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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Carli Baker/Senior Staff

For the first time in five years, Mark Yudof will wake up Monday a free man. No longer will the outgoing UC president have to deal with angry accusations of screwing over students or unfairly bargaining with unions or ignoring the cries of protesters.

No longer will he be responsible for overseeing a $24.1 billion budget or managing a massive bureaucracy that supports more than 220,000 students and 170,000 faculty and staff.

After presiding over the UC system during five of the most tumultuous years of its history, Yudof stepped down Sunday to make way for former U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. His departure signals the end of what may be the most significant chapter in Yudof’s decades-long career as an educator and administrator.

From blue collar to top-floor office

The president’s office is on the 12th floor of the UC headquarters building, an unassuming tower in the middle of Downtown Oakland where system administrators oversee programs that affect the broader UC system.

Yudof’s office is spacious and simple. Maps and certificates hang on the wall behind the desk, a traditional wooden worktable with a few colonial touches, including an hourglass, a quill feather and an inkwell.

But before the big desk and the colonial touches, Yudof was entirely blue collar.

The son of an electrician, Yudof completed his undergraduate education in just three years at the University of Pennsylvania and worked part time to pay for school, something he said has helped him better relate to the average worker.

Many of his detractors, however, may not be aware of his humble past. During an hourlong interview with The Daily Californian, Yudof recalled meeting with a group of union representatives who accused him of not understanding the struggles of working a physically demanding job.

“I looked at them and I said, ‘You know, I think I do understand, because when I went to undergraduate school at the University of Pennsylvania, I pushed gurneys for three years,’” Yudof said. “Otherwise, I would not have been able to afford to be there.”

After graduating, Yudof practiced constitutional law for much of the late 1960s and 1970s. He worked with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and represented professors who he thought unfairly had their First Amendment rights curbed.

In 1971, he began teaching law at the University of Texas at Austin, where he spent the next 26 years in teaching and administrative positions. For the last 16 years, Yudof has led the universities of Minnesota, Texas and California.

Students “immediately assume if you’re in my job you must be someone who comes from a rich, hoity-toity-type family,” Yudof said. “Not true. I wish they’d know that.”

Tenure in office

In June 2008 Yudof stepped into an office that had been fraught with problems. His predecessor, Robert Dynes, announced his resignation in 2007, two years after it came to light that millions had been spent on extra pay and perks for administrators. Then, shortly after entering the position, Yudof was handed the first in a series of massive state budget cuts to the UC system.

“I knew we were in an economic downturn — I understood that,” Yudof said. “But I’m not a great prognosticator. We lost a billion dollars, and all of a sudden we’re bleeding.”

As budgets were slashed, tuition for Californians rose from a little more than $7,000 in 2008 to more than $12,000 today, and students throughout the UC system protested en masse.

Yudof said he harbors no ill will toward the protesters. However, impeding a public body such as the UC Board of Regents from meeting represents a lack of civility, he said.

“The real narrative is, you have the greatest public university in the world reacting to a billion-dollar reduction in their appropriation,” Yudof said. “And that we’re not building rock-climbing walls, and we’re not paying the top salaries to chancellors.”

Still, deconstructing what Yudof calls the “grand narrative” — the idea that the UC system is prohibitively expensive for poor students and that the administrative Office of the President is overrun with unnecessary bureaucracy — has been a challenge.

Yudof’s colleagues praised the job he did as president. Bruce Varner, chair of the UC Board of Regents, said Yudof helped increase efficiency and build an appropriate relationship with the board.

“In one word, he stabilized things,” Varner said. “At the end of the day, he’s a very caring leader and always cared about the students and their welfare.”

Even as tuition has soared, financial aid programs have expanded. In 2009 Yudof oversaw the implementation of the Blue and Gold opportunity plan for lower-income undergraduate students. At the time, the plan ensured that most undergraduates eligible for financial aid whose families earn less than $60,000 annually paid nothing in tuition. Today, the cap has expanded to include families whose income is below $80,000.

Former UC Berkeley chancellor Robert Birgeneau, who stepped down in June, said that the campus tried to minimize student debt and maximize accessibility and that Yudof’s efforts helped with that process.

“I think students who don’t necessarily fully appreciate this were very well served by him during his time,” Birgeneau said.

Challenges and criticism

Still, UC Student Regent Cinthia Flores said she would have appreciated a more thorough investigation into how to save money and raise revenue before the regents raised tuition. Additionally, Flores said, she wished there had been a better avenue for students to share their input on closing the budget shortfall.

The budget wasn’t Yudof’s only challenge. The UC Student Health Insurance Plan, the university’s attempt to have a systemwide health plan for all 10 UC campuses, experienced massive changes after it was discovered that the program was carrying a deficit of more than $50 million. Yudof said he hopes students will not have to pay for what he says are past actuarial errors.

Retaining top faculty has been difficult as well. According to Yudof’s State of the UC report from May, faculty salaries lag an average of 11 percent behind comparator institutions. Earlier this year, USC lured away two prominent neuroscientists — and their research funding — from cross-town rival UCLA, for example.

Attempts at tackling other challenges have seen mixed results. Yudof said the financing model for higher education is broken, and one of his efforts to fix the flawed model, online courses, has failed to catch on as he had hoped. “An Introduction to Information,” for example, one of a handful of online courses offered at UC Berkeley last fall, saw its enrollment drop nearly 25 percent over the course of the semester.

Yudof said he thought faculty and student opposition prevented online classes from catching on faster.

Labor relations, too, have been a challenge. Although eight unions have agreed to pension reforms, a union representing health care and service workers, AFSCME 3299, has yet to reach a deal on a new contract with the UC system. The university announced Tuesday that after months of negotiations, it will implement its latest proposal without agreement from the union.

“It’s an assault on collective bargaining,” said Kathryn Lybarger, president of AFSCME 3299. “It’s an attack on the workers that make the university run. I don’t think we’ve been in a worse place than we are today.”

The legacy

Even with these challenges, Yudof says he hopes over time that his problematic “grand narrative” will clear.

“What I was trying to do was provide virtually a free education for as many students as possible,” Yudof said, “but those who could afford to pay, to charge them more. And all that got lost in the grand narrative.”

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

Correction(s):
A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that UC tuition is more than $15,000 for the current academic year and was more than $8,900 in 2008. In fact, base-level UC tuition for resident undergraduates is $12,192 for the current academic year and was $7,126 for the 2008-2009 year, not including campus-specific fees and the cost of the university-run health insurance plan.

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Jacob Brown/Staff

SAN FRANCISCO — The UC Board of Regents launched a fundraising effort at its Wednesday meeting that asks students, celebrities and UC officials to solicit friends and families for donations that would go toward UC undergraduate scholarships. 

Dubbed the Promise for Education, the campaign encourages individuals to use social media to collect these donations in exchange for completing a given task, or promise.

Gov. Jerry Brown, for instance, has pledged to host a lunch with a student from each UC campus in exchange for a $10,000 donation from the public.

These promises — and the price tags that accompany them — are advertised on the fundraiser’s website, where people can donate money toward various promises. The fundraiser, which launched Wednesday and will run through Oct. 31, is a crowd-funding effort that UC Regent Sherry Lansing said “has never been done before.”

The campaign’s website had around 200 pledges, which range from mundane to absurd, by midday Wednesday.

UC Davis student Bradley Bottoms pledged to wear a cow costume for an entire week if he meets his goal of $1,500 in donations. Jamie Foxx said he will rap a song impersonating President Barack Obama, former President Bill Clinton and Monique from the movie “Precious” in exchange for $20,000 in donations.

Lansing, who helped spearhead the Promise for Education effort, said at the meeting that she hopes the fundraiser will broaden scholarship availability.

Last year, UC undergraduates received close to $700 million in financial aid from the university and from private donations, according to David Alcocer, the university’s director of financial aid. Donations given as part of the Promise for Education will add to this pot. 

In an effort to expand these scholarship funds, Lansing said that the fundraiser is meant to attract donations of all sizes — even $1 and $5 contributions.

The university has seen a number of large contributions so far. The program has received about $900,000 in pledges and donations. According to Daniel Dooley, the university’s vice president for external relations, Bank of America and the Entertainment Industry Foundation both pledged $100,000 to kick off the fundraiser. The biggest pledge thus far comes from the family of a single donor, Abraham Trop, who died last year but left money to the university in his will. The family donated $400,000 to the campaign. 

David Kirp, a professor at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy who specializes in higher education, said the new fundraiser indicates the depth of the university’s need.

“Promise to Education is both ingenious and dispiriting — ingenious, because it’s a new way to capitalize on social media; dispiriting, because it shows the extraordinary measures that a great public university must take in order provide a world-class education,” he said in an email.

Still, some take issue with the style of fundraising.

Student Regent Cinthia Flores said at the meeting that some students have expressed concern that the fundraiser is a “backhanded” way to solicit donations to the university. But she said she is certain that the campaign will both raise funds and solidify the relationship between donors and the university.

“Sometimes students were apprehensive about this program, saying, ‘Why are we going to ask students to support other students?’ ” Flores said. “But seeing this (campaign) come to realization … I’ve seen the support that’s behind it.”

She pledged to dress as Superman for an entire day if she reaches a $1,000 donation goal.

Angela Sanchez, a UCLA graduate who aims to raise $3,000 for scholarships by pledging to host a 24-hour “magic marathon,” said she sees the fundraiser as a chance for student advocacy.

“California is a state that’s rife with debt,” Sanchez said. “Until we can find some kind of alleviation, the best resource we’re going to have is our community.”

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 Working Smarter Initiative, which was launched in 2010, aims to save $500 million across the UC system by streamlining administrative operations to help the UC system reach financial sustainability. At its meeting Wednesday, the UC Board of Regents will discuss the progress of the initiative and plans for the coming fiscal year.

According to the regents’ agenda, the initiative will focus on smaller-scale improvements, such as campus-specific projects that help make the day-to-day business of each campus run more smoothly and improve campus life for students and faculty members, for fiscal years 2013 and 2014.

So far, the Working Smarter Initiative has exceeded its initial goal of reaching $300 million in three years by $161 million.

“Money from the state is never going to be the same,” said UC Office of the President spokesperson Brooke Converse. “Right now, we have to work towards saving money, and the university has to get creative. That’s going to forever be the case moving forward.”

In fiscal years 2012 and 2013, the initiative achieved its highest annual fiscal impact of $171 million in cost savings and new revenue. Cost-saving projects added up to $95 million, and new revenue totaled $76 million.

Some of the large contributors to the success between fiscal year 2012 and 2013 included projects such as the Statewide Energy Partnership, which aims to lower utility costs, and Liquidity Management, which rearranges money into a longer-term investment pool for a higher return.

The program saved the UC system about $157 million between fiscal years 2010 and 2011 and $132 million between fiscal years 2011 and 2012, according to the regents’ agenda. The $461 million accrued through the initiative in the past three years will be funneled directly to campuses to support the university’s core academic and research missions.

In 2009, UC Berkeley launched a separate initiative called Operational Excellence, a cost-cutting measure to streamline campus operations. While the these two projects share several similarities, Operational Excellence was not involved in the Working Smarter Initiative project proposal, said Caryl Miller, communications manager for the UC Berkeley Operational Excellence office.

“It’s important to remember this is a systemwide initiative,” Converse said. “These projects affect students heavily, but it might be harder for students on a specific campus to see on a daily basis.”

J. Hannah Lee covers higher education. Contact her at jhlee@dailycal.org.

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Nathaniel Solley/Staff

Gov. Jerry Brown has yet to fill five empty seats on the UC Board of Regents, three of which have already been vacant for more than a year.

Currently, the board consists of 13 UC Regents, but with two members’ terms due to expire in March 2014, Brown may need to fill at least one seat, needed for an emergency quorum, in the coming year.

A quorum of nine regents is required for a regular regents meeting, and a quorum of 12 is required for an emergency session. One of Brown’s duties that largely impacts the UC system is appointing regents and selecting applicants to be confirmed by the California State Assembly and the state Senate.

In March, two seats opened up after the terms of former UC regents Leslie Schilling and Monica Lozano ended. The previous three seats have been empty for more than a year since former UC regents George Marcus’ and Odessa Johnson’s terms expired at the end of February 2012. Former UC regent David Crane lost his seat in December 2011 when the California State Senate did not move to confirm him to the board.

UC spokesperson Steve Montiel said to his knowledge, the board has not experienced any problems, and so far, no meeting has needed to be postponed due to low attendance.

“It’s just a matter of time,” Montiel said. “There have been vacancies through the years under various governors.”

Although only 11 regents may be left on the board in March next year, UC Student Regent Cinthia Flores said there is no real urgency to fill the spot needed for an emergency session. She and former student regent Jonathan Stein have already presented Brown with a list of potential candidates who would best complement incoming UC President Janet Napolitano and the rest of the board.

“In my candid conversations with the governor, he said he liked the dynamics of present board,” Flores said. “He said he was going to be cautious so that the productive dynamic of board wouldn’t be altered too much.”

Flores also said important decisions have been made with great efficiency, and if anything, having a smaller board is more conducive.

According to Chris Garland, chief of staff for the Office of Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, he is unaware of any UC Berkeley professors or current regents requesting that the governor nominate new regents.

“It would be really helpful to have a full board, but … the board appears to be functioning quite well now,” Garland said.

Jim Evans, chief deputy press secretary in the Office of the Governor, said although the governor will move as quickly as possible to fill the vacancies, the quality of the candidate is foremost in filling the vacancies.

“As is the case with all of our appointments, our focus is selecting the best possible candidates,” Evans said. “That ultimately dictates our timing.”

J. Hannah Lee covers higher education. Contact her at jhlee@dailycal.org.

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Nathaniel Solley/Staff

When former ASUC senator Sadia Saifuddin was appointed to the position of UC student-regent designate at this month’s UC Board of Regents meeting, what should have been a conversation focusing on the candidate’s qualifications devolved into a shameful spectacle.

The conversation to approve Saifuddin failed to assess her preparedness to be a successful student regent in favor of demonizing her for co-sponsoring a campus divestment bill this spring. The bill, which would have divested ASUC funds from companies that provide resources to the Israeli military, initially passed in the senate but was later found to have violated ASUC bylaws and stripped of its financial effects.

In a rare gesture, UC Regent Richard Blum abstained from the vote to approve Saifuddin, stating that he disagreed with Saifuddin’s point of view but did not know her well enough to warrant a negative vote. He justified his abstention by stating that Saifuddin’s support of divestment would alienate the student body and make her too divisive of a figure.

This is flawed reasoning. For one thing, not one current UC student stood up at the regents meeting to speak out against Saifuddin’s nomination or say that she would fail to adequately represent them. In fact, students and alumni, including former student regent Jonathan Stein came to her defense, saying that Saifuddin brought students together in the spring by inviting them to Muslim and Jewish student halls to discuss divestment.

Furthermore, given that UC Berkeley originally passed the resolution with more than half of its student senators in support of the bill and that similar resolutions have cropped up at at least three other UC campuses this past year, it’s clear that the issue is important to many UC students. For that reason, Blum’s claim that her support of divestment will make Saifuddin divisive feels more like an attempt to stifle legitimate political debate than to preserve student unity. Blum’s comments were out of line and seemed to be aimed at appeasing lobbyists critical of divestment.

It would be one thing if the board itself did not pick Saifuddin for the role. But the process of choosing Saifuddin is the same one that is used every year: Applicants must go through a series of interviews with campus and UC student government leaders before being interviewed and selected by a special committee of the UC Board of Regents.

If the regents felt Saifuddin would not be an adequate representative of the student body, they should have voiced their concerns earlier. Some of the regents said that though they respectfully disagreed with Saifuddin, they still respected her appointment through the long-standing student regent selection process. Blum should have taken a similar stance instead of focusing so heavily on divestment.

We are also very disappointed in the way that much of the commentary on Saifuddin’s appointment, both during public comment at the meeting and elsewhere, has been openly Islamophobic and perpetuated stereotypes that have nothing to do with the work she has done as a student senator or how she will perform in the student regent position.

We believe Saifuddin is a qualified candidate and worry that her reputation has been wrongfully damaged by some of the comments made at the board’s meeting. Student government representatives should be able to openly address controversial issues like divestment and involve the student body in honest political conversation, even when there is disagreement among students. The board hindered this conversation at its meeting by focusing on just one aspect of Saifuddin’s experience.

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The decision to change the faculty code of conduct stemmed from a 2007 U.S. District Court case in which UC Irvine professor Juan Hong filed a lawsuit against the university alleging he had been denied a salary increase in 2004 due to his criticism of the hiring and promotion decisions within his department. The court ultimately ruled against Hong, finding that he was not entitled to protection under the First Amendment because he had made the comments as a public employee and not as a private citizen.

The university is bound to make decisions that its faculty members do not agree with. The UC Academic Senate and Academic Senate divisions at various UC campuses have been openly critical about administrative decisions in the past, including the amount of faculty input in UC governance. All faculty members should be able to express their opinions without fear of retribution.

The UC Board of Regents should think about reviewing the faculty code of conduct to include all types of free speech under the First Amendment that apply to a faculty member as a private citizen and public employee. UC Berkeley started the free speech movement, and it continues to be a basic tenant of the university’s culture for faculty members to participate freely in rallies and protests.

The UC system owes it to its professors to be able to express their opinions.

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Napolitano’s base salary has been set at $570,000, effective on or around Sept. 30, and will be about $20,000 less than what outgoing President Mark Yudof earns. Her new salary will also be about $370,000 more than what she currently earns as secretary of homeland security.

She will take over for Yudof in September and will be the first female UC president in the university’s 145-year history. She has previously served as Arizona’s governor and attorney general.

Napolitano’s approval at the meeting was the culmination of a five-month search process that some called too closed and secretive. Despite input from faculty, alumni, students and staff, many criticized the choice of Napolitano — which was unanimously made by a special committee of the regents. Napolitano was also announced as the committee’s only choice for president six days before her approval.

“There’s been some questions as to why we did not release the (names of) hundreds of candidates we looked through,” said former board chair Sherry Lansing, who headed the search committee. “The reality is that any candidate who is employed would withdraw their name if it was ever made public.”

The choice was also nontraditional because the role of UC president is typically filled by an academic or individual with previous experience in university administration. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom noted that the change was a conscious decision by the regents that began when Yudof announced his resignation in January.

The board approved the search committee’s selection in a quick vote. Only one voting member, student regent Cinthia Flores, opposed the appointment, citing Napolitano’s background as homeland security head and her role implementing controversial immigration policies like Secure Communities, which gave local governments the power to report undocumented individuals to federal authorities.

“Students have raised a number of concerns,” Flores said. “She must remember that her involvement with Secure Communities will cast a long shadow on her future endeavors … I strongly believe this program has produced a divide that does not reflect nor support the UC regents’ commitment toward expanding and enhancing diversity.”

After her approval, Napolitano began her first address to the board by thanking its members for her selection and expressing her excitement at the idea of working for the university and the state of California.

“The University of California is the backbone of this state and a beacon for the nation and world,” Napolitano said. “It also does not seem to be a stretch to say that as the University of California goes, so goes California. So this is a high-stakes proposition.”

She also addressed some of the concerns voiced by members of public at the meeting, which included her lack of experience in university administration.
“Let me acknowledge that I am not a traditional candidate for this position,” she said. “I have not spent a career in academia. That said, I have spent 20 years in public service advocating for it.”

Contact Andrea Guzman at aguzman@dailycal.org.

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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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