The UC Board of Regents will convene during a meeting today and tomorrow at UC Riverside to reevaluate the university’s budget outlook amidst the likelihood of additional state revenue shortfalls and trigger cuts for the upcoming school year.

Although the board will not take action on current tuition rates, students on multiple campuses plan to stage demonstrations during the course of the assembly.

In today’s meeting, running from 8:30 a.m. to 3:15 p.m., the board will vote to approve the minutes of its controversial Nov. 28 meeting during which the regents responded to non-violent student protests by hastily moving proceedings to a closed meeting in violation of California’s Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act.

According to the board’s record, the regents approved four major action items despite convening for a total of five minutes.

The regents will also discuss policy adjustments in response to the UC’s third annual diversity report, which found that throughout the system, undergraduate students and staff have the highest proportions of underrepresented minorities while faculty and graduate students have the lowest.

During today’s closed session, the regents will receive a briefing on the pending litigation stemming from student protests at UC Berkeley and UC Davis.

Thursday’s sessions, scheduled from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., include discussions on private support and advocacy — forms of revenue-building the university is cultivating to offset state cuts — and an update on Gov. Brown’s Jan. 5 proposed state budget. The proposal could leave the UC system with $200 million in 2012-2013 mid-year trigger cuts on top of the $750 million reduction in state funding this year.

Separately from the meeting’s pursuant business, two top UCOP officials will meet with representatives from the Fix UC coalition — formed by UC Riverside’s student newspaper, the Highlander — to discuss its alternative funding proposal that calls for student tuition contributions post-graduation rather than during enrollment.

Audio of the board’s open sessions is live-streamed via http://california.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=2.

— Staff Report

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