<p>Uh, no it is not. To convince yourself, let’s do a little thought exercise. Could the UCRegents collectively decide to simply sell all of Cal’s land and buildings to personally enrich themselves? No, of course not. But what that proves is that the UC Regents do not actually own the land/buildings. They administer it, but do not own it. The state owns it. Ownership inherently includes the power to sell. If you can’t actually sell, then you can’t really be said to own. On the other hand, if I decide to sell my car for $1, or even give it away, I am perfectly free to do so. That’s because I actually own my car. The state is the only entity that could actually decide to sell Cal. Hence, the state owns Cal. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Uh, whether we like it or not, that’s the way that bureaucracies work. I could cite a mountain of academic work that illustrates precisely this phenomenon. Bureaucrats are always out to protect their own hides. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Oh? Cal doesn’t have the financial resources? And yet Cal apparently had the resources to recently erect those minisuite housing complexes in the Units? Where exactly did that money come from? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yet look how successful that has been. As others have pointed out, Cal is evidently expanding by 1600 more undergrads, despite the fact that new campuses like Merced are vastly underutilized. </p>
<p>The truth of the matter is that the voters don’t just want to send their kids to any UC. They want to send their kids * specifically to Cal*, for after all, it is the best of all of the UC’s. Pointing to the slack resources of the other UC’s is not going to reduce the political pressure for Cal to admit more people. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Why not? Why would they not expand, given the incentives before them? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Uh, is it really? Again, I would argue that the pressure to absorb/deflect political pressure is a far stronger incentive than “making Cal better”, and especially not the Cal undergrad program. </p>
<p>Let me put it to you this way. If the administrators were really trying to improve the Cal undergrad program, then why not solve the problem of impaction? Why exactly are L&S majors like economics and psychology impacted anyway? They weren’t impacted even 10 years ago. Why are they impacted now? That hardly strikes me as an ‘improvement’ of the undergrad program. Instead, Cal has responded by simply letting in 1600 additional students. Does that seem to be the behavior of an entity that really believes in improving undergrad quality?</p>
<p>And you have to stack that against the incentives of public bureaucrats whose career prospects are actually enhanced by how large their organizations are. In other words, it has been proven time and time again that bureaucracies have a built-in incentive to inexorably grow larger over time. “Empire-building” is what it is often called. Bureaucrats rarely if ever have an incentive to actually shrink their own organizations, because that means less power for themselves. </p>
<p>Look, I don’t mean to single out Cal. This is a problem inherent in all bureaucracies, especially governmental bureaucracies of which Cal is an example. Weber wrote extensively about this phenomenon, as did Niskanen and numerous other sociologists, and the conclusion is that government bureaucracies have strong incentives to expand, but weak incentives to shrink. </p>
<p>Just think of an individual Cal staff manager. He is worried about his own career advancement, i.e. perhaps looking to jump to a better job at some other university or some other government agency, or perhaps in the private sector. It is more impressive for him to have on his resume/CV that he managed a group of 50 other bureaucrats than to say that he managed only 25 other bureaucrats. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Uh, that’s irrelevant. After all, for market prices to be booming, that must, by definition, mean that somebody out there is willing to pay those boom prices. You can’t sell unless somebody is willing to buy. In fact, right now as we speak, my old apartment building where I used to live is being sold from one private landlord to another. Hence, that new owner (a real estate ownership firm) obviously seems to believe that it can ultimately profit from the transaction (for otherwise, why is it buying the property now?), even though they are paying boom prices. Similarly, Berkeley city properties change hands all the time, no matter whether it’s a boom or a bust. The prices obviously fluctuate, but the incentives are always the same: the new owners always believe that they can make a profit from buying the property. If they didn’t believe that, then they wouldn’t be buying. </p>
<p>Yet the fact remains that few if any of the real estate firms who are currently buying properties have anywhere near the financial resources that Cal does. Somehow they are able to purchase properties, even at boom prices. But Cal can’t? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Uh, no, you still don’t get it. Financial aid is a separate ledger book. Whether students receive financial aid is a separate transaction that stands apart from the housing book. Specifically, you are actually still paying full price for your dorm, it is just that Cal then credits you back via financial aid so you as a student don’t have to go through the unnecessary steps of getting financial aid money and then immediately turning around and paying for the dorm. But the internal transaction is still the same. </p>
<p>On the other hand, if you were to live in outside housing, then you would receive a full financial aid check and it would be up to you to pay your landlord. If you wanted to live in one of the new swanky apartments on the West side, you could do it. If you wanted to live in a ratty hole-in-the-wall, you could do that. Cal won’t know and won’t care. You’re living outside the system, so that’s your problem. The ledger transactions would be the same. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>See above regarding these ‘premium prices’. </p>
<p>And besides, if “premium prices” were really an issue as you say they are, then why doesn’t Cal simply decide to sell some of its current housing infrastructure and profit from the boom? Ridiculous, you say? You can’t sell dorms, can you? Well, I know for a fact that several apartment buildings close to MIT, particularly 100 Memorial Drive, used to be MIT dorms. </p>
<p>Furthermore, you don’t even particularly need ownership. You can also create joint housing ventures. For example, numerous apartment buildings in Cambridge are “affiliated” with Harvard, which means that although they’re privately owned and managed, they provide first-preference to the Harvard community (students, faculty, staff). The privately owned Soldiers Field Park complex, for example, is almost all Harvard students and faculty. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You seem to be quite hung up on this plan, when I think you know that it’s really just a ‘guideline’. It’s not a law. If the plan needs to be changed, we both know that it will be changed. After all, I don’t remember any “plan” for L&S to institute impaction in a bunch of majors, but it happened anyway. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Sure I can, for what you mentioned is precisely the point. It is in a cheaper area of Boston. But it is in Boston. Harvard and the city of Cambridge have a very touchy relationship, such that Harvard actually finds it quite difficult to expand in Cambridge, so their response was to start building out in Boston. Similarly, I don’t see why Cal couldn’t decide to build outside of Berkeley, if city conflicts are such an issue. </p>
<p>Secondly, Allston is indeed cheaper than Cambridge. But again, that’s the point. Cal could start looking at other nearby lands that are cheaper than Berkeley. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I wish it was really as close as you are implying! Yet the fact is, Allston is not just “right across the river” from the main part of Harvard (note, I don’t consider KSG to be anywhere near the “main part of Harvard”). Believe me, getting from Allston to the Harvard main campus is not entirely trivial, especially when the weather is terrible, something that Cal doesn’t have to deal with. </p>
<p>Let me put it to you this way. The distance between the South end of the Allston expansion and the North end of the Harvard main campus is about 2.5 miles. That’s basically the same distance as that between the warehouses of West Berkeley and the East section of the Berkeley main campus, and not much shorter than the distance between University Park in Albany and the East section of the Berkeley main campus. And Cal doesn’t have to deal with winter snow. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Like I said, you won’t need to “build” anything. You can simply buy. Or create a “housing affiliation”. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Uh, I’m afraid you have misunderstood the chronology and causation of HMS and Longwood. HMS didn’t really move to Longwood because the hospitals were there. In fact, it was largely the opposite that occurred: HMS moved to Longwood, and then most of the hospitals followed. I believe there was actually only one hospital (the Deaconess hospital which is now part of BID) was actually in the area when HMS moved there, and even that is debatable. The other hospitals moved there or were founded there *after *HMS was relocated to Longwood. Hence, it wasn’t a case of HMS moving to where the hospitals were, it was far more of a case of the hospitals moving to where HMS was. </p>
<p>But in any case, I don’t see why certain graduate programs couldn’t be moved away. For example, why couldn’t the law school be moved to, say, Oakland, near Alameda Superior Court, or, even more radically, to San Jose, near the 6th State District Court of Appeals? After all, UCHastings benefits immensely by being located near the Supreme Court of California and the 1st District Court of Appeals. Again, I ask: what exactly does the Cal law school and the rest of Cal really have in common? Do undergrads take law school classes? Do most law students take non-law classes? And how much legal work is performed in the city of Berkeley anyway? Would it not benefit the law school to be located in an environment where laws are actually being adjudicated? </p>
<p>Hence, while you might say that HMS now currently benefits immensely by being in Longwood, I could argue similarly that Boalt would benefit immensely by being located in a law-making/litigating nexus point. The same could be said for the Journalism School or the Public Policy School. After all, isn’t there more public policy or journalism work to be done in, say, Oakland? </p>
<p>Again, lest you think this is ridiculous, let me give you a radical example. Wharton has recently opened an MBA program *in San Francisco<a href=“in%20the%20old%20Folger%20Building%20to%20be%20precise”>/i</a>: the “Wharton-West” program. Think about that. You can get a Wharton MBA without ever having been to Philadelphia. I think that’s pretty extreme: Wharton actually has to fly out its own faculty to San Francisco in order to teach MBA students. But hey, what can I say, Wharton has decided to do it. If Wharton can pull that off, I hardly see why Cal can’t move some programs to, say, Albany or Oakland if they need to. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Like I said before, voters don’t want to send their kid to just any UC. They want to send their kid to Cal. </p>
<p>Now, if Cal were to have bought the Merced land, that would be a different story. You could call it “Cal-South” (just like “Wharton-West”). But the point is, the voters want to send their kids to Cal. They want the Cal brand name. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What Cal plans to do and what Cal actually does are 2 different things. Again, I defy you to show to me a prior “plan” that stated that Cal was going to institute impaction in L&S. I don’t think that plan exists. Nevertheless, Cal instituted impaction.</p>
<p>Uh, no it is not. To convince yourself, let’s do a little thought exercise. Could the UCRegents collectively decide to simply sell all of Cal’s land and buildings to personally enrich themselves? No, of course not. But what that proves is that the UC Regents do not actually own the land/buildings. They administer it, but do not own it. The state owns it. Ownership inherently includes the power to sell. If you can’t actually sell, then you can’t really be said to own. On the other hand, if I decide to sell my car for $1, or even give it away, I am perfectly free to do so. That’s because I actually own my car. The state is the only entity that could actually decide to sell Cal. Hence, the state owns Cal. </p>
<p>The Regents of the University of California shall be vested with the legal title and the management and disposition of the property of the university and of property held for its benefit and shall have the power to take and hold, either by purchase or by donation, or gift, testamentary or otherwise, or in any other manner, without restriction, all real and personal property for the benefit of the university or incidentally to its conduct; provided, however, that sales of university real property shall be subject to such competitive bidding procedures as may be provided by statute. Said corporation shall also have all the powers necessary or convenient for the effective administration of its trust, including the power to sue and to be sued, to use a seal, and to delegate to its committees or to the faculty of the university, or to others, such authority or functions as it may deem wise; The Regents shall receive all funds derived from the sale of lands pursuant to the act of Congress of July 2, 1862, and any subsequent acts amendatory thereof. The University shall be entirely independent of all political or sectarian influence and kept free therefrom in the appointment of its regents and in the administration of its affairs, and no person shall be debarred admission to any department of the university on account of race, religion, ethnic heritage, or sex. </p>
<p>Once again you’re giving the state too much direct power…their main source of power again is funding. The state cannot sell any UC property, if it wanted to it would have to go through the Regents</p>
<p>It’s not whether we “like” it or not. I patently don’t think your view is realistic.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It hasn’t really been tried much (see the article from the first page), so there isn’t a real measure of success or failure.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’ve never heard of such conflict.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Flooding the market? Too many resources being sucked up in those departments? Too few top faculty? If you really want the answer, talk to L&S – I highly doubt it’s as nonsensical as you like to make it seem.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And I would argue the opposite. We can agree to disagree.</p>
<p>Uh, whether we like it or not, that’s the way that bureaucracies work. I could cite a mountain of academic work that illustrates precisely this phenomenon. Bureaucrats are always out to protect their own hides.</p>
<p>I guess Oxford and Cambridge are free of these bureaucrat forces that will always occur.</p>
<p>Oh? Cal doesn’t have the financial resources? And yet Cal apparently had the resources to recently erect those minisuite housing complexes in the Units? Where exactly did that money come from? </p>
<p>Alot of new constrution on campus is coming from alumni donations or donations from foundations. The Li Kai Shing Center is named such because the Li Kai Shing Foundation gave 40 million. They new BAM is being built almost entirely on private philanthropy. Stanley hall and the New Campbell Hall are 50% funded by private fund raising. Its much easier though to raise money for art and research than to raise money for new dorm building. I am not sure where Cal got the funds for the new dorms, probably from state funds, but either way it was probably much more difficult to finance.</p>
<p>wish it was really as close as you are implying! Yet the fact is, Allston is not just “right across the river” from the main part of Harvard (note, I don’t consider KSG to be anywhere near the “main part of Harvard”). Believe me, getting from Allston to the Harvard main campus is not entirely trivial, especially when the weather is terrible, something that Cal doesn’t have to deal with. </p>
<p>Let me put it to you this way. The distance between the South end of the Allston expansion and the North end of the Harvard main campus is about 2.5 miles. That’s basically the same distance as that between the warehouses of West Berkeley and the East section of the Berkeley main campus, and not much shorter than the distance between University Park in Albany and the East section of the Berkeley main campus. And Cal doesn’t have to deal with winter snow. </p>
<p>It is as close as I make it seem. The two campus look at each other. Allston is less than half a mile from Harvard’s main campus on map. The Lars Anderson bridges runs directly between the two campus and Harvard is looking into building a pedestrian bridge from Cambridge to Allston…this plan angered the state because Harvard seemed to want it to be exclusively for Harvard. Harvard and the state are already working on plans that make access from one campus to another very very easier. Again easier than any of your scenarios for Berkeley.</p>
<p>Heck Harvard in its plan calls Allston adjacent to the campus and even says no other urban institution has such extensive lands adjacent to it. Allston is closer and very different from any Berkeley scenario. Plus Harvard has already had facilities in Allston for years.</p>
<p>Uh, that’s irrelevant. After all, for market prices to be booming, that must, by definition, mean that somebody out there is willing to pay those boom prices. You can’t sell unless somebody is willing to buy. In fact, right now as we speak, my old apartment building where I used to live is being sold from one private landlord to another. Hence, that new owner (a real estate ownership firm) obviously seems to believe that it can ultimately profit from the transaction (for otherwise, why is it buying the property now?), even though they are paying boom prices. Similarly, Berkeley city properties change hands all the time, no matter whether it’s a boom or a bust. The prices obviously fluctuate, but the incentives are always the same: the new owners always believe that they can make a profit from buying the property. If they didn’t believe that, then they wouldn’t be buying. </p>
<p>Yet the fact remains that few if any of the real estate firms who are currently buying properties have anywhere near the financial resources that Cal does. Somehow they are able to purchase properties, even at boom prices. But Cal can’t? </p>
<p>Uh, no, you still don’t get it. Financial aid is a separate ledger book. Whether students receive financial aid is a separate transaction that stands apart from the housing book. Specifically, you are actually still paying full price for your dorm, it is just that Cal then credits you back via financial aid so you as a student don’t have to go through the unnecessary steps of getting financial aid money and then immediately turning around and paying for the dorm. But the internal transaction is still the same. </p>
<p>On the other hand, if you were to live in outside housing, then you would receive a full financial aid check and it would be up to you to pay your landlord. If you wanted to live in one of the new swanky apartments on the West side, you could do it. If you wanted to live in a ratty hole-in-the-wall, you could do that. Cal won’t know and won’t care. You’re living outside the system, so that’s your problem. The ledger transactions would be the same. </p>
<p>I don’t understand your logic. No matter how the transaction is carried out, my roomates are still getting subsidized one way or another. Those landowners aren’t subsidizing their tenets in any way. They collect the rent and thus are able to recoop their costs. Cal’s situation im different. Also foreclosure have skyrocketed in California and the nation the past year. Perhaps those investors were very wrong about how profitable buying property would be. I would bet most of the buyers that bought in Berkeley were speculators who weren’t planning on owning the property too long and then flipping it for a profit…It isn’t working out and the same would happen to Cal…but even worse because it wouldn’t be buying on on a speculatory basis and would recoop even less of its costs. Also why wouldn’t the heartless Cal beauracracy sell these dorms and make a profit on the boom? Maybe becaue they care about undergrad life and realize these dorms are in perfect locations already adjacent to campus. Plus where would they build new ones? Boom or bust…the bay area always has the highest median house price in the nation… and by a considerable margin when comparing outside of California.</p>
<p>Uh, I’m afraid you have misunderstood the chronology and causation of HMS and Longwood. HMS didn’t really move to Longwood because the hospitals were there. In fact, it was largely the opposite that occurred: HMS moved to Longwood, and then most of the hospitals followed. I believe there was actually only one hospital (the Deaconess hospital which is now part of BID) was actually in the area when HMS moved there, and even that is debatable. The other hospitals moved there or were founded there after HMS was relocated to Longwood. Hence, it wasn’t a case of HMS moving to where the hospitals were, it was far more of a case of the hospitals moving to where HMS was. </p>
<p>HMS might have helped consolidate many of the current hospitals to the Longwood area but their predecessors were already in Longwood and Boston before HMS moved to Longwood in 1906. Let me use UCSF. At one point it was seriously being debated that UCSF move to Berkeley because Rockefeller was going to generously endow the medical school only if it moved to Berkeley. For some reason UC officials thought that it was better to be in SF because their students demographic was much older and it appeared to be easier to attract top grad students to the city life of SF than to Berkeley and gave them many more patients. That may have been a major mistake looking back, but either way having a medical school in a major city is beneficial to the med school. None of Berkeley grad departments would benefit from moving them away from the main campus. You use the law school but I think thats alittle desperate, plus Berkeley clearly isn’t doing that and you would know that if you had read one of the links I posted above which shows that the Law and Business schools are expanding on campus right and conneting to one another. Berkeley is not going to spend millions on expansion and connection of the two school and then move them.</p>
<p>Furthermore, you don’t even particularly need ownership. You can also create joint housing ventures. For example, numerous apartment buildings in Cambridge are “affiliated” with Harvard, which means that although they’re privately owned and managed, they provide first-preference to the Harvard community (students, faculty, staff). The privately owned Soldiers Field Park complex, for example, is almost all Harvard students and faculty. </p>
<p>Hence, while you might say that HMS now currently benefits immensely by being in Longwood, I could argue similarly that Boalt would benefit immensely by being located in a law-making/litigating nexus point. The same could be said for the Journalism School or the Public Policy School. After all, isn’t there more public policy or journalism work to be done in, say, Oakland? </p>
<p>Again, lest you think this is ridiculous, let me give you a radical example. Wharton has recently opened an MBA program in San Francisco (in the old Folger Building to be precise): the “Wharton-West” program. Think about that. You can get a Wharton MBA without ever having been to Philadelphia. I think that’s pretty extreme: Wharton actually has to fly out its own faculty to San Francisco in order to teach MBA students. But hey, what can I say, Wharton has decided to do it. If Wharton can pull that off, I hardly see why Cal can’t move some programs to, say, Albany or Oakland if they need to. </p>
<p>It seems the journalism schools is doing great where it is currently located, plus the Cal campus will have resources Oakland doesn’t…so it definately balnces out. I think the Wharton MBA program in SF is probably more PR, to help Wharton connect with West Coast companies. I think the overall percentage of Wharton MBA students in SF compared to Philadelphia would be very minute</p>
<p>Like I said before, voters don’t want to send their kid to just any UC. They want to send their kid to Cal. </p>
<p>Now, if Cal were to have bought the Merced land, that would be a different story. You could call it “Cal-South” (just like “Wharton-West”). But the point is, the voters want to send their kids to Cal. They want the Cal brand name. </p>
<p>Cal currently rejects around 80% of its applications and their’s no public outcry. People seem to accept that only the brightest are accepted. Again I’m sure there are people in the UK who like Oxford and Cambridge’s brand names, yet they recognize that if their kids don’t make the cut, they don’t make the cut. </p>
<p>What Cal plans to do and what Cal actually does are 2 different things. Again, I defy you to show to me a prior “plan” that stated that Cal was going to institute impaction in L&S. I don’t think that plan exists. Nevertheless, Cal instituted impaction.</p>
<p>Yes its been able to expand but is now at a point where it is not able to do so anymore. If you look at many of the things occuring on campus right now it appears they are following the plans. Sakky although I generally respect your opinion you seem to have a VERY cynical view of the administration…you generalize too much. I think Birgeneau cares about preserving Cal’s quality more than anything. In a speech I saw him make he said that when he leaves Berkeley and retires his grandkids are going to be disappointed with the downgrade in housing since they only know the university house. He doesn’t seem to be completely absorbed with making his resume look good so he can move on to bigger and better things, because most likeley he will go into retirement once he leaves Cal. I think most the senior administraition at Berkeley aren’t as self-absorbed as you paint them. Again, the main reason Berkeley has pandered to the state by expanding is to not have state funds taken away.</p>
<p>Berkeley’s reputation has a lot to do with the greatness of its graduate programs. There has been at one occasion where Berkeley refused to raise its graduate program fees (to maintain appeal to more students) and continue to raise the undergraduate fees. Effectively, undergrad ends up funding the graduate programs.</p>
<p>Uh, it’s hard for me to understand why you don’t see that, if the state ultimately wanted to change the rules, they could do so as they are the ultimate owners of Cal. You and I both know that the Regents do not own Cal, as evidenced by the fact that they cannot just simply decide to sell it off and put the proceeds in their own personal bank accounts. Trusteeship is entirely different from ownership, for you and I both know that if the Regents were to try to personally profit from such a sale, they would all be arrested and thrown in prison. I, on the other hand, am free to sell my car or my house for any amount of profit I want, and I am free to pocket the profits and nobody can say boo about it, and certainly nobody will arrest me for doing so. That’s the definition of true ownership. Is this really such a complicated point?</p>
<p>Oh? Was Weber’s model of the ‘Iron Cage’ of bureaucracy wrong? In fact, all we have to do is look at our current political system and note how exceedingly difficult it is for government to shrink any of its programs; something that is successfully performed only with tremendous political conflict. Let’s face it. Bureaucrats are not exactly in the business of damaging their own job prospects. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Uh, first of all, I never said it was “nonsensical”. I have always said that it is fully “sensical” given the incentives placed before Cal, and in fact fully demonstrates my thesis. The fact of the matter is, there are too many undergrads in L&S (and also in the CoE and Haas, which are fully impacted). But what is Cal doing in response? Are they quickly adding faculty and resources to those impacted majors in order to quickly unimpact them? Nope, not really. With the exception of CS, none of the impacted majors have become unimpacted. Instead, Cal is bringing in 1600 more students. Presumably that would make the problem of solving impaction even harder. But that doesn’t seem to matter to Cal.</p>
<p>I’ll put it to you this way. 15 years ago, there was no impaction in L&S. 15 years ago, the Cal undergrad student population was significantly smaller than what it is now. I believe that is quite strong proof that the Cal administration is politically incentivized to bring in more students at the expense of quality. If you disagree, then perhaps you could explain why Cal would continue to bring in more and more students even in the face of impaction? If the Cal administration truly cared about ug quality as their top priority, then why would they do that? That is nonsensical. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Nobody is “free” of these bureaucratic forces. </p>
<p>But some organizations can apparently resist them more so than others can. The Berkeley graduate programs have apparently been able to strongly resist these creeping political forces. But the undergrad program, not so much, as evidenced by problems like impaction. Why would a school continue to cram in more students in spite of impaction, if not for political reasons? After all, you (as an administrator) know full well that some current students are now being forced to choose majors that they don’t really want because the majors they do want can’t/won’t accommodate them, yet you decide to bring in 1600 additional students? What does that tell you about the incentives of the administration? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>But they somehow got it financed. And certainly, you would agree that it’s more difficult to build an entirely new complex from scratch than to simply buy/rent an existing one. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No they don’t. Allston “looks” at KSG and to Eliot House. But that is hardly close to the main campus. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Most of them are grad students. But what does it matter? Harvard is able to guarantee 4 years of housing to undergrads in a way that Cal cannot, so Harvard doesn’t have an ug housing problem. Given that Cal will probably never guarantee 4 years of housing to undergrads, an affiliated housing program can be the next best thing. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I ask again, exactly what general campus resources are the law students using? The connection between the law school and the rest of Cal is rather tenuous: the resource sharing is pretty low. </p>
<p>I would again invoke HMS as an example. I know HMS students who never go to the Harvard main campus. They are perfectly content at Longwood. Frankly, they don’t need to be on the main campus. They are better off, as you said, in a place that is surrounded by numerous medical organizations. And in the rare cases when they might need to be on the main campus, they can take a short bus ride. Similarly, I would argue that the law students and law faculty are better off in a place (i.e. downtown Oakland) that has numerous courts, law firms, and other law facilities. And it’s not like Oakland is that far away from Cal. If they need to be at Cal, they can take a short bus ride.</p>
<p>Either way its owned by the regents… UC has legal title, which earlier you said the state has and is the reason the state would own the land, but they don’t have legal title so now you are creating some crazy argument that because individual regents can’t sell land to personally benefit themselves they can’t be owners. Can the board of trustees at Stanford personally enrich themselves personally by selling campus property…I would not. Both may sell land to benefit the universities. The governor appoints some of the UC regents, but I’ve already written about that in a previous post. </p>
<p>But really how is Stanford’s organization any different from the Regents, you state the Regents are trustees, not owners, but Stanford University is a TRUST with corporate powers under the laws of the State of California, just like UC.</p>
<p>Also in the UC bylaws it states UC has full powers of organization and government, subject only to such legislative control as may be necessary to insure the security of its funds. The bylaws also state that the university shall be entirely independent of all political or sectarian influence and kept free therefrom in the appointment of its regents and in the administration of its affairs. I think that makes it pretty clear that the states main leverage over the university is funding.</p>
<p>No they don’t. Allston “looks” at KSG and to Eliot House. But that is hardly close to the main campus. </p>
<p>Its part of harvard’s campus whether you like it or not…and again the main campus is less than half a mile away…and as I said above within the future access between the two campuses will be very very easy.</p>
<p>I simply think that your view on the motives of the administration is wrong. Simple as that.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No, 15 years ago, Berkeley had 31,000+ students (as the article in the first post says). There is a reason for impaction; they would not simply institute it, just because. I would suggest you email asking why.</p>
<p>No outcry? I have encountered several threads on CC that have basically voiced the opinion that since the posters (or more accurately, their parents) have paid for state schools through their taxes, then those schools should have to admit them. </p>
<p>Furthermore, I expect the pressure to admit more students will grow if Cal actually builds a larger endowment. The voters will see that pot of money and then naturally wonder why Cal isn’t admitting more students and will then exert political pressure on Cal to do just that. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The problem is not so much with Birgeneau and with the other senior management at Cal. The problem is with the Cal * middle management*, who are naturally incented to preserve and improve their future job prospects. Birgeneau and the other senior people do not know everything and cannot know everything. They can only act on the information that their subordinates tell them: but the problem is that their subordinates won’t tell them everything. Instead, they will tell only what will help their own careers. Consider Birgeneau to be the ‘head’ atop the ‘neck’ of middle management. The neck controls what the head can see. </p>
<p>You guys keep saying that this is a matter of cynicism. Hardly so. This is a phenomenon that has bedeviled organizations since organizations were first created. The entire Resource Allocation Process theory of Joe Bower is built on this concept. This is why, for example, Microsoft is having such a hard time competing in the Internet space despite numerous pronouncements by Bill Gates basically because Microsoft’s middle management - who is used to the steady incremental business of Windows and MSOffice - doesn’t really want to seriously compete on the Internet. Think of it this way. If you are a Microsoft middle manager of the MSOffice division, do you really want Microsoft to successfully develop a free ad-based Internet version of Office? Of course not, because that would threaten your current political standing in the company. Similarly, as a middle manager of the undergraduate program at Cal, do you really want to shrink the undergrad student base? </p>
<p>Like I said, this is not a matter of singling out Cal. This is simply a problem that all large organizations with established and entrenched bureaucracies have to face: that what the middle management wants is entirely separate from what the customers (students, in the case of the university) or top management want. </p>
<p>But again, I ask. If Cal middle management truly cared about undergrad quality, then why would Cal continue to cram in more students in the face of impaction? Maybe kyledavid80 is right: maybe that’s really a problem with L&S specifically and not with Cal middle management in general. But then you would expect that you wouldn’t try to make the problem worse by bringing in even more students. That is, of course, if you actually truly cared about the quality of the ug experience.</p>