrawing the battery or slowing the system. It includes a simple user interface that shows the user what projects the app is working on and is available on both the Google Play store and on the Amazon app store.

BOINC’s mobile platform has already been used by research groups like the Scripps Research Institute. There are currently six projects that use BOINC’s mobile app, with 20 or more expected in the next few weeks.

The mobile platform was funded in part by the National Science Foundation. Lisa-Joy Zgorski, a spokesperson for the NSF, said that BOINC was an easy way for individuals to contribute to important research at next to no cost to them.

Because BOINC runs behind the scenes on mobile devices, many potential users raised concerns about privacy. BOINC, however, uses complex encryption coding and allows users to download and inspect the app’s code for malware or other security threats.

“Whoever is in control here has a lot of power,” said UC Berkeley fourth-year molecular and cell biology major Salil Babbar. “I want to know about security protocols, who could have access to what I’m looking at.”

Contact Simon Greenhill at sgreenhill@dailycal.org and follow him on Twitter @simondgreenhill.

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The Master of Information and Data Science program is the first of its kind and is designed to be a self-paced course in data science, an emerging field that allows analysts to identify trends in large data sets, often from Internet statistics and surveys.

Data science is used by many websites and organizations to generate targeted advertising but can also be used to analyze the results of large-scale scientific research.

Though social media and Internet giants like Facebook Inc. and Google Inc. are the biggest employers in large-scale data analysis, MIDS will cater to workers in more varied fields, which have less data to process but attract fewer trained data professionals.

“We really want to be able to help people in diverse realms,” said Coye Cheshire, associate dean of the School of Information. “Not just the social media folks but also retail, healthcare, manufacturing, real estate, education.”

The degree is expected to take between one and two years to complete, depending on the student’s pace, and will cost $60,000. Students will check into weekly online lectures where they can interact directly with professors and other students, but they will also have coursework to complete individually. The program is set to begin in January 2014.

Unlike massively open online courses, or MOOCs, in which students view video lectures online for free, MIDS will emphasize interaction with professors and classmates, much like in traditional classroom environments.

“We’re removing the campus borders, bringing the Bay Area to data professionals, wherever they are,” Cheshire said. “We’re not restricting anything. We’re looking to work across and do this as a global program.”

According to a recent report by the McKinsey Global Institute, there is an expected shortage of 190,000 data analysts in the American workforce by 2018. An additional 1.5 million managers will lack necessary data training to make optimal decisions in their fields.

The School of Information has partnered with 2U, a company that will provide the platform and technical infrastructure for the program. Using 2U’s user interface, students will be able to access lectures, course work and additional resources for the program.

According to Chance Patterson, vice president of communications for 2U, which currently hosts 10 graduate and undergraduate programs from various institutions, the company’s services have a student retention rate of up to 80 percent, compared to 10 percent or less for MOOCs, because of the interactive capacity offered by 2U that most MOOCs overlook.

“(The interactive) approach is the best way to ensure that all the benefits of being taught on campus are happening in the online learning space,” Patterson said.

Contact Simon Greenhill at sgreenhill@dailycal.org and follow him on Twitter @simondgreenhill.

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Sureya Melkonian/Staff

The UC Board of Regents appointed UC Berkeley senior Sadia Saifuddin as student regent-designate at its meeting Wednesday, despite some controversy over her selection. When Saifuddin’s term begins in July 2014, she will be the first Muslim student regent.

Saifuddin’s appointment was met with controversy during the meeting’s public comment session when some raised concerns about her support of a recent movement to divest UC funds from companies affiliated with the Israeli military. In a rare move, UC Regent Richard Blum abstained from the vote to approve Saifuddin, citing similar concerns regarding her political activity. All other regents voted in Saifuddin’s favor.

This spring, Saifuddin co-sponsored a UC Berkeley student government bill aiming to divest ASUC funds from companies that provide equipment, materials and technology to the Israeli military. Supporters cited concerns regarding Israel’s alleged human rights violations in the region and encouraged the UC system to also take action in withdrawing investments.

During the public comment session, Saifuddin’s critics alleged that her support for divestment would be a divisive force within the UC system and would alienate Jewish students.

Some, including ASUC Senator George Kadifa and former student regent Jonathan Stein, refuted those claims, supporting Saifuddin’s appointment.

“Those who do know her personally know her to be a woman of openness,” Stein said. “She invited students to Muslim student town halls (and) Muslim students to Jewish student town halls.”

Although many regents disagreed with Saifuddin’s position on divestment, they largely approved of her appointment, with explicit support from Regents Sherry Lansing, Bonnie Reiss and Frederick Ruiz.

“We disagree with her position on divestment, but we do so respectfully,” Lansing read from a statement she wrote in collaboration with UC President Mark Yudof and Regents Bruce Varner and Ruiz.

Blum abstained from the final appointment vote, saying that he strongly disagreed with Saifuddin’s point of view but did not know her well enough to justify a negative vote.

“When you’re going to be the student representative, you have to represent all the students, and you don’t want to alienate a lot of people,” Blum said.

After the vote, Saifuddin briefly addressed the meeting, thanking both her family for their support as well as the regents for the opportunity to serve the UC community.

“I think that the UC is standing at a critical juncture right now, and it’s really important for us to come together,” Saifuddin said during the meeting.

Later, at a press conference, Saifuddin addressed some of the criticisms she has received in light of her nomination as student regent.

“I think being on the receiving end of these attacks is difficult, but it’s not something that’s unexpected or unforeseen, and it’s something that I’ll learn to deal with better every day,” Saifuddin said.

Contact Simon Greenhill and Mary Zhou at newsdesk@dailycal.org.

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Sureya Melkonian/Staff

The UC Board of Regents appointed UC Berkeley senior Sadia Saifuddin as student regent-designate, discussed a proposed increase in some professional degree fees and heard outgoing remarks from UC President Mark Yudof, among other matters, at its meeting Wednesday.

Yudof addressed the board to open what will be his last regents’ meeting before he steps down in late August. Yudof reflected on his philosophy for governing a large and complex university system, which he said requires consistent and balanced progress rather than sweeping change.

“I receive letters all the time that call for UC to sell two campuses or to jettison its graduate programs or to close various departments,” he said. “All of these actions would be ‘spectacular,’ (but) none of them would work. The University of California requires thoughtful, consistent and constant reform efforts — but not extreme ones.”

Yudof also thanked UC faculty, students and regents for their support during his five years as president and noted the UC system’s positive outlook for the future. Janet Napolitano, U.S. secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, is slated to be approved as Yudof’s successor at Thursday’s meeting.

The committee on finance discussed the state’s 2013-14 budget, underlining the planned budget increases and debt restructuring planned through 2015. Preliminary discussion for the 2014-15 budget also began and focused on Gov. Jerry Brown’s call for a tuition freeze. The 2014-15 budget will be discussed in greater detail at the regents’ September meeting.

The finance committee later recommended an increase in the amount UC employees contribute to the UC retirement plan. It also recommended increasing professional degree supplemental tuition, or PDST, for some programs.

If the recommendation is approved, tuition for the system’s four nursing programs — at UC San Francisco, UCLA, UC Davis and UC Irvine — would see an 8 percent increase that would take effect Aug. 1 and result in about $250,000 in revenue per year.

Four new fees for new programs were also approved: Games and Playable Media at UC Santa Cruz, Health Services-Physician Assistant Studies at UC Davis, Technology and Information Management at UC Santa Cruz and Translational Medicine at UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco.

The board also discussed the 2014-15 student regent nominee, Sadia Saifuddin.

Student regent appointments are typically unanimous, but Regent Richard Blum abstained from the vote. He cited Saifuddin’s support for divesting UC funds from companies doing business with the Israeli military, saying that he disagreed with her views but did not know her well enough to justify a negative vote. Other regents also disagreed with her stance but said they did not think those views would impact her ability to act as student regent.

Contact Simon Greenhill and Mary Zhou at newsdesk@dailycal.org.

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At the meeting, both sides discussed an AFSCME offer to increase employee pension payments in exchange for a focus on more staffing at UC medical centers. AFSCME has said that more staff members are needed to improve safety in the medical centers following negative ratings and a higher incidence of patient injury.

The university rejected the offer because the cost was higher than it was willing to accept, and the offer was not presented as a formal proposal, according to UC officials. The university, which criticized AFSCME’s strikes in May, has focused on pension reform in the negotiations.

“Pension reform has been the primary sticking point in these
negotiations,” said UC spokesperson Dianne Klein in an email. “UC is engaged in reasonable pension reform to protect the long-term viability of retirement plans so it can continue to provide quality pension benefits to all employees.”

Pension reform has been at the center of negotiations since they started in June 2012, as unions fought to keep their members’ pensions after the university did not pay into the fund for more than 20 years, leading to a shortage of available money for retirees and forcing employees to pay increased dues into the pension fund.

Representatives from AFSCME also say a central issue of Thursday’s offer is protecting patient safety.

“This proposed compromise was about protecting patients,” said AFSCME 3299 President Kathryn Lybarger in a press release Friday. “In rejecting our good faith offer, UC Administrators have not only shown contempt for the workers at the backbone of the UC medical system, but also a shocking disregard for the safety of the patients they serve.”

But AFSCME’s May strike put patients and their families unnecessarily at risk, said UC spokesperson Shelly Meron.

Disagreements over executive compensation have also arisen. AFSCME alleges that the university has diverged from providing affordable care and that policies cutting expenses burdened UC employees.

“UC is demanding that its lowest paid workers agree to pay more and work longer in order to subsidize the six figure annual pensions that UC routinely shells out to its highest paid executives,” Lybarger said in the release.

AFSCME advocates a cap on executive pensions similar to caps instated by Gov. Jerry Brown earlier this year.

But the university said that executive compensation is necessary for UC medical centers to offer top-tier services.

“We have to compete in a very competitive marketplace,” Meron said. “We have to offer compensation that will attract the best candidates to these jobs.”

Contact Simon Greenhill and Sohan Shah at newsdesk@dailycal.org.

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