Big Changes for Admissions at University of California campuses

Ace! NewsFlash

May 28, 2010, 8:32 AM

While budget cuts are remaking education across the country, California’s still stand out for their severity. Among the resulting changes are admissions and access to the state’s flagship higher education system, the University of California. Here is a look at the new reality.

Competition
Securing a seat in the system has become more difficult than ever, as 100,000 students applied this year. “It’s the highest number of applicants we’ve ever had and the fewest we’ve offered admissions,” said Don Daves-Rougeaux, the university’s associate director of undergraduate admissions articulation and eligibility. The University of California, Los Angeles, was the most selective campus, but the University of California, Berkeley, had the highest average grade-point average for incoming freshmen, at 4.19. All but the University of California, Riverside, and the University of California, Merced, recorded their lowest admissions rates ever, The Associated Press reported.

Enrollment
As part of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed restoration of $305 million in state support for the system, a state budget subcommittee on Tuesday approved $51 million to cover enrollment. It’s a good start, said Susan Wilbur, the university’s director of admissions. But she added that the system had chronically over-enrolled California residents. She estimated that there were 15,000 more students enrolled than the state was paying for. The unsustainability of this practice led administrators to begin cutting enrollment for the first time in 2008-9. This year, 1,500 spaces were cut, and the university instituted its first-ever waiting list to give it more flexibility in meeting enrollment targets. The extra state support should cover about one-third of excess enrollment.

Opportunity
At last week’s meeting of the University Regents, when I asked the University of California’s president, Mark Yudof, what he considered his greatest achievement in terms of increasing access for incoming students, he cited hisBlue and Gold Opportunity Plan. It is meant to ensure that low-income students can attend the university regardless of income. The plan, adopted simultaneously with a historic enrollment cutback last February, covers system-wide fees for students whose families make less than $60,000 a year. Starting in 2010-11, the income threshold will rise to $70,000. At that time, undergraduate resident fees for those not covered by the plan will rise to $11,287, after the 32 percent fee increase approved this fall.

Geography
The number of out-of-state and international students admitted has risen by 25 percent in the past year, to 9,552 from 7,634. That will produce about $43.5 million in nonresident fees, according to the university’s online admissions information. At U.C. Berkeley — which has the highest number of nonresident students — the percentage of nonresidents admitted rose to 18.5 percent from 7.9 percent. But “the university remains committed to access for California’s students,” Dr. Wilbur said in a telephone interview. “You need to understand that flat-out, that is our official position.” That said, she added, “over the last two years we have worked to bring our California resident enrollments in line with the funding we receive from the state. They were out of balance. We honored our promise to offer a place to every eligible student, but the goal was to reduce California residents.” Nonresident enrollment varies among the campuses, she said, noting that the strength of campus’s reputation is an important factor. “You could go to Saudi Arabia, you could go to China, you could go to Brazil and see kids walking around with Berkeley T-shirts on,” she said.

Freshmen
Starting in the fall of 2012, the university will retain a place for just the top 9 percent of graduating seniors statewide. But in addition to students who qualify by being at the top of their individual high schools, this number will be closer to 10 percent, Dr. Wilbur said. The California Master Plan for Higher Education , which outlined the goals and purpose of the state’s three-tiered higher education system, guaranteed admission to the top 12.5 percent of seniors when it was signed in 1960. The university also intends to release a five-year comprehensive admissions review aimed at reforming admissions and eligibility this July.

Transfers
Despite overall decreases in enrollment, the university successfully focused on ushering in transfer students this year. Although final admissions numbers are not yet in, Dr. Wilbur said she was confident the university met its goal of increasing California community college transfers by at least 500 students. Over all, there was an almost 21 percent increase in applicants from state community colleges.

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UC Merced's Post-Doc Fellowship for Quantum Chaos/Atomic Theory

Ace! NewsFlash

APPLIED MATH Postdoctoral fellowship – university of california at merced

The School of Natural Sciences announces an open position for a postdoctoral scholar with expertise in classical/quantum chaos and/or atomic theory. The successful candidate will work under the guidance of Professor Kevin Mitchell.

Area: Physics/ Applied Math
Position Title: Postdoctoral Scholar

Position Code: ASNS1962A

Description:
The University of California is creating a dynamic new university campus and campus community in Merced, California, which opened in September 2005 as the tenth campus of the University of California and the first American research university built in the 21st century. In keeping with the mission of the University to provide teaching, research and public service of the highest quality, UC Merced provides new educational opportunities at the undergraduate, masters and doctoral levels through three academic schools: Engineering, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences/Humanities/Arts.

The School of Natural Sciences announces an open position for a postdoctoral scholar with expertise in classical/quantum chaos and/or atomic theory. The successful candidate will work under the guidance of Professor Kevin Mitchell.

Salary: $35,500/year

Closing Date: Open until filled

To Apply:
Interested applicants are required to submit 1) a cover letter 2) curriculum vitae 3) a list of three references with contact information including mailing address, phone number and e-mail address.

Please do not submit individual letters of recommendation.

Applications must be submitted via this website: http://www.ucmerced.edu/jobs/

For more information:
Please contact Dr. Kevin Mitchell at kmitchell@ucmerced.edu. (http://faculty.ucmerced.edu/kmitchell/index.html)

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The First Lady Congratulates Graduates of U. of California's Newest Campus

Ace! NewsFlash

First Lady Michelle Obama waves to the first full four year graduates of the Univ of California at Merced on Saturday.

The University of California’s newest campus, at Merced, reached a milestone yesterday as its first freshman class moved all the way to graduation, and the nation’s first lady, Michelle Obama, was there to congratulate them. Members of the class had mounted an intense lobbying campaign to secure her as their commencement speaker, and theirs was the only invitation she accepted.

“You inspired me, you touched me,” she said of that campaign in her remarks to the graduating class. Making public service the theme of her speech, Ms. Obama urged the graduates to “dream big, think broadly about your life, and please make giving back to your community a part of that vision.”

The Merced campus, which opened in 2005, enrolls 2,700 students now and plans to eventually enlarge to 25,000 students. The usually placid campus was swarming with police officers and Secret Service agents on Saturday, the Los Angeles Times reported. The extra security and other expenses associated with the first lady’s visit will cost about $700,000, of which the campus has raised about $160,000 through donations, according to the Times.



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First Lady is UC Merced's first commencement speaker

News You Can Use from

May 13, 2009

University in California Dresses Up for First Lady

MERCED, Calif. — There are, to be sure, other things happening here this year. But in terms of sheer excitement — and frantic primping — there has been no bigger event in recent memory than Saturday’s visit by Michelle Obama, who will deliver the commencement address to the first full graduating class of the University of California at Merced, the newest, smallest and most anonymous of 10 campuses in the state university system.

The stage was being set on Tuesday for the commencement ceremony at the University of California, Merced, where Michelle Obama will speak Saturday.

“It’s going to be huge,” said Zain Memon, a 22-year-old senior. “This puts us on the map.”

Of course, such reputation-making is not cheap. Officials at the university were scrambling on Tuesday to finalize the financing for the event, which is expected to draw more than 10,000 visitors and cost some $700,000, or roughly $600,000 more than had been budgeted before Mrs. Obama committed to speak.

The cost includes a raft of technological upgrades, including an audio-video feed, a Spanish simulcast over cellphone and a concert-size stage set up on the Bowl, the sodded campus lawn where the first lady will speak. Extra security added nearly $100,000 to the cost, including metal detectors on the campus, which sits in a former cattle field surrounded by hay-laden farmland and cows of unknown political leanings.

None of which, university officials said, will be a problem.

“We are going to the office of the president, to the university’s discretionary fund, we’ll borrow if we have to,” said Mary Miller, the vice chancellor for administration. “This is an investment in our future. It is an investment in our community.”

Sure enough, even as students crammed for finals, workers were swarming all over the campus on Tuesday, doing last-minute landscaping, installing flags in front of the library and unloading thousands of shipped-in chairs. One of those hard at work was Joe Hobbs, 24, from nearby Atwater, who said Mrs. Obama’s visit had already become its own stimulus package.

“It gave me a job,” said Mr. Hobbs, who was working on the set-up crew and said he has a 1982 Camaro longing for a new motor. “It gave all these people out here jobs.”

For residents in this recession-battered city of 76,000 people in the heart of the Central Valley in California, Saturday is also being treated as a local holiday, with a daylong, downtown block party featuring its own Jumbotron for viewing Mrs. Obama’s speech and activities ranging from “human bowling” to sumo wrestling.

Merced Theater welcomed Mrs. Obama in a city that is treating her visit as a holiday.

“It’s great for the city,” said R. C. Essig, a co-owner of the Partisan, a Main Street bar that is bringing in a disc jockey from Los Angeles. “I mean any community event here is a big event, but this is even bigger.”

Indeed, local old-timers say the only event that measures up — political celebrity-wise — was a whistle-stop tour by one of the Kennedy brothers in the 1960s. (Which one is up for debate.) Still, some are hoping that Mrs. Obama’s trip will be more than a simple speaking engagement.

“I think she came here on a relief expedition,” said George Alonso, 57, a bankruptcy lawyer who said he had been far too busy lately. “I’m hoping she’s here to check out the situation.”

The situation in question includes soaring unemployment and foreclosure rates and more than a few “For Rent” signs along Main Street, a tidy and banner-filled strip populated by an assortment of mom and pop establishments.

The city — long an agricultural town — had high hopes for an economic boost when the university was opened in 2005. But the campus initially struggled to find students, though seniors like Mr. Memon say its physical improvements have been impressive.

“We have grass now,” he said.

But while the university’s enrollment has improved, its nightlife apparently has not.

“Unless you like cow tipping, there’s not much reason to go out there,” said Rick Stokes, who works at the Gottschalk Music Center, the local guitar shop.

Nor have students always found much reason to head into a city that bored local teenagers derisively call “Mer-dead.”

But local officials feel that Mrs. Obama’s trip may be a major step in the university’s evolution into a school with the cachet of other University of California campuses.

“I think my grandkids will see what the future holds,” said Michele Gabriault-Acosta, a member of the City Council and the descendant of two city mayors. “I love taking them out there and saying you could go here.”

Whether Saturday’s speech does boost the university’s stature remains to be seen. But for the first class to have survived its college years here, Mrs. Obama’s trip is all the confirmation they need.

“You have to be a special person to come to a place and create traditions,” said Vidur Malik, the editor of the student newspaper, The Prodigy. “They deserve credit for sticking it out.”