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.

The post Release of UC campus climate survey results to be delayed until early 2014 appeared first on The Daily Californian.

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.

The post California community colleges consider adding four-year degree programs appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Mitchell Handler/Staff

More than 60 workers protested Friday afternoon in front of the UC Office of the President in Oakland after the University of California decided to implement its latest wage and pension offer for service employees.

The Oakland-based union American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees 3299 gathered in response to the university’s decision to legally implement its latest offer in a contract dispute between more than 8,000 service employees and the UC system. The policy will affect the percentage of wages distributed toward the revised pension plan. The university made its last offer Sept. 24 with what it said in a statement was a “reasonable approach to pension reform,” a proposition AFSCME declined.

Under the new plan, AFSCME service workers will be subjected to a two-tiered pension system, which allocates 6.5 percent of worker pay toward pensions for those hired prior to July 1, up from the previously allocated 5 percent. Workers hired after July 1 must contribute 7 percent. The university will also contribute 12 percent of employee pay to pensions, a jump of 2 percent.

The line of demonstrators, composed mostly of UC Berkeley service workers, marched in front of the UC building entrance holding signs and chanting “raises for them, crisis for us” and “implementation equals theft.” Marching was accompanied by intermittent recesses, during which workers converged around AFSCME 3299 President Kathryn Lybarger, Shop Steward Arnold Meza and Berkeley City Councilmember Kriss Worthington, who each addressed the crowd.

“It’s time for AFSCME to stand up for UC workers,” Worthington said. The university has “chosen negation, not negotiation,” he said.

Worthington described the implementation of the new policy as “extreme” and “unreasonable.” Additionally, he brought up concerns that the UC system might create a precedent whereby it will move to implement offers without completing negotiations with workers.

UC spokesperson Shelly Meron reiterated statements made by the university earlier in the week, saying the changes bring about “necessary pension reforms that will ensure the long-term viability of our retirement program.” Meron indicated that eight other unions representing 14 bargaining units and nonrepresented employees have already adopted these reforms.

But service workers painted a different picture at the protest. Maria Sonia Munsino, a food-service employee at UC Berkeley, characterized the negotiations as a struggle between workers and executives. With the help of a translator, Munsino said she is worried that benefits under the future implementation would “not be able to support her family of four.”

According to AFSCME’s Facebook event page, the protest was scheduled to run from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. There were no police officers present, and the demonstration remained as peaceful as it began.

Meza said that there are further demonstrations planned and suggested that workers might strike later this year, although he did not offer any further specifics on when that might take place.

Mitchell Handler contributed to this report.

Contact Jeff Landa at jlanda@dailycal.org.

The post UC workers protest after UC moves forward with implementation of wage offer appeared first on The Daily Californian.

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.

The post Negotiations continue between UC and AFSCME over pension reform appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Wikipedia/Courtesy

California state senators unanimously passed a controversial online education bill Thursday that creates a grant program for faculty at the state’s higher education institutions to develop online courses.

Despite opposition from UC officials and faculty members in recent weeks, SB 520 passed in the Senate by a vote of 28-0 — with 11 senators not voting — and will now be sent to the state Assembly for review. Authored by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, the bill introduces an incentive grant program that would allow faculty at state public colleges and universities to develop courses with private online providers such as Coursera and Udacity. Critics have said the bill is overly prescriptive and relies too much on private companies.

Previous versions of the bill required that the 50 most impacted lower-division courses in the state be made available online — in part by developing partnerships with private course providers. The bill passed on Thursday, however, reflects new changes that relax previous requirements, offering grants for 20 “high-demand” lower-division courses in each state system. Both versions aim to relieve enrollment pressures and cut costs at higher education institutions.

Rhys Williams, Steinberg’s press secretary, said the bill helps standardize education across public educational institutions in California. Although faculty members will not be required to develop courses on private platforms, they still have the option of using them.

“By creating a framework from which the faculty lead the decision-making, the decision is being taken to scale,” Williams said. “The faculty has the ultimate decision as to whether they want to proceed to the online option or not.”

But Robert Powell, chair of the UC Academic Senate, said the most recent version of the bill fails to address long-standing concerns about the use of private contractors in public education, especially at the University of California.

“The bill has not met the criticisms that we’ve had of the bills since the beginning,” Powell said. “They undermine the efforts that the university has been making … It’s overly prescriptive.”

UC spokesperson Shelly Meron also criticized the bill, citing the existence of similar plans, such as the Innovative Learning Technology Initiative, which could use $10 million in state funds to increase access to high-demand classes in the UC system. Although the language of SB 520 has changed, the content of the bill remains largely the same, she said, adding that the changes haven’t fully addressed the concerns that the UC has.

The bill’s emphasis on partnering with private contractors continues to be a problem for the university, Meron said.

According to Williams, the bill is a response to long waiting lists at UC campuses rather than a replacement for classes taken in person. But Nolan Pack, ASUC executive vice president, said that the bill is an attempt to address a problem that the Legislature created.

“The problem is that they’re advertising it as a way to solve the problem of long wait-lists,” Pack said. “I think the takeaway is that the crisis in higher education and in public education is not going to be solved through online education.”

Contact Chris Yoder at cyoder@dailycal.org. Follow him on Twitter @christiancyoder.

Correction(s):
A previous version of this article misquoted Meron as saying “Those changes haven’t fully addressed the concerns that UC Berkeley has.” In fact, Meron said the changes did not fully address concerns that the UC has.

The article also incorrectly quoted Meron as saying “The contract providers are still definitely a part of the bill, and that remains a problem with the university.” In fact, the private contractors remain a problem for the UC.

The post Online education bill passes in state Senate despite opposition appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The results come from the systemwide 2012 UC Undergraduate Experience Survey, with questions on academic engagement, community involvement and financial background.

According to the survey results, 82 percent of UC students responding said they were content with their overall education. Despite more than $900 million in state funding cuts to the university over the last five years, this percentage has remained relatively constant since 2006.

“I think that shows that despite the economic recession and the decreased funding to UC in recent years, we’ve been able to continue serving our students really well,” said Shelly Meron, spokesperson for the UC Office of the President, in an email.

But while academic approval has remained relatively constant, students are increasingly unhappy with the cost of getting a degree. The survey found that student satisfaction with the value of a UC education is now at 60 percent, down from 71 percent in 2006. The percent of students worried about the cost of tuition has increased from 64 to 71 percent over the last two years alone.

“Obviously we’re concerned about tuition increases, and we’re continuing to work with state legislators and the governor to resolve UC’s funding issues,” Meron said in the email.

Sereeta Alexander, research analyst at the UC Berkeley Office of Planning and Analysis, said that the campus’s own survey of new students has found similar results — that students are concerned about financing their education in the next few years.

“(The results) show that we should be thinking about how we should support students more with financial aid and scholarships — even if tuition and fees are rising,” Alexander said.

CalSERVE Senator and Executive Vice President-elect Nolan Pack said that higher student costs may reduce campus involvement, another issue studied in the survey.

“The more a college education costs, the more students have to work while they’re in school and the less time they have to do other things like public service or civic engagement,” Pack said. “The more we increase tuition, the more we’re chipping away at the holistic college experience.”

Pack also criticized possible plans to make tuition more affordable through online education, pointing out that the high academic satisfaction rates show that students value a classroom education.

“It’s clear that the quality of a UC education remains very high, but the state’s continued divestment from higher education puts that at risk,” Pack said. “The fact that students are overwhelmingly satisfied with faculty and instruction should say something. Online education … contradicts the experience of being in the classroom.”

Contact Alison Fu at afu@dailycal.org.

The post Survey finds UC students satisfied with quality of education appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The vote to strike — which passed with more than 97 percent support — comes after the university and the union failed to come to an agreement during ongoing contract negotiations, which began last June. The union alleges that the university’s prioritization of profits reduces patient-care quality, while the university argues that the strike is an attempt to gain bargaining leverage and divert attention from the union’s refusal of pension reforms during negotiations.

The suggested pension reforms include an increased contribution from both the university and employees toward the costs of pension benefits as well as revised eligibility rules for retirement health benefits, according to Shelly Meron, a media specialist with the UC Office of the President.

However, AFSCME, which represents nearly 13,000 patient-care workers from medical centers and student health centers across all 10 UC campuses, said the union is striking because the suggested pension reforms are another attempt by the university to maintain high-paying executive pensions. Representatives from AFSCME say those funds should instead be used for patient care.

“At this point, (the university has) certainly made clear they will not negotiate until we agree to protect their entitlements,” said AFSCME 3299 President Kathryn Lybarger. “Pension reform subsidizes their massive benefits. We are not going to stand for that.”

Such pensions and high-paying executive salaries have caused understaffing and cost-cutting in the UC medical system that is impacting the quality of patient care, said union spokesperson Todd Stenhouse.

The union says these new cuts and financial decisions have left the medical centers unable to provide the care patients deserve due to unnecessary stress and inadequate training on the use of hazardous materials in patient-care areas.

“The (university) needs to get its priorities straight,” Stenhouse said. “They need to stop this idea that executive salaries are their top fiscal priority … These are publicly funded hospitals that are here to serve California, and we are here to make sure they stay the crown jewels of the state.”

However, Meron asserts that the pension reforms are needed to ensure the university’s pension programs are financially sustainable.

“We are dealing with a $24 billion unfunded liability,” she said. “We want to make sure the (pension programs are) sustainable over time.”

In a press release from April, the university stated that AFSCME is trying to use patient care as a tool in contract negotiations, which can endanger the patients’ health. Meron said the university will prepare contingency plans for medical center operations — which include patient care — in case of a strike.

But a report published by AFSCME last month alleged that the UC hospitals have increased executive payroll by $100 million since 2009 and are the ones endangering patients by cutting care jobs and outsourcing them to less experienced workers.

The union is also preparing to take patient protection measures, including a 10-day notice of a strike and the formation of a Patient Protection Task Force in the event of an emergency.

The dates and duration of the union strike have not yet been finalized.

Alyssa Neumann covers city government. Contact her at aneumann@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @AlyNeumann.

Clarification(s):
A previous version of this article may have implied that the University of California will prepare contingency plans for patients. In fact, the university will prepare contingency plans for medical center operations, which include patient care.

Correction(s):
A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the vote to strike came after the University of California and the union failed to come to an agreement during contract negotiations last June. In fact, the vote to strike comes after the university and union failed to come to an agreement during ongoing contract negotiations, which began last June.

A previous version of this article also incorrectly quoted Meron as saying that pension that the UC wants to make sure the UC medical centers are sustainable over time. In fact, she said that the university wanted to make sure that pension programs are sustainable over time.

The post UC healthcare workers vote to strike appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Randy Adam Romero/File

Officials in charge of the UC Student Health Insurance Plan voted on March 22 to lift the plan’s coverage caps, one move in a series of steps before the final decision regarding the caps is made.

The UC SHIP Advisory Board, which consists of student and health care representatives from each UC campus and from the UC Office of the President, voted unanimously in favor of eliminating the $10,000 annual prescription drug coverage cap. All but one campus voted in favor of eliminating the $400,000 lifetime coverage cap and instead voted in favor of raising the lifetime limit to $500,000, according to UC spokesperson Brooke Converse.

For months, students have been urging UC SHIP officials to have the plan voluntarily comply with the Affordable Care Act’s ban on lifetime and annual prescription drug limits on essential care. As a self-funded insurance plan, UC SHIP is exempt from the health care reform law.

Few students actually surpass the coverage caps, but for those who do, like Kenya Wheeler, a former graduate student in city planning at UC Berkeley, the effects can be devastating. Wheeler began treatment for primary central nervous system T-cell lymphoma in November 2011. Since then, he has met the lifetime coverage cap and has had to pay at least $10,000 in out-of-pocket expenses for his treatment.

“The advisory board that oversees UC SHIP considered removing the caps last year, too, but didn’t recommend making that change for the 2012-13 academic year because of the increases to student premiums that would have resulted,” said UCOP spokesperson Shelly Meron in an email. “It was the intent of the advisory board to reconsider the removal of the plan benefit limits and to time that with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act in 2014.”

The movement to lift the caps comes as UC SHIP is facing a projected $57 million deficit by the end of the current plan year. The UC Office of the President has considered raising premiums by an average of 25 percent systemwide as a way to close the deficit.

Lifting the coverage caps would not affect the deficit, Converse said, although it would require another premium increase that is expected to be significantly smaller than the proposed 25 percent.

The advisory board’s recommendation will now be considered by the UC SHIP Executive Committee, a group of top UCOP and campus health officials, at its April 24 meeting. Following its recommendation, the Council of Chancellors will make the final decision on lifting the caps. The council is scheduled to meet May 1.

Several lawmakers have expressed support for eliminating the caps. Reps. Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, and Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, urged in a letter in February to align UC SHIP with the national standards set in place by the Affordable Care Act. State Assemblymember Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, introduced a bill in February that would force health insurance plans run by a university or college to comply with the section of the Affordable Care Act that lifts limits on lifetime and annual coverage of essential health benefits.

Mitchell Handler covers academic and administration. Contact him at mhandler@dailycal.org

The post UC SHIP Advisory Board votes to eliminate coverage cap appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Randy Adam Romero/File

A bill that would forbid lifetime and annual limits on certain benefits of the UC Student Health Insurance Plan passed through a California State Assembly committee with bipartisan support.

AB 314 would force health insurance plans run by a university or college to comply with a section of the Affordable Care Act that lifts limits on lifetime and annual coverage of essential health benefits. Because UC SHIP is a self-funded plan — students pay into a health care fund that the UC system manages — it is exempt from the health care reform law and currently imposes a $400,000 lifetime coverage cap and a $10,000 annual prescription drug coverage cap.

“We felt it’s important that students have the same protections as every other American,” said Assemblymember Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, who is the lead author of the bill. “I think that it’s important that the state make a firm decision and make it law that students deserve the same protections as other insured Californians for their health plans.”

Under AB 314, UC SHIP would not be allowed to impose caps on the 10 categories of “essential health benefits” as defined by the Department of Health and Human Services, including prescription drugs, hospitalization and maternity and newborn care. Like all health insurance plans that are regulated by the Affordable Care Act, limits could still be put in place for health care that does not fall under any of the essential benefit categories, like adult dental care.

The movement to lift the caps comes as UC SHIP is facing a projected $57 million deficit by this summer. The UC Office of the President has considered raising premiums by an average of 25 percent systemwide as a way to close the deficit. Lifting the coverage caps would require another premium increase, although it is expected to be significantly smaller than the increase proposed to close the deficit.

Although the university does not have an official position on AB 314, UCOP spokesperson Shelly Meron said the UC system is currently analyzing the costs of lifting the caps.

“As the university considers removing the caps, we’re cognizant of the need to keep the plan financially viable and affordable for students,” Meron said in an email. “We have to balance all of those factors as we move forward.”

After passing through the Assembly Committee on Health, the bill now awaits the chamber’s appropriations committee.

“The Obamacare law, the ACA, makes these kinds of caps illegal, and we don’t believe that the UC system should have the ability to implement a rule that, just because they can, adversely affects a portion of the UC student population,” said Darius Kemp, director of organizing and communications for the UC Student Association.

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

The post Bill to require lifting of SHIP coverage caps moves forward appeared first on The Daily Californian.

This month, both the regents and Brown called for an expanded online program to serve students throughout the state, citing cost reduction and system efficiency as university priorities that online education could address. Campuses are hoping that “short-term investments” made now can establish long-term programs that are “financially viable and sustainable,” according to an executive summary from the UC Office of the President released at the Jan. 16 UC Board of Regents meeting.

Despite the calls for millions of dollars in funding to build online courses at the university, administrators have yet to determine whether these courses can generate significant revenue.

“I don’t necessarily think that we at UC know if (online education is) going to save money or make revenue, but no one really has the answer,” said UC media specialist Shelly Meron. “Everyone is struggling with (determining) what’s an effective business model.”

Like many UC campuses, UC Berkeley currently operates a campus-specific program that involves massive open online courses and UC Extension courses as well as some online courses that directly correspond to campus classes and are primarily offered in the summer.

Brown’s proposed budget, released Jan. 10, allocates $10 million to both the UC and CSU systems and $16.9 million to community colleges for online education exclusively — money that, if approved, could go to expanding course offerings online for undergraduates.

A primary focus of the university’s current online efforts has been UC Online, a systemwide program launched last January that offers courses to both non-UC and UC students for credit. While the program initially intended to make money from nonmatriculated student enrollment, nearly all participating students have come from within the system.

Still, UC Online plans to continue expanding, aiming to add approximately 20 new courses at the beginning of the 2013-14 school year, according to the UC Office of the President. At UC Berkeley specifically, online courses may soon be approved for the fall and spring semesters, said Armando Fox, academic director of the Berkeley Resource Center for Online Education.

While online education at the university has not lived up to financial expectations, its success as a teaching model has led to increased efficiency and a higher quality of instruction, both of which lead to indirect financial gains, according to Fox.

“The number of students who have failed and had to retake courses has dropped dramatically,” Fox said. “They graduate faster. They get into the workforce faster. Every part of (the online) equation points to cheaper, just not in the microscopic sense.”

UC Student Regent Jonathan Stein said that looking forward, he hopes to gather student input on online education in the coming months through small group discussions and larger forums.

“If we are talking about moving UC classes online, then we have to have a longer conversation,” Stein said. “I’m not sure students are in support of that. We don’t know if we are talking about supplementing the classroom experience with online or exclusively online courses. We just don’t know.”

Libby Rainey covers higher education. Contact her at lrainey@dailycal.org.

The post Financial uncertainty clouds future of UC online education appeared first on The Daily Californian.