UCs Consider Admitting More OOS to Boost Revenue

Parent Cafe
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<p>Um, unless you have been out of touch recently,you may not know that USC is now ranked around #26 compared to #25 for UCLA. So why do you assume it would be a step ''down" for a UCLA prof to go to USC ?
And here is proof:</p>

<p>USC College Welcomes New Faculty Members
Introducing the latest additions to the College’s teaching and research ranks.
Steven Regeser Lopez
Professor, Psychology
Ph.D., Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, 1983
Previous Institution: University of California, Los Angeles</p>

<p>Steven R. Lopez brings a cultural perspective to the study of mental illness, assessment and intervention. He studies how family factors influence the course of schizophrenia, particularly for Mexican-Americans. His research team has developed a model of cultural competence for clinical practice, which they are currently testing with support from the National Institute of Mental Health.</p>

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<p>My H teaches at the University of Stolen Colleagues (I wonder if he’s aware of this renaming.) When he gets home, I’ll ask him if he has examples of a UCLA or Cal prof recently coming to USC. Not sure what the net result is, since it works both ways.</p>

<p>I’m sure profs considering a move will take many factors into consideration. It is the younger, up and coming ones that I’m concerned might bail on the UC system. Even the somewhat older ones might consider a move to another part of the country if the K-12 school system at the new locale has something over what they find in CA, since that part of the educational spectrum is also at risk during this fiscal crisis.</p>

<p>USC does have a specific fund set aside to go after the best and the brightest profs.</p>

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<p>menloparkmom, I assume you have a dog in this fight. Anyway, invalid proof as this guy is hired before 9/2008. The economy landscape has changed significantly. I want a 2009 example like I said in earlier post. When I said this year, I meant 2009.</p>

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<p>My H teaches at the University of Stolen Colleagues (I wonder if he’s aware of this renaming.) When he gets home, I’ll ask him if he has examples of a UCLA or Cal prof recently coming to USC. Not sure what the net result is, since it works both ways.</p>

<p>I’m sure profs considering a move will take many factors into consideration. It is the younger, up and coming ones that I’m concerned might bail on the UC system. Even the somewhat older ones might consider a move to another part of the country if the K-12 school system at the new locale has something over what they find in CA, since that part of the educational spectrum is also at risk during this fiscal crisis.</p>

<p>USC does have a specific fund set aside to go after the best and the brightest profs.</p>

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<p>oH PLEASE, the Fall 2009 hires have not been announced yet. It is ONLY JAN 6.
and no I don’t have as dog in this fight. But I am not desperate to prove, as you seem to be, that only 2nd tier profs will “deign” to transfer to USC.</p>

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<p>Gosh middsmith, finding someone who jumped ship in the last 5 days is a tall order, aren’t folks pretty busy this time of year? However, I can tell you that one of the offers I have was made yesterday and one that was made in November still stands.</p>

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<p>menloparkmom, you’re conflating two very different events, timewise, here. (USC only put a hiring freeze on staff only 11/2008, and prove it by showing profs for 2008-2009 which were hired a lot earlier). If anything, they’re non sequitur. I specifically qualified all of my assertions with the current economic crisis. I venture a guess your kid goes to USC? You seemed to be confused by my earlier posts and went into great length to dispute something that’s not even my intention. What gives?</p>

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<p>“Gosh middsmith, finding someone who jumped ship in the last 5 days is a tall order.
However, I can tell you that one of the offers I have was made yesterday and one that was made in November still stands.”
I’d say that is response enough.</p>

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<p>The job situation is going to vary tremendously from field to field. There was just a big LA Times article about the MLA convention, and how the number of openings for English professors is far smaller than in earlier years due to all the financial factors we’re all so familiar with. I know that academic jobs are tight in at least some the sciences, though I don’t have much knowledge about engineering or professional schools. It may be that different people in this thread are feeling different parts of the elephant. hmom, in the fields that I’m most familiar with, there are very, very few individuals who would be approached by several different schools with teaching offers, whether for tenured or affiliate positions. You’re fortunate to be either in a field where that’s not the case, or to be part of the creme de la creme!</p>

<p>Anyone remember when it was UT Austin that was the big poacher of academic talent? Lots of snooty comments about the upstarts who were buying themselves respectability, and some amazement about some of the people who took the big money. If I’m remembering right, there was one Nobel laureate who moved there from an Ivy. Plus ca change.</p>

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<p>I think the UCs are underresourced. In most fields, faculty salaries aren’t fully competitive with their peer institutions, and research facilities are aging. Very few faculty will leave Berkeley or UCLA for a step down in prestige, even for more money; prestige is the currency of the realm, and many faculty prefer their present lifestyles and locations to almost any alternative. But these schools do regularly bleed top faculty to HYPSM, and perhaps more importantly, it’s harder for them to recruit laterals or top entry-level talent in many fields because salaries, benefits, and research packages aren’t fully competitive, especially since both the Bay Area and LA are among the nation’s highest cost-of-living markets. All that scares a lot of people off, both at the entry level and among potential lateral hires, so while not a lot of people actually leave Berkeley or UCLA for lesser schools, a lot of people end up at those schools who might in happier financial circumstances have ended up at Berkeley or UCLA. In the long run, that’s a losing position.</p>

<p>The UC system is also far more heavily dependent on legislative appropriations than some other top publics like UVA and Michigan. That means when the state is facing big budget deficits like those California is looking at today, the University is going to take a bigger whack out of its overall budget than many of its public competitors. The only alternatives, then, are to raise revenue, slash expenses, or both. In that context, admitting more OOS students is the least unpalatable short-term fix. The legislature has no more money to give. Dramatic hikes in in-state fees during a deep recession are politically infeasible. Hiring and salary freezes will go only so far, and threaten the University’s ability to remain competitive in the all-important competition for faculty recruitment and retention. As for deferred maintenance, that’s already been the policy for years, perhaps decades. There may, indeed, be some political opposition to increasing the percentage of OOS students at the flagship campuses. But every alternative is worse. I think it’s inevitable. And the fact that these problems have been looming for decades does not make them any less real.</p>

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<p>While UC may be at a disadvantage in stable money compared to UVa, (and that’s debatable see recent UVa links), the academic prestige in research easily trumps this vis a vis an UVa. UVa has been trying to hire some top research profs and found it much more difficult than just waving a little $$$$. They are rethinking their strategy.</p>

<p>[Letter</a> on the Economy’s Impact on the University - U.Va. Office of the President](<a href=“http://www.virginia.edu/president/spch/08/letter.html]Letter”>http://www.virginia.edu/president/spch/08/letter.html)</p>

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<p>LA Times reported this morning in a small story on page 2 of the California section that the UC Board of Regents is considering reducing the number of UC undergrads admitted for the coming year as a budget-balancing maneuver. There are also letters responding to the “admit OOS students” news piece, and an editorial on the issue.</p>

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<p>academics, ya’ gotta love 'em. Why not ask for lots more $$ in the middle of massive layoffs?</p>

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<p><a href=“http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regmeet/nov08/f6.pdf[/url]”>http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regmeet/nov08/f6.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Why is that the kind of thing typical of “academics?” Even in tight budget times, universities can’t turn a blind eye to enrollment growth and legitimate increases in operating expenses. 5,000 unfunded FTEs last year is not a situation I’d want my university system to leave uncovered. I applaud that they are committed to also making modest increases in areas that will help them maintain excellence, because a place like Berkeley or UCLA cannot afford to fall behind.</p>

<p>I don’t know about California’s situation, but in some states layoffs may drive people back to school. I don’t think layoffs mean that the only plausible response is budget reductions for postsecondary education. One could argue the opposite.</p>

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I asked a Cal alumni and she said Cal rarely hires laterals. One possible explanation is what you said. Another is Cal can pick and choose among those few thousand PhDs and post doc they graduate each year who’ve been researching, publishing, and holding discussion sections for Cal undergrads for the past 5-6 years (average) There is no need to look outside of its backyard for talent. They are cheap, obedient, and grateful.</p>

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<p>It’s not common for a school to hire its own grad students or postdocs into a tenure-track position. Soft money (bring your own research dollars) or part-time teaching gigs are the exception. The grad student/postdoc’s advisor is already staff, so that specific expertise is already in the department. It’s also a bad idea for the grad students/postdocs to stay, since they’ll still be seen as lowly peons. Far better to cross-pollinate and hire someone else’s graduates for early career hires; they’re still cheap, obedient, and grateful. </p>

<p>I know of specific examples at UCLA where the cost of housing was enough to send potential new hires elsewhere, even back in the 1980’s. Anecdotes <> statistics, of course. Another anecdote: one UCLA faculty friend says that what they’d really like is a bunch of students from a country where there are no video games :)</p>

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<p>[New</a> Faculty | UCB Research](<a href=“http://research.chance.berkeley.edu/page.cfm?id=130]New”>http://research.chance.berkeley.edu/page.cfm?id=130)</p>

<p>Something I observed:
A lot of profs were Berkeley Phd, did postdoc elsewhere, then come back to Berkeley for a teaching job. Don’t worry about the top UCs, they have no problem attracting amazing professors from Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, etc… HYPS profs do come to Berkeley. It’s funny how the media sensationalized stories about one or two professors from public schools going to HYPS, but not the other way around. </p>

<p>Before coming to Berkeley, he was an associate research scientist at Yale University School of Medicine.</p>

<p>Dr. Kaufer was a Human Frontiers Science Foundation and Life Science Research Foundation postdoctoral Fellow at the departments of Biological Sciences and Neurosurgery at Stanford University.</p>

<p>From 2001 to 2005 he was in the laboratory of Dianne Newman in the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at the California Institute of Technology where he was a Senior Research Fellow of the Beckman Institute. </p>

<p>Before coming to Berkeley, he taught at the New York University for the Stern School of Business where he was named Professor of the Year.</p>

<p>Before coming to Berkeley, she was and associate professor of finance at the Carnegie Mellon University. In 2000, she won the GSIA “Excellence in the Classroom” Teaching Award. </p>

<p>Before coming to Berkeley he taught at Stanford University.</p>

<p>Before coming to Berkeley Irina Conboy was an instructor Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford University. </p>

<p>Prior to joining the faculty at Berkeley (2005), he served as an NIH research fellow with Don Ingber at Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School, where he examined the nanoscale mechanics and dynamics of cytoskeletal structures in living cells. </p>

<p>Before coming to Berkeley he served as a principal research scientist in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Biological Engineering Division at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.</p>

<p>Claire J. Tomlin received a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Berkeley in 1998, joined Stanford in 1998 as a Terman assistant professor, and received tenure at Stanford in 2004. </p>

<p>Daniel Blanton received his Ph.D. from Duke University and his B.A. from Rice University. Before coming to Berkeley he taught in the Department of English at Princeton University. </p>

<p>Niko Kolodny received a B.A. from Williams in 1994, M.A. from Oxford in 1996, and Ph.D. from Berkeley in 2003. Before returning to Berkeley as Assistant Professor of Philosophy in 2005, he was Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University</p>

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<p>I saw a similar article in this morning in the SJ Merc. From today’s Sac Bee:</p>

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<p>Looks like Merced will grow quickly!</p>

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<p>latest news…UC wants to cut down enrollment across the UC’s by 6%, sparing Berkeley, UCLA & Merced:
[UC</a> to set limits on freshmen enrollment | L.A. Now | Los Angeles Times](<a href=“Archive blogs”>Archive blogs)</p>

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