The online survey was launched in October 2012. The results were originally expected to be released in the summer and fall of 2013 but are now expected to be presented in early 2014, said UC spokesperson Shelly Meron.

The survey, which included participants from all 10 UC campuses, the UC Office of the President, the agriculture and natural resources department and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is the first of its scope on this topic in the university’s history, said Meron.

“The Campus Climate Survey has been a major undertaking — believed to be the largest study of institutional climate ever conducted — and everything has taken longer than had been anticipated,” Meron said in an emailed statement.

The survey included questions about institutional access, perceptions and experiences, academic and professional success, sexual and gender identity, spirituality and socioeconomic status, among others. UC Berkeley’s survey closed last spring.

There will be both an analysis of individual sites’ results and a systemwide report that will be presented to the UC Board of Regents in early 2014, said Meron.

“The results will help us develop future initiatives and action plans that build on past successes, address challenges and promote institutional change,” Meron said.

The results will not go public until they have been presented to the regents.

Contact Adrianna Dinolfo at adinolfo@dailycal.org.

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As part of a pilot program, the UC Student Association will nominate three students each year to act as “student observers” for the UC Regents. These students will participate in the regents’ committee meetings to lend student perspective to discussion. The UCSA will place the observers on three of the board’s committees.

“The big goal is to make sure student voices are being heard,” said UCSA President Kareem Aref. “With this extra opportunity, students will be able to get into those spaces so the regents never act without student input.”

UC San Diego student Vanessa Garcia is a prospective observer and has been nominated by the UCSA for confirmation by the regents. The board will consider her nomination at its November meeting, according to UCSA Communications Director Bridget Botelho. Aref said he is unsure whether the other two observers will be confirmed in November as well. Student observers will change with each school year.

The regents have had students observers in the past. The Committee on Investments has had a student observer for the past two years, according to UC spokesperson Brooke Converse. This year, however, marks the start of an official student observer pilot program — a project that is the result of collaboration between the UCSA, UC Student Affairs and the Office of the Secretary and Chief of Staff to the Regents, Converse said.

Aref said the additional three observer positions were modeled on those positions. He said the California Constitution prohibits the addition of student regents to the board, which led advocates for greater student representation to seek alternative avenues to gaining access to the university’s top decision-makers.

The three student observers will join UC Student Regent Cinthia Flores and Student Regent-designate Sadia Saifuddin as student representatives to the body.

“Overall, the biggest impact students are going to have as observers is to contextualize issues as they relate to students, and that’s a very effective way of changing conversations,” Flores said. “The board does recognize the importance of the student opinion.”

ASUC External Affairs Vice President Safeena Mecklai said there is still more to be done to guarantee student access to the regents.

“Student presence and student voice should be the norm,” Mecklai said in an email. “We need to continue to be critical of how we can negotiate more access for students in the Regents, and continue to look at ways to encourage Regental reform and improved student representation at the systemwide level.”

Libby Rainey is the lead higher education reporter. Contact her at lrainey@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @rainey_l.

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The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees 3299 accused the university of intimidating patient-care employees by threatening them with disciplinary action during strikes over pension reform in May. On Sept. 12, the Public Employment Relations Board, a state agency that oversees collective bargaining pertaining to employees of California public schools, issued a complaint against the UC system on behalf of the union and began an investigation into the claims.

The university denies allegations that it created a coercive environment, as outlined in the complaint.

AFSCME’s vote to strike is not a response to failed negotiations or the UC system’s recent implementation of a revised pension plan but is a move to protest the treatment of UC employees, according to AFSCME communications director Todd Stenhouse.

“They (UC employees) have the right to be in a workplace free of intimidation and coercion,” Stenhouse said. “Our workers are very united right now — there is a lot of justified disgust about the way many of their colleagues have been treated.”

Should union members vote in favor of striking, AFSCME will proceed with coordinating a strike, Stenhouse said.

According the the PERB website, the board will issue a complaint regarding accusations of unfair practices if the agent reviewing the allegations “concludes that there are enough facts alleged that an unfair practice may have been committed.”

Both parties would then proceed to attend an informal conference, in which the agent would work with them to try to reach a mutually agreeable settlement. Should this fail, PERB would schedule a formal hearing, at which both parties would present their cases to an administrative law judge.

In a written response to the complaint, the university’s legal counsel calls AFSCME’s allegations “preposterous.”

The UC system said these accusations are part of the union’s efforts to blame the university for the low employee attendance during strikes in May, according to UC spokesperson Dianne Klein.

“They have a legal right to strike, and we wouldn’t interfere,” Klein said. “But no one wants to strike.”

On May 21, 97 percent of union members voted in favor of a strike. About 75 percent of employees, however, continued to work, according to Klein. She said a strike would be detrimental to university operations.

UC President Janet Napolitano plans to meet with AFSCME representatives but not as part of the collective bargaining process, Klein said.

“We are all university employees, and we need to work together,” Klein said. “We urge the union leadership to return to the bargaining table so we may negotiate a fair contract.”

Contact Jessie Lau at jlau@dailycal.org.

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Andrew Kuo/File

UC Berkeley students will have a health insurance option in addition to the Berkeley Student Health Insurance Plan as a result of the Affordable Care Act.

Covered California, the state’s new marketplace for health insurance coverage, enables people to review different insurance plans and receive financial assistance to help pay for them. Although coverage will not take effect until Jan. 1, 2014, enrollment for health plans began last week.

“Under the ACA, basically all the health insurance plans have to provide health insurance benefits,” said Sarah Sol, an information officer at Covered California. “These include, but are not limited to, preventive care, prescription drug coverage and chronic disease management.”

With the ACA, states must either set up their own marketplace or do so through the federal government. California, along with states such as Oregon, New York and Nevada, opted to establish its own marketplace.

The act mandates all health insurance plans must now meet a minimum standard of quality, such as offering people health coverage even if they have a pre-existing medical condition.

Although all UC students must have health insurance under a UC Regents mandate, students are now presented with both Berkeley SHIP and plans offered under Covered California.

Health insurance packages through Covered California could be less costly than plans offered through the university, said Kim LaPean, communications manager for the Tang Center at UC Berkeley.

For example, Covered California offers a minimum coverage plan to people below the age of 30 to prevent financial disaster in the event of a medical emergency.

However, LaPean said Berkeley SHIP has the benefit of close, highly accessible networks.

“When students are enrolled in Berkeley SHIP, they can see our counselors, specialists, nurses and doctors at the Tang Center right now,” LaPean said. “If we don’t have necessary resources readily available, we can refer out into the community providers. What we know so far is that these exchanges (through Covered California) are going to have smaller networks.”

Both options provide some of the same services, including fully covered preventive care and permission for people 26 years of age or younger to remain on their parents’ health care plans.

Between now and next year, University Health Services will be displaying information online and conducting forums allowing students to obtain a greater understanding of both options, LePean said.

“(The students) still have time to make sure that they’re making the right choices,” LePean said. “We don’t want students to be fearful of these health exchanges offered by Covered California. We want students to be engaged, informed and to really understand what their options are.”

Contact Adrianna Dinolfo at adinolfo@dailycal.org.

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Kevin Foote/File

UC Berkeley placed fifth in a recently published set of rankings meant to reflect President Barack Obama’s proposed criteria for measuring college affordability and access.

The rankings, released by the organization Affordable Colleges Online, are a response to the college-rating system Obama outlined in August. The plan seeks to link federal funding for institutions of higher education to assessments of individual schools based on average tuition, graduation rates and the number of students receiving federal aid, among other measures.

Affordable Colleges Online’s rankings analyzed tuition and fees, graduation rates, student loan default rates, student services and the average starting salary of graduates to determine the top 100 public colleges that may receive a high rating under Obama’s proposed program. Other UC campuses ranked highly as well: UCLA ranked 10th, UC San Diego came in at 22nd and UC Irvine ranked 24th. All UC undergraduate campuses except UC Merced made the top 100.

Wes Ricketts, vice president and general manager of Affordable Colleges Online, said he was not surprised to see many UC campuses on the list.

“The UC system gets a leg up when you factor in the return on investment,” he said. “Those alumni tend to earn more money in the short term and the long term compared to other colleges.”

UC Berkeley ranked below the University of Virginia, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and the College of William Mary in the rankings but boasted the largest postgraduate starting salary of the five.

The rankings analyzed postgraduation starting salaries from data compiled by Payscale.com, a site that collects data on how much graduates of various universities make. According to the site, UC Berkeley graduates’ typical starting salary is $54,700.

In response to Obama’s proposals for higher education, former UC president Mark Yudof said last month that the average debt of UC students upon graduation is about $7,000 less than the national average, which the White House estimates to be $26,000.

“When going to a really competitive, top-rank university such as Berkeley, yes, affordability is a key factor,” said UC spokesperson Dianne Klein. “But our systemwide goal is not based on the lowest price. Ours is about financial access — we  focus on ensuring that students can afford a college education.”

UC Student Regent Cinthia Flores said Obama’s proposals and the subsequent rankings by Affordable Colleges Online indicate a growing need for the UC system to focus on reducing students’ reliance on loans and ensuring their workplace success.

“I wouldn’t say that I disagree with our ranking, but the introduction of this plan is going to force the UC to look at those issues, and I am very happy about that,” she said.

Libby Rainey is the lead higher education reporter. Contact her at lrainey@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @rainey_l.

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The suit, filed in Alameda County Superior Court, seeks to reclaim as much of the $57.41 million deficit as possible, along with the costs the university paid for Aon Hewitt’s services.

“The University believes that Hewitt — not students or the University — should bear responsibility for Hewitt’s grossly negligent and reckless conduct,” said UC spokesperson Brooke Converse in an email.

The lawsuit details Aon Hewitt’s involvement in planning UC SHIP as far back as 2008, when the firm was involved in the UC Graduate Student Health Insurance Plan work group in determining whether a consolidated systemwide plan would be feasible and fiscally sensible.

The suit specifically mentions the names of a handful of Aon Hewitt employees — Doug Grabham, Brian Bloom and Ian Stark — who worked on developing UC SHIP.

The suit alleges, among other problems, that Aon Hewitt “overestimated the cost savings that would result from pooling the campus plans by using aggressive assumptions in projecting the cost savings associated with a system-wide plan.”

It also claims Stark, the primary actuary responsible for projecting costs and calculating premiums for GSHIP, “frequently missed deadlines, failed to complete deliverables” and failed to respond to requests from UC SHIP director Heather Pineda.

Numerous sections of the document, mainly quotes from internal Aon Hewitt communications, are redacted. The UC system is seeking to have an unredacted complaint released.

“As a policy, we do not comment on pending legal matters,” said Aon Hewitt spokesperson Maurissa Kanter. “However, calculating health care cost projections is a very complex process and involves many factors, including the quality of data we receive from our clients and their carriers. Plan design, data, communication and utilization can all contribute to variation in projected plan expenses.”

The systemwide UC SHIP was first implemented in the 2010-11 school year for graduate students before it was expanded to undergraduates the next year. During the 2011-12 plan year, UC officials began to realize claims would not cover expenses, and they brought in new actuaries to review the data.

Although Aon Hewitt originally had suggested that a consolidated, self-funded plan would save $7 million to $10 million in its first year, the complaint states, a January report prepared by Alliant Health Services, an actuarial firm hired to consult for UC SHIP management, found the plan had accumulated a $4.83 million deficit in its first year.

Alliant’s report said that the data provided to Aon Hewitt to construct the health plan were “fragmented, missing enrollment counts and generally incomplete” and that Aon Hewitt failed to regularly monitor plan performance unless engaged by UC SHIP management.

“(Aon Hewitt) claimed to be experts in this, and we believed them,” Converse said. “We let them lead the way because we were under the impression that they were leaders in this industry.”

Mitchell Handler covers higher education. Contact him at mhandler@dailycal.org and follow him on Twitter @mitchellhandler.

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Ariel D. Hayat/Staff

UC President Janet Napolitano met twice with some of her staunchest critics Tuesday in an effort to address universitywide student concerns about her appointment and to build trust and cooperation.

The meetings, held at the UC Office of the President in Oakland, were preempted by 17 UC Berkeley students protesting Napolitano’s appointment on the basis of her record on deportation of undocumented immigrants during her stint as U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security. Inside the building, Napolitano met with Student Regent Cinthia Flores, Student Regent-designate Sadia Saifuddin and 10 other UC students.

The students Napolitano met with were part of the Statewide Multicultural Student Coalition, a universitywide group of undocumented students and their supporters that formed in response to Napolitano’s appointment. The meeting was intended to address their list of demands and create an atmosphere of respect.

The demands called for reform of the university’s policies regarding undocumented immigrants, including limiting the use of university resources to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement and allowing undocumented students to work on campus.

The coalition also requested that Napolitano prohibit the use of riot police during protests. Andrea Gordillo, a UC Irvine senior and a representative of the coalition, said this request also affected the protesters demonstrating outside the meeting because both groups have similar concerns, such as a lack of diversity among UC faculty members and students.

“I know I speak for 11 million undocumented immigrants,” said protester David Douglass, a fourth-year UC Berkeley student who ran for ASUC president last year as a member of the Defend Affirmative Action Party. “We want to move forward with presenting the demands of the student movement and move forward to demand full citizenship rights.”

In response to the students’ grievances, Napolitano said in a press release that she will assign staff to explore the various issues discussed in the meeting and that she intends to take steps to expand access to financial aid, ensure sound campus police practices and help first-generation students and those of color succeed at UC schools.

Flores and Saifuddin met separately with Napolitano earlier in the day to discuss specific policy issues, such as increasing federal financial aid to students and Napolitano’s support for a program Flores initiated that would help California high school seniors apply to UC schools and aid them throughout their time at the university.

UC spokesperson Dianne Klein added that the UC administration will continue “robust financial aid policies” and expand them, noting the recently launched Promise for Education fundraising campaign as a means to that end.

“The fact that President Napolitano chose to meet with these students on her second day on the job demonstrates the importance she places on dialogue and cooperation,” Klein said. “Students spoke of their experiences and concerns, and the president listened. She did not automatically rule out any of their demands — she will consider them all.”

Both Gordillo and Flores said they are “cautiously optimistic” about the results of the most recent meeting.

“We didn’t get any concrete answers or tangible solutions, but we got a promise that she will look thoroughly into the proposals,” Gordillo said, adding that the coalition was promised a follow-up meeting in a couple of months.

Napolitano said in the press release that she will continue to work closely with the UC Board of Regents as she visits various campuses in the initial months of her presidency.

Contact Michelaina Johnson and Shannon Carroll at newsdesk@dailycal.org.

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On Monday, after Congress failed to pass a spending bill that would have funded government operations for the current fiscal year, the nation entered its first government shutdown in 17 years, placing 800,000 federal employees on furlough as parts of the government closed the next day.

Although UC campuses continued to operate normally Tuesday, should the shutdown continue for a significant period of time, it could impact educational services, financial aid programs and health care, said UC spokesperson Brooke Converse.

“We might not be able to see the impacts right away,” Converse said. “Right now, we are just monitoring the situation. We want to make sure that funding to the university continues, and we will continue lobbying for things to help students.”

Student aid and loan services will also continue to function normally for now, according to a contingency plan by the U.S. Department of Education. A shutdown of operations beyond one week, however, would “severely curtail” funds given to school districts, colleges and universities, according to the plan.

Esther Gulli, UC Berkeley’s director of federal relations, said students who plan to study abroad or travel during winter break may experience delays in passport and visa processing.

Additionally, the UC system will not receive new research grants during the shutdown, Converse said.

National research facilities managed by the university, such as Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, will continue operating for the time being, according to lab officials. If the shutdown is prolonged, however, impacts to programs and employees will be “unavoidable,” and operations will have to adapt based on available funding and federal guidance, said Jon Weiner, manager of communications and media relations at the Berkeley lab.

Policy experts say the funding impasse could lead to a more pressing argument over the federal debt limit, which the government is projected to reach Oct. 17.

Robert Reich, a campus professor of public policy and a former U.S. Secretary of Labor, said that if the debt ceiling is not lifted, the economy could suffer substantially.

“Everything from student loans to aid to education to the full faith and credit of the United States is potentially at issue,” Reich said in an email.

Reich said that he expects the shutdown to continue through the debt ceiling’s deadline, at which point he believes the president will instruct the Treasury to continue paying the nation’s bill.

Larry Magid, a lecturer at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy, echoed Reich’s sentiments, and said that the national and international economies will be greatly affected if the federal government default on its debt obligations.

“My students in particular are very focused on their job prospects,” Magid said. “The job market is just recovering, and this is threatened by the ongoing crisis.”

John Ellwood, a professor at the public policy school, also said a default on the national debt could cause economic chaos.

“Markets will go crazy, and interest rates will be way up,” Ellwood said. “The U.S. will lose its economic position, and the economy will take a big hit.”

Contact Jessie Lau at jlau@dailycal.org

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Anthony Bongco/Staff

The head of California’s vast community college system formed a group to consider the viability of adding four-year bachelor’s degree options to its campuses.

Brice Harris, chancellor of the California Community Colleges system, assembled the Baccalaureate Degree Study Group in August to examine demand for and cost of the degree programs while considering the effects of deviating from the community college system’s traditional role. California would join a growing number of states whose community colleges offer bachelor’s degrees.

In addition to members from the community college system, the 16-person committee includes representatives from the UC and CSU systems. It will make recommendations to Harris in December, and if the system’s governing board accepts the recommendations, the proposal would require approval from the state Legislature, the governor and an accrediting commission authorized by the U.S. Department of Education.

Michael Morvice, president of the California Community College Student Affairs Association, stated that the degree program would benefit students by providing them with additional options.

“If there is a need in society, why not consider and review it?” Morvice said, citing the four-year degree model of Florida’s community colleges.

With more than 2.3 million students across 112 campuses, California’s community college system is the largest higher education system in the United States.

Norton Grubb, a professor emeritus at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education, suggested that the community college system’s traditional function — transferring students to four-year institutions as outlined in the Master Plan for Higher Education — might be overshadowed by a baccalaureate degree option.

“It’s a really bad idea, a really poor idea,” he said. “Community colleges have a lot to do already without having to work with baccalaureate programs.”

The plan, implemented in 1960, differentiated the functions of California’s three pillars of public postsecondary education: the UC, CSU and community college campuses. This three-tiered system allows the institutions to fulfill different roles as a coherent and noncompeting system.

“(The) UC has historically viewed the state’s Master Plan as an efficient way of managing and allocating limited resources to equally important higher education functions,” said UC spokesperson Shelly Meron. According to her, the university is waiting on recommendations but reiterated its commitment to the plan, adding that it has served California well.

Rachel Fishman, an education policy analyst at the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan public policy think tank, was critical of the proposed degree program, saying it drifts from the mission of the Master Plan by duplicating efforts in the tiered system and shifting costs to students.

“Instead, California’s community college system should look at innovative ways to open up the courses that are overenrolled, like entering into an online course-sharing consortium,” Fishman said.

The group is scheduled to meet again Oct. 15.

Contact Jeff Landa at jlanda@dailycal.org.

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Kore Chan/Staff

California may become the first state in U.S. history to allow undocumented immigrants to practice law after passing the state bar exam.

Gov. Jerry Brown has until Oct. 13 to sign AB 1024, a bill that would grant undocumented individuals licenses to become lawyers regardless of their immigration status.

“This is the only country that they have known as their own, and until the federal government passes comprehensive immigration reform, it is something we have to do to ensure dreamers can have normal lives,” said Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, who introduced the bill.

The bill was introduced after the Supreme Court of California in 2011 ruled to withhold the law license of Sergio Covarrubias Garcia, an undocumented immigrant, after the state bar that approved his license disclosed his legal status.

But it was not until Sept. 4 of this year that the state Supreme Court heard oral arguments from both sides of Garcia’s case. The court decided that while it is against federal law to issue professional licenses to undocumented immigrants, the law allows room for state legislatures to grant professional licenses to undocumented immigrants through state legislation.

Garcia’s case has not existed in a vacuum. Similar cases have appeared across the country involving undocumented immigrants; Jose Manuel Godinez-Samperio in Florida and Cesar Vargas in New York faced difficulty obtaining their licenses to practice law. Earlier this year, Godinez-Samperio’s case was dismissed, leaving him without a license.

Because of these struggles, Vargas has decided to help create the DREAM Bar Association, a group that supports and provides resources for other undocumented law students nationwide.

Despite the hanging threat of deportation, these students have chosen to voice their experiences in pursuing a law career. Vargas’ group has already recruited about 30 members, who often work together to write briefs for one another about reasons they should qualify for law licenses.

“We cannot stand in the shadow — I have seen other DREAMers fighting for others, and I think those people inspired me to take action and do my part and push for immigration reform and have DREAMers admitted (into college),” Vargas said. “The more people know about your story, the more people understand that it is a personal issue. My goal is to push the conversation forward.”

Gonzalez, who earned her own law degree from UCLA School of Law, chose to push for the bill just before the legislative recess in mid-September. She said it was important to support the students who have worked hard to earn their degrees.

“I’m not any better, I didn’t study any more and there is a lack of equity that doesn’t allow these DREAMers who worked hard and did everything right to pursue what they want, and it just doesn’t seem right,” Gonzalez said.

It is unclear how many undocumented students are studying law in the UC system, but Gonzalez estimates there are 15 systemwide. The figure does not take into account students who did not want to identify as undocumented, undergraduates thinking about pursuing a law degree or law school graduates.

Leti Volpp, a law professor at UC Berkeley School of Law, said she wouldn’t be surprised if more undocumented students see law school as a viable option if the bill passes.

Volpp also said AB 1024  is another small step toward seeing undocumented immigrants as part of “our community.” The students who are able to pass the bar exam should not be excluded due to their legal status but should be praised for their accomplishment, she said.

“Half of the applicants to the California state bar get rejected every year,” Volpp said. “Legal status is the least important question on whether or not someone should be allowed to practice law.”

Contact Jose Hernandez at jhernandez@dailycal.org

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