Watch the Regents Investments Committee: 3-15-2022

The March Regents meeting began yesterday with the Investments Committee. Public comments dealt with vaccination requirements, nurse labor relations, nurse staffing, student regents, low emissions, and Cal Grants. After the comments, there was the usual discussion of the portfolio, although without the many charts, etc., that usually accompany such discussions. It was said that with the current volatility in the stock market, the overall $160 billion portfolio was currently about where it was in value a year ago. The market funding ratio for the pension, until recently in the 90%+ range, was said to now be in the 80s.

Chief Investments Officer Jagdeep Bachhar indicated that he now believes that inflation is going to be persistent, not transitory. He also mentioned in an off-hand remark that UC now had no Russian assets. It was unclear if it had sold off what ever Russian assets it had, or if it didn't have such assets to begin with. There was much discussion of global political risks.

A second item dealt with rules regarding regents and advisors to the committee giving advice to the investments office. This item appeared to be related to some recent incident that led to an investigation, but no specifics were given. The general rule since 2018 seems to be that Regents are not supposed to recommend specific investments in which they have a financial interest - with financial interest defined in extensive terms. And Regents are not supposed to direct anyone to do anything. There was some pushback about these rules. Some Regents indicate that they are approached by folks who want to do business with the Regents and they simply pass the information along without any recommendations. Do they have to fill out a conflict-of-interest form in such cases? The general counsel seemed to want them to do so. At one point, UC president Drake indicated that doing so would avoid appearance of conflict and the need for expensive investigations.

As always, we have preserved the recording since the Regents delete their recordings after one year. You can see the session at:

https://archive.org/details/regents-investments-3-15-22.

The segment dealing with inflation and the absence of Russian investments can be seen at:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_q84Xk_UEw.

We have previously noted on the blog that there have been demands for "hybrid" options on courses, i.e., courses that would be both in person and on Zoom or some other remote platform. Apparently, there will be moves in that direction although not mandated (or really possible) for all courses:

From the Bruin: UCLA administration agreed to most of the demands of the student leaders who organized the 16-day sit-in protest occupying Murphy Hall that took place in early February. UCLA community members staged a sit-in demonstration in front of Chancellor Gene Block’s office in Murphy Hall starting Jan. 31 to demand hybrid learning options and more support for marginalized student groups. The advocacy was organized by the Disabled Student Union, Undergraduate Students Association Council and Mother Organizations coalition. The sit-in ended on Feb. 16.

University leaders met in person with students throughout the protest to discuss the 40 requests they made, UCLA spokesperson Bill Kisliuk said in an emailed statement. University leaders did not agree to require that all instructors offer hybrid learning options. The Academic Senate sent the DSU a letter explaining that it could not do so due to academic freedom, a university policy that guarantees that instructors can control the content of their classes. Kisliuk said in an emailed statement that the campus currently lacks the capacity to live stream and record all classes and that classroom attendance policies are under the jurisdiction of individual instructors themselves, rather than university administration.

However, the university agreed to several DSU demands, including hiring Zoom assistants and additional Center for Accessible Education staff, writing letters to faculty in support of live-streaming lectures and supporting the creation of a Disability Cultural Center, Kisliuk said. The university will also hire an Americans with Disabilities Act compliance officer through the UCLA Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, he said...

demands-from-student-organizations.

At around the same time the Bruin article was being published, yours truly - who was teaching in winter quarter - received an email from the IT folks who are running the new Bruin-Learn/Canvas system noting that his course was "published" (public) and so could technically be viewed by anyone who had the URL. The email indicated that if any student component was recorded and on the course website, it could violate certain federal rules unless the students consented.

I don't want to go into the details but I questioned this objection, noting a) that only persons who had the actual class URL could see the "published" course and that the URL could not be found by just Googling the course, b) that, in any case, even someone who had the URL could not see the video contents without being able to log in using a Bruin account, and c) that in any hybrid or online situation, in practice there is nothing to stop anyone viewing the course from also recording it. Of course, with regard to "c," you can announce that the rule is not to record and hope that the rule will be followed, but an online viewer can be anywhere and is not in control of the instructor. (For that matter, even someone sitting in a regular, in-person classroom can easily record at least the audio component of what is going on surreptitiously by switching on a smartphone or other device.)

Yours truly received back a message saying issues such as those mentioned above are being investigated. That's fine, but the reality is that a policy of encouraging hybrid or online courses cannot be compatible with a policy of total privacy.

A door cannot be both open and closed at the same time.