<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>Please read some of the links I’ve posted above, Cal is not going to move the law school… you have no evidence to back up the claim that Cal would ever move the law school and as we speak they are spending millions to expand and connect the law and business schools ON CAMPUS.</p>
<p>You use HMS, but again as I’ve argued above you can’t use HMS as an example… Berkeley doesn’t have a med school and HMS benefits from its location… no other grad departments would benefit by leaving campus. Do you see Harvard law school not on campus? With all the wealth Havard has and its much closer proximity to downtown Boston why wouldn’t it move its law school to Downtown Boston, if it appears so beneficial? There must be some reason why…perhaps its better for the law school to be on campus?</p>
<p>The impaction of CS a few years ago I believe was because demand for CS increased tremendously during the internet boom…once the boom went bust demand fell and the major became unimpacted. You can’t expect Cal to be as quick as wealthy privates to add faculty just when demand for a certain major goes up or down</p>
<p>How’s that? We are simply carefully defining what ownership really means, which means the rights to the residual claims. At the end of the day, if the UCRegents do something that the state deeply objects to, the state will ultimately prevail for they have the upper hand and they always will. </p>
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<p>There it is. I am quite certain that when push comes to shove, the state would invoke that clause about the ‘security of the funds’, and point out that the state ultimately OWNS the property of Cal. </p>
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<p>And similarly, Cal could also institute similarly easy access to a nearby town. That’s the point. </p>
<p>The half-mile “distance” of which you cite is from the CLOSEST part of the Allston campus to Harvard Square. But guess what - most of the academic facilities are not AT Harvard Square. What you have there are a bunch of shops, and all of the freshman houses (and also, I suppose, Widener Library) The vast majority of the academic buildings are located far north of the Square. Believe me, the walk from, say, Spangler (the main student building at HBS) to, say, William James Hall (the psych building) is a long and painful one, especially in the winter. The simple act of walking across Larz Anderson with the winter wind howling ain’t no picnic. </p>
<p>This is why so many people who have to take that trek don’t walk. They take the shuttle service. Hence, why can’t Cal have several discrete campuses, also connected by shuttle? Is that such a radical idea? </p>
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<p>Considering the mountain of academic evidence I can cite to you ad-infinitum, I think the evidence is on my side, and therefore you are wrong. </p>
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<p>So why make things worse by bringing in even more students?</p>
<p>Uh, I never said that I thought they would move the law school. I am simply saying that they COULD, and in particular, as an example that LOTS of things can be moved around. It is not written in stone anywhere that departments/schools can never move. Indeed, many of Cal’s departments/schools have switched locations.</p>
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<p>Again, you’ve missed the basic point, which is that Cal COULD move itself around. It doesn’t matter that Cal doesn’t have a med school. Cal has individual schools and departments that CAN be moved. Just because the law school is in the Boalt building today doesn’t mean that it will stay there until the end of time. I remember when the Haas School used to be in the basement of Barrows. It’s not there anymore. </p>
<p>The point is, things can be moved around. Cal is not confined to its current boundaries forever.</p>
<p>But I can expect it to at least try. Think of it this way. For how many decades has the CoE been impacted? The CoE has been impacted throughout all of recent history, and I will guess that even 10 or 20 years in the future, the CoE will still be impacted. But do you really detect any movement to expand engineering to one day actually be able to accomodate all students who want it? If there is, I sure don’t see it. </p>
<p>It’s one thing to be surprised by an unusually high level of demand for a certain major and then institute impaction as a purely temporary stopgap. But that’s clearly not what’s happening in engineering. Impaction is a permanent fixture of engineering. I certainly don’t see the Cal administration attempting to fix that, in spite of the fact that that would indeed dramatically improve the quality of the ug experience. Think about it: students would be able to freely try out and switch to engineering whenever they want, just like they can at Stanford? That would be HUGE.</p>
<p>Then let me put it to you this way. Imagine a system where the Haas School actually runs a bunch of its classes, and actually rents classroom/auditorium space within Silicon Valley, and has many of its profs actually drive down to SV to teach classes. </p>
<p>Ridiculous? Maybe just a PR stunt? Well, not to bowl you over, * but it’s already happening*. Specifically, the Haas Weekend MBA program actually runs holds half of its classes in Silicon Valley right now. If you don’t believe me, you can contact the Haas MBA program and ask them where the courses for the weekend program are currently being held. </p>
<p>All of this is simply to illustrate a quite basic point: that Cal can (and in fact already does) move programs around, and can run programs outside of the main campus, and indeed, outside of the city of Berkeley. Cal’s growth is therefore not strictly bound by the tenets of the city. That’s the point.</p>
<p>There it is. I am quite certain that when push comes to shove, the state would invoke that clause about the ‘security of the funds’, and point out that the state ultimately OWNS the property of Cal.</p>
<p>That has nothing to do with ownership…thats just there as a protective clause that the state could step in if the Regents are embezzling funds or anything illegal. Again you forget that it states UC is free from political or sectarian influence regarding its administrative affairs … just because UC decides not to expand Cal, which is an adminstrative decision, the state can’t say its using funds illegally…that argument will get laughed out of court, especially if UC is doing nothing illegal and especially if the state wasn’t providing the funds to Berkeley anymore. UC will argue that the state is violating UC bylaws by trying to exert political influence in adminstrative affairs.</p>
<p>If you don’t believe me, you can contact the Haas MBA program and ask them where the courses for the weekend program are currently being held. </p>
<p>Uh it’s a weekend program, there are hardly ANY classes, whether UG or Grad, that I know of that are on campus during weekends. I would like to now what the ratio is of weekend MBAs to Full time MBAs at Haas, probably very minute. I don’t know how you can compare Haas’s Weekend MBA program to Haas traditional program.</p>
<p>It’s not my job to teach you basic accounting. But, simply put, the final transaction is going to be exactly the same to Cal no matter whether your roommates live on campus or off. For example, let’s just make up some numbers. Let’s say that your roommates are getting $10k in financial aid for their housing. If they live on campus, then Cal will simply subtract that $10k from their housing bill (hence leaving them to pay the remainder). If they live on campus, then Cal just gives them the $10k in cash, and it is up to them to pay their landlords. </p>
<p>But in either case, *Cal always pays out just $10k. *. In scenario #1, the Cal financial aid office just “hands a $10k check” to the Cal housing office. (Actually, it’s just an internal accounting transfer, but you get the idea). The Cal housing office doesn’t care how it gets paid, it just cares that somebody is paying. In scenario #2, the financial aid office just hands the $10k check to you directly. But in either case, Cal is basically handing you a $10k check. </p>
<p>As to your other points, sure, maybe those private owners are merely speculators who are now getting screwed. But so what? At the end of the day, these are private organizations with far fewer resources than Cal has, and yet they are able to somehow come up with the money to purchase these properties, and Cal can’t? How’s that? That’s like Steve Jobs complaining that he can’t afford a new car when I can afford a new car. </p>
<p>Besides, let me turn the situation around. Why didn’t Cal buy a bunch of land during the real-estate trough, say during the California real estate bust of the early 90’s? And in fact, since you’re talking about foreclosures and a coming housing bust now, why doesn’t Cal take advantage of that by preparing to purchase a bunch of property on the cheap? If the housing bust is going to hit the Bay Area hard such that all these private property ‘speculators’ are going to be smashed, then it would make sense for Cal to take full advantage by scooping up all of their properties for pennies on the dollar, right? Then when the housing market inevitably recovers, Cal can sell those properties right back to the market and earn billions in profits, right? Li Ka-Shing, the richest man in Asia, made his fortune by purchasing much of the Hong Kong waterfront during a nasty economic downturn when properties were dirt cheap. </p>
<p>You keep pointing to the high prices of property in the Bay Area. But that by itself means nothing to a large financial entity like Cal. After all, sure, it costs a lot to purchase property in the Bay Area. But when you sell, you get a lot back. Hence, the only problem is coming up with the initial funds to purchase the property in the first place, but that’s not a problem for a large entity like Cal. Cal has billions of dollars in endowment and can obviously tap billions more in credit (just like how companies routinely tap the debt markets to cover their investment needs and similarly the state and Federal government routinely utilizes debt as a matter of course). Hence, if Cal actually wanted to become the dominant residential property owner in the city of Berkeley, it could surely do so. Of course it doesn’t want to do so (nor do I think it should), but that’s a matter of choice. It could do it. After all, I doubt that there is a single property developer/owner in the city of Berkeley that has anywhere near the financial resources that Cal wields.</p>
<p>What really matters to a large entity like Cal is not the initial property prices but rather the price volatility. But the simple fact that Cal’s main campus is located in Berkeley mitigates much of that volatility for the simple fact that many students and faculty simply want to live close to campus. Hence, you will always have a steady clientele. Contrast that with what is happening in truly cratered real estate markets like, say, North Las Vegas or Miami Beach. The truth is, few people really need to live there (i.e. most people in N Las Vegas can easily live somewhere else in Clark County). Hence, that market has no natural ‘real estate price brake’ the way that the city of Berkeley does.</p>
<p>Uh, I am not making any comparisons whatsoever. I am simply saying that this is the thin edge of the wedge: that Cal can and is learning how to run programs outside of the city. Hence, if Cal can do that successfully, that means that in the future, Cal might consider moving other programs outside of the city. </p>
<p>It all gets back to the basic point: Cal is not confined to running all of its programs in the city of Berkeley forever. Hence, pressure from the city by itself won’t necessarily constrain the growth of Cal. I’m surprised you keep contesting this very simple point.</p>
<p>And similarly, Cal could also institute similarly easy access to a nearby town. That’s the point. </p>
<p>The half-mile “distance” of which you cite is from the CLOSEST part of the Allston campus to Harvard Square. But guess what - most of the academic facilities are not AT Harvard Square. What you have there are a bunch of shops, and all of the freshman houses (and also, I suppose, Widener Library) The vast majority of the academic buildings are located far north of the Square. Believe me, the walk from, say, Spangler (the main student building at HBS) to, say, William James Hall (the psych building) is a long and painful one, especially in the winter. The simple act of walking across Larz Anderson with the winter wind howling ain’t no picnic. </p>
<p>This is why so many people who have to take that trek don’t walk. They take the shuttle service. Hence, why can’t Cal have several discrete campuses, also connected by shuttle? Is that such a radical idea? </p>
<p>Harvard even says its adjacent to the campus. We are not going to get anywhere on this argument. I would suggest to any people reading this board to go to mapquest and look up Harvard’s campus and then see where Allston is located, that it is right across the river from Harvard, that there is a already a bridge running between the two, and also take into account that Harvard and the state will be making the access between the two even easier in the coming years. Then look up Berkeley…then see where the Oakland city limits are…look to see where there is any actual land that could be used for expansion…and then decide whether it is easier to get from Harvard to Allston than it is to get from Berkeley to <insert random=“” location=“” in=“” oakland=“”>.</insert></p>
<p>Uh, no, that is PRECISELY what ownership is all about. After all, nobody can accuse me of “embezzling” funds if I am selling my car. It’s my car, and I can decide to do what I want with it. If somebody wants to pay me a million dollars for my car, hey, I guess I’m just a good salesman. Nobody can accuse me of breaking the law. </p>
<p>But that’s because I OWN my car. Nobody can tell me whether and how I can sell it. If I decide to give my car away to my friend, again, I am perfectly free to do that. Nobody can “step in” and tell me that I can’t. </p>
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<p>I am sure that UC would try to argue many things, and it may well come down to a lawsuit, one which I highly doubt that UC would win. At the end of the day, UC is not free to do whatever it wants, and I think we both know that.</p>
<p>Uh, I am not making any comparisons whatsoever. I am simply saying that this is the thin edge of the wedge: that Cal can and is learning how to run programs outside of the city. Hence, if Cal can do that successfully, that means that in the future, Cal might consider moving other programs outside of the city. </p>
<p>Just because Cal runs a small “weekend” MBA outside the campus provides no evidence that it would or could move its whole traditional program and school off campus let alone outside of Berkeley. Again I suggest you read the link that I provided shows right now the school is doing the opposite of what you are suggesting, expanding on campus and integrating itself closely with the law school.</p>
<p>Uh, Harvard (just like most other schools) says many things that are misleading. Do you believe everything on Harvard’s brochures or press releases? </p>
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<p>And similarly, I would advise people to actually figure out where they would be on the new Allston campus buildout - almost all of which is going to be significantly south of HBS - and then trace out where the academic facilities of the Harvard main campus actually are, and then ask themselves how they would like doing that walk every day. Especially when the weather is bad, like right now. </p>
<p>Or even better. Please, by all means, come to the area during the winter, and actually * do the walk yourself*, and then report back how enjoyable it is, and ask yourself whether you are reasonably going to do it every day, or whether you are just going to take shuttles, as most people do now. </p>
<p>If the answer is that you, like most people, are going to wind up taking shuttles, then I would ask, how is that any different from being shuttled around from Berkeley to Oakland or Berkeley to Albany?</p>
<p>And when have I ever said that they would move all of Haas off-campus? Please point to the quote where I specifically said that Cal was going to move all of Haas off-campus.</p>
<p>I am simply saying that they can move SOME things off campus, and in fact, already are. Hence, if part of Haas is already off-campus, why can’t other parts of other Cal programs also be moved off-campus?</p>
<p>Uh, no, that is PRECISELY what ownership is all about. After all, nobody can accuse me of “embezzling” funds if I am selling my car. It’s my car, and I can decide to do what I want with it. If somebody wants to pay me a million dollars for my car, hey, I guess I’m just a good salesman. Nobody can accuse me of breaking the law</p>
<p>How does this apply to UC Regents and the state? I don’t get your analogy because the Regents would be the entity selling property, UC has the legal title to the land, which you said earlier the state had but were wrong. What I am saying is the state cannot say UC is using funds illegally unless it has direct proof. You say in this post it would be hard to prove someone is embezzling. How could the state prove that UC is doing something illegal if it isn’t? All it would be doing is making an administrative decision that Cal won’t expand. UC would have more of a case than the state. UC could argue the state is breaking UC’s bylaws by trying to insert political influence in UC adminstrative affairs.</p>
<p>I am saying that the very act of being able to question the sale itself signifies that the Regents don’t truly have ownership. Like I said, if I sell my car, nobody can come up to me later and question whether I sold my car “properly” or whether I made sufficient profit on my sale. I own the car, so I can do whatever I want with it. If I want to lose money by giving it away to my friend, nobody can complain, because the car is mine.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if the Regents decide they just want to “give away” Cal’s property, you and I both know that the state will lower the hammer. That very threat of intervention means that the Regents don’t truly own Cal.</p>
<p>I am saying that the very act of being able to question the sale itself signifies that the Regents don’t truly have ownership. Like I said, if I sell my car, nobody can come up to me later and question whether I sold my car “properly” or whether I made sufficient profit on my sale. I own the car, so I can do whatever I want with it. If I want to lose money by giving it away to my friend, nobody can complain, because the car is mine.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if the Regents decide they just want to “give away” Cal’s property, you and I both know that the state will lower the hammer. That very threat of intervention means that the Regents don’t truly own Cal.</p>
<p>I think the state is smart enough to realize that if there is no proof that UC is spending funds illegally that it can’t just make random accusations. That could end up being a lawsuit against the state. UC could argue the state’s true intention are to insert political influence in UC administrative decisions.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that Cal has more undergrads now than it had 15 years ago. 15 years ago, L&S was unimpacted. Yet now, L&S is cramming even more students into the school, despite the impaction. Interesting, isn’t it?</p>
<p>And when have I ever said that they would move all of Haas off-campus? Please point to the quote where I specifically said that Cal was going to move all of Haas off-campus.</p>
<p>I am simply saying that they can move SOME things off campus, and in fact, already are. Hence, if part of Haas is already off-campus, why can’t other parts of other Cal programs also be moved off-campus?</p>
<p>You’re taking a miniscule weekend program at Haas and comparing it to moving whole grad schools. The weekend program is a bad example because I’m sure its formatted to part time students who have families and can’t be full time students. It’s not that Cal is moving anything off campus but rather running a specific program that has been designed to provide different things than the traditional business school. Plus if you don’t believe Haas itself can be moved off campus, why are you using it as an example of how other grad schools can?? You still have provided no evidence of how one grad school would benefit by being moved off campus or that Berkeley would ever even do such a thing.</p>