News & Updates

Just a quick note to let our readers know that the blog will be taking a summer vacation during August.  It will return in September tanned, rested and ready to roll into what looks to be a fast-paced fall.

California lawmakers and Gov. Schwarzenegger have finally reached a deal to close a remaining $26 billion budget gap and in the process higher education took brutal cuts.  California State University trustees have voted to adopt a 20 percent fee increase (on top of 10% approved earlier this year), and the University of California system has warned of another significant increase in the fall.  Furloughs and class reductions are also in the mix.  Because the new budget package counts on an economic rebound, many are warning that future cuts (and fee increases) are likely down the road. 

You can read more in an Los Angeles Times story here.

Also, here is a New York Times story putting the California budget situation into a broader context.

It’s always great to wrap up a week with a purely positive story — and here is a great one.  Jerry Brewer’s column in today’s Seattle Times tells how Husky football player Skyler Fancher ran down a purse snatcher — on an injured leg to boot.

File this one under “Insanely Valiant Displays of Athletic Heroism.” Fancher, a sophomore offensive lineman on the Washington football team, helped catch a purse snatcher Tuesday night, defying his injury all the while.

He was eating dinner with a friend at Chipotle Mexican Grill in the University District when the chaos began. A young woman and her friend screamed and started the chase, the teenage thief ran away from them, and Fancher decided to sprint after him — in his flip-flops.

The chase lasted about 10 minutes, according to Fancher. It included two other men, one of whom suffered knee and nose injuries while trying to catch the purse snatcher. During the pursuit, Fancher, who has had two surgeries on his right leg since he injured it during spring practice, also climbed a wall.

You can read the whole story here — it is sure to put a smile on your face.

A new study shows that 2009 college graduates are finding most employers keeping starting pay levels constant despite the recession.  According to an article in the Puget Sound Business Journal:

This year’s graduating class held its ground with average starting salary offers, demonstrating that employers are reluctant to significantly tinker with starting pay despite the recession, a report by the National Association of Colleges and Employers found.

The average starting salary offer for new college graduates is $49,307, which is less than 1 percent lower than the average of $49,693 that 2008 graduates posted last year at this time, according to a news release Wednesday.

You can find the complete article here.

As Peter Callaghan notes in the News Tribune, the economy has been so abysmal that the lack of bad news now counts as good news.  So the announcement that state revenue collections for last month were in line with forecasts rather than well below them brought a sigh of relief in Olympia, plus some hope that the recession may be reaching a bottom.  Everyone remains very cautious, but these days all glimmers of a future recovery are welcome!

President Obama will unveil a $12 billion initiative to bolster community colleges during a speech in Michigan later today.  The spending would be aimed challenge grants to keep students in college, construction on community college campuses, and online learning.  You can find more details as they become available on our Federal Relations website.

An unusual story from Las Vegas, where UNLV President David Ashley was demoted by the Board of Regents for continuing to protest budget cuts to the school after the Regents had signed off on a plan to trim UNLV’s budget more than that of the University of Nevada Reno.    According to an article in the Las Vegas Sun:

The Board of Regents had proposed to the Legislature a budget plan that would make the same percentage cut in every institution’s budget. Under that plan, because of funding inequities that have existed for decades between Northern and Southern Nevada, UNLV would have taken a bigger hit than its Northern Nevada peer. UNLV’s budget would have lost $11 million more than that of the University of Nevada, Reno.

(Regent Jason) Geddes, who represents Washoe County on the board, said Ashley’s behind-the-scenes lobbying to make the reductions more equitable showed he can’t collaborate and wasn’t interested in the good of the system. In other words, he wasn’t a team player.

“You continued to pursue your dissenting opinion throughout the session and the final vote came out as your decision. I found that very troubling,” Geddes said. “You can dissent all you want (initially), but once the board makes a decision, you need to give it up.”

Others defended Ashley’s actions:

“He was part of a huge population of Southern Nevadans that were against it,” said Steve Sisolak, a former regent turned Clark County commissioner. “It was a disproportionate cut to UNLV versus UNR. It was obvious, egregious and should have been brought to the attention of the Legislature sooner.”

Graduate students said the campus community would have turned against Ashley if he had acted in any other way.

“Faculty and students would have said he failed the university if he had been silent about that plan,” said Kyle George, vice president of the Graduate and Professional Student Association. “He was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t.”

The circumstances are certainly unusual, but they serve to underscore the difficulties public university systems are facing throughout the country as they deal with severe budget shortfalls.  You can read the entire article here.