The University of California Board of Regents convened for their March 15-16 meeting at UC San Francisco Mission Bay; discussing student housing and transfer student admissions, among other topics.

Regent Michael Cohen is the chair of the Finance and Capital Strategies Committee. Courtesy of the UC Regents Livestream

Finance and Capital Strategies Committee approves five new housing projects

The UC Regents Finance and Capital Strategies Committee approved housing projects at five campuses during their March 15 meeting, adding 8,000 new beds across the UC system.

The Regents approved Student Housing West at UC Santa Cruz and the Ridge Walk North Living and Learning Neighborhood project at UC San Diego, which will provide 3,000 and 2,444 student beds respectively. 

Housing projects at UC Riverside, Los Angeles and Irvine were also approved, potentially adding 1,500 beds at UC Riverside through the proposed North District Phase 2, and over 300 beds at UCLA and UC Irvine through further development of existing housing facilities.

The UC currently aims to add 22,000 beds before 2028, according to the meeting agenda. UC Chief Financial Officer Nathan Brostrom noted that the UC has faced significant challenges in recent housing projects — most recently facing a California Environmental Quality Act lawsuit that effectively halted the construction of UC Berkeley student housing at People’s Park.

“Lawsuits have delayed and significantly increased the costs for many of our projects,” Brostrom said. “Our plans to construct 22,000 new beds might be optimistic given our current constraints. However, it’s critical that adding more student housing is a top priority given the escalating costs of housing in our communities and our goal to add tens of thousands more students over the same time period,” Brostrom said. 

UCSA President and UCSB fourth-year history of public policy and law major Alex Niles emphasized the direness of the current housing crisis, pointing to his home campus as an indicator, and said housing affordability will not be addressed with more construction.

“At UCSB at the start of Fall 2021, hundreds of students found out their on-campus housing was not approved just before the start of the quarter. That was when we had students spending the quarter in hotels, and applying for single units on Facebook,” Niles said during the meeting. “Can we really say that something similar won’t happen again as we’re putting more and more students on campus?”

UCOP works to address equity gaps via systemwide dashboards

Members of the UC Regents Academic and Student Affairs Committee discussed efforts to address equity gaps across the UC through informational dashboards that present data on student equity and disparities in students’ success based on factors such as race, gender and background.

UC Office of the President (UCOP) Vice President for Institutional Research & Academic Planning Pamela Brown spoke to the upcoming efforts of the university to further remedy its equity disparities via the use of dashboards.

“Our intention is to create an inventory of what exists both internally and then what we can see with the public, learn from other institutions — including our colleagues at CSU, and national efforts like the American Talent Initiative or University Innovation Alliance — and then use that to inform the development and improvements that we’ll make,” Brown said.

UCOP created a UC 2030 dashboard to sort system-wide data by year, campus, ethnicity, residency or any combination of factors in order to track the progress of equity goals it is working to achieve by 2030. 

Brown gave the example of issues with first-year retention rates as an area the dashboards’ data could help identify solutions for.

“I’m particularly concerned about trends with first year retention,” Brown said. “I think that’s an area where we can learn from what the campuses are finding out and then conduct system-wide research.”

CCC-UC Transfer Task Force updates Regents on progress with transfer pipeline report recommendations 

Members of the Transfer Task Force presented their progress in implementing California Community Colleges — UC Transfer Task Force recommendations four and five into the UC system. The recommendations look to address transfer student admission rates and success.

The recommendations stemmed from a final report the California Community Colleges (CCC)-UC Transfer Task Force issued in July 2022, which outlined eight recommendations that would improve the CCC-to-UC transfer pipeline.

The fourth recommendation looks to streamline lower-division general education transfer requirements and college major preparation through the consolidation of requirements, supporting the development of courses fulfilling multiple requirements and providing greater opportunity for students looking to transfer to complete core courses at CCCs. This aims to fulfill California Assembly Bill 928, which requires the Intersegmental Committee of the Academic Senates to establish a “singular lower-division general education pathway” by May 2023 that will meet the academic requirements for transfer admission into UC and CSU campuses. 

“We have made solid progress with this,” UC Academic Senate Chair Susan Cochran said during the Regents meeting. “Working with our community college and [California State University] (CSU) counterparts, we have created the new Cal-GETC.” 

The Cal-GETC is the new California General Education Transfer Curriculum that was formulated in response to AB 928, which aligns UC and CSU general education transfer requirements without increasing the 34-unit ceiling for the course pattern. Cal-GETC will take effect for students first enrolling in a CCC in fall 2025. 

Recommendation five would improve the articulation of major-preparation courses and transfer paths, including faculty-led curriculum design initiatives and online education opportunities, among others. 

“When transfer students enter a four-year program, they want for themselves, as do we, to move seamlessly into upper division coursework,” Cochran said during the Regents meeting. 

The fifth recommendation looks to close equity gaps and help transfer students with major course preparation in the UC system, aligning with the goals in the UC’s multi-year compact signed with Governor Gavin Newsom. 

The UC Academic Senate’s Academic Council Special Committee on Transfer Issues and various UC faculty members are now reviewing 20 UC transfer pathways to confirm required versus recommended courses transfer students would need to transfer to clarify major-preparation courses needed for UC campuses. UC faculty are also assessing high-impact strategies under recommendation five to expand accessibility to transferring into the UC system. 

“Ideally, UC’s future developments and policy and practice will further the university’s overarching transfer goal to focus on advancing equitable transfer opportunity, enhancing the quality of students’ preparation and supporting students’ success,” Cochran said to conclude the presentation. 

UC Regents discuss federal advocacy efforts in support of research and land-use priorities

Members of the Public Engagement and Development Committee discussed the UC’s recent federal advocacy efforts in support of the humanities, social sciences and the UC’s agricultural priorities.

UC Riverside Dean of the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences Daryle Williams shared his experience traveling to Washington D.C. in 2020 for national Humanities Advocacy Day. There, he met with elected officials, including Senator Dianne Feinstein and Congressman Ken Calvert, to impart the importance of continued federal funding.

“In each meeting, I was able to share with our elected representatives and appointed officials the meaning of their support for federal funding that sustains the humanities in the UC.”

Williams also met with the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution Lonnie Bunch. Within its annual budget of $1.6 billion dollars, the Smithsonian provides UC undergraduate and graduate students with research and internship opportunities, according to Williams.

“Such institutional partnerships, built one-by-one, visit-by-visit, initiative-by-initiative, placement-by-placement, are fundamental to expanding the footprint of UC’s own investment in Washington and connecting our far-flung west coast campuses to the most important federally funded arts, cultural, scientific institutions in the urban east coast.”

UC Agriculture Natural Resource (ANR) Master Gardener Program Director Missy Gable delivered her update to the committee remotely from Capitol Hill.

“I’m here in D.C. today because I have compelling stories to share about the work of the UC ANR Master Gardener Program, and why the UC ANR is a great ongoing investment for federal capacity grant funds,” Gable said.

The UC Master Gardener Program is a community practice that brings together academics, staff and volunteers to address significant challenges like drought, fire and food security through gardening. Last year, over 6,000 active workers volunteered with the program, extending to partners such as schools, memory care facilities, prisons and jails.

Williams said that the university engages in lobbying efforts and social media outreach campaigns to strengthen its government relations and secure critical federal grant funding.

“We cannot overlook the fact that every federal dollar for student financial aid, international exchange, historic preservation, the national parks and minority-serving institutions advance the meaningful and resonant work of the humanities across California,” he said.

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Sindhu Ananthavel
Sindhu Ananthavel (she/they) is the Lead News Editor for the 2023-24 school year. Previously, Ananthavel was the Deputy News Editor for the 2022-23 school year, the Community Outreach News Editor for the 2021-22 school year and an assistant news editor for the 2021-22 school year. She can be reached at news@dailynexus.com.
Asumi Shuda
Asumi Shuda (they/them) is the Lead News Editor for the 2023-24 school year. Previously, Shuda was the Deputy News Editor, Community Outreach News Editor for the 2022-23 school year and the 2021-22 school year and an Assistant News Editor during the 2020-21 school year. They can be reached at asumishuda@dailynexus.com or news@dailynexus.com.
Nisha Malley
Nisha Malley (she/her/hers) is the County News Editor for the 2022-23 school year. Previously, Malley was an Assistant News Editor for the 2021-22 school year. She can be reached at news@dailynexus.com.
Mark Alfred
Mark Alfred (he/him) was the University News Editor for the 2022-23 school year.