UC Regents

In a nutshell, the UC Board of Regents is a 26-member board with 18 of those members nominated by the governor and confirmed by the California Senate, one student regent appointed by the board, and seven ex-officio regents. Any major systemwide changes (i.e., fee increases, salary boosts, etc.) to the University of California must be considered and voted on by the regents. A full spread of the board can be found here. The regents are typically men who have a wealth of business experience. They are essentially appointed to ensure that the UC runs efficiently as a business, which leads many to believe they are detached when it comes to understanding student-related issues. To gain student perspective, however, they employ a student regent who has voting privileges equal to full-fledged members of the board. A total of six UC Davis students have served as student regent since 1975, most recently, UC Davis law student Adam Rosenthal, who served as student regent in 2005-2006.

The board of regents most often meets at UC San Francisco-Mission Bay campus, because the main UC headquarters is located in Oakland (every now and then, however, the board meets at other campuses. In May 2012 the Regents held a meeting at the Sacramento Convention Center on J Street in Sacramento. The meetings can be seen or heard via livestream on the regents' website. Regents meetings are traditionally split into three-day segments, falling on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Time is allotted for public comment each day, but members of the public seeking to comment must register in advance.

In the fall of 2006, the UC Board of Regents had been working toward regaining the public's trust in regard to executive pay and compensation disclosure. UC Davis brought a lot of attention on such issues with the Celeste Rose settlement, because the campus did not report this case to the regents.

2005-11-17 23:18:41   How can you have a favorite? They are all so nice, stealing from one of the most disinfranchised and under-represented groups of Americans today. And all so they can make a pittance. [/dripping with sarcasm] —AllisonEriksen

As someone pointed out below, it is an unpaid position... so... not really stealing is it? And which group of americans are you talking about? College age students? (cue violin music) —PhilSpear

2005-11-18 14:53:33   The Regents also decide who gets the coveted "UC Regents Scholorship". the freshmen go ballistic for it every year. —MyaBrn

2005-11-18 15:03:57   There needs to be a walkout or major protest— fees have been raised across the board five consecutive years now, and they are simultaneously awarding bonuses and giving pay raises to top brass and other UC bureaucrats. This comes in conjunction with reduced federal aid, thanks to Congress. —CentralDavisite

Isn't that what happened in 1991 when the students trapped the Regents in Freeborn? I thought that was the main reason the regents primarily meet at UCSF since then. There are practically no undergrads, and little political activity on that campus since it is primarily a med school. - RogerClark

They didn't let the regents into freeborn, at least as far as I know. I've been trying to find out more about this event, but there's not much out there.

2005-11-18 15:17:57   There are many variables as to why student fees have continued to increase. (not that I am defending either side) Schools are facing the loss of Perkins Loan funding, The Dep. of Ed. has not increased loan limits for students, the list goes on and on. But UCD is still has the lowest cost of attendance of the UCs. —MyaBrn

2005-11-18 16:31:24   Actually, UCD has the highest fees by $1,000 —JamesSchwab

2005-11-18 16:56:44   When i say cost of attendance, that is taking into account more than just the fees. It is the total cost, sorry for the confusion. —MyaBrn

2006-04-07 05:07:56   Just to clarify, the regent position is actually unpaid. These guys are already loaded; some of them own large businesses...They voted to raise UC senior faculty members' salaries, which doesn't include them. (Not that I'm defending them). —BrianChen

2011-08-20 11:52:30   I am a current student at Davis, and I am sure I speak for a lot of people when I say that all these increases have really caused some concern. They just approved another increase in July, as well all know. Our fees went up, and personally, my loans did as well. Yet, when I was looking on some news sites regarding our current fiscal crisis, I noticed that the UC's are planning on giving pay increases to employees that make around $200,000 or more. I mean, is this really in the student's best interests? I recommend you do a Google search and find out for yourself. I am a little worried for the future of the UC system. —davisaggie1

• 2011-08-21 08:32:28   Actually, if you look at what was announced last week, it was that money was being set-aside for non-union employees making UNDER $200,000 per year. Over the last few years, top-end contract administrators have gotten raises, as have union-organized service workers (and lecturers, I think) — a good thing. However, non-represented faculty have mostly received nothing. Let's face it, there are lots of young faculty who aren't making more than $100,000 that are struggling with out-sized home loans to live in Davis and student loan debt of their own that deserve an increase. I don't work for the University, hate the fee increases and the administrator salary increases exceeding inflation, but don't lump rank-and-file tenure-track faculty getting the same raises provided other employees. We need to keep these scholars to keep UCD an outstanding and rising school. Blame the Legislature for the $650 million cut in state funding—not our faculty. —ScottLay
• Scott is right that the salary increases are for those making under 200K, not those making over 200K. (The press release said "up to" 200K, which may have confused some people). It's also worth noting that it's not just untenured Assistant Professors who make under 100K — many tenured Associate Professors and even a fair number of Full Professors make under 100K. Here is a document showing salary scales as of October 2010. The document is a little hard to decipher, but if you stare at it for awhile you can figure out what's going on. Now, none of this is to say that I am fully happy with the 3% increase — I don't like it that the increase seems to have been funded by raising student tuition. I see so many other decisions that could have been made so that the state could be funding higher education properly, and I am angry that they haven't been made. But it is true that UC professors are getting poached by other universities, even though The Vanguard scoffs at the idea. In fact, much of that attrition was deliberate — we have had a hiring slow-down for several years now in order to reduce the number of faculty and save money. I guess people are starting to worry that there have been too many people leaving. Even before the economy went bad, UC faculty were paid less than faculty at comparable institutions. —CovertProfessor

2011-08-21 13:07:30   That's good to know, I read just a little excerpt from the Sacramento Bee the other day, and it frustrated me. I would certainly hope that the money they just allocated is not for those making $200+. I just wonder how both the state and the UC system are going to continue to function if the economic stability of this state does not improve. Tuition increases won't help, soon they would only be able to rely on higher class, and out of state students to pay the fees. Even then, people have limits, so prices can't keep going up forever. As for programs and services, I am not sure what type of things are vital (such as faculty pensions, healthcare, etc) but there must be some things that may be able to be cut back on a little bit. I just have the impression that there aren't as many things being done as there should be to prevent the UC from facing more budget woes in the future. I appreciate your information though, gives me something to think about. For the most part, being a student and all, I tend to not have time to get the full scoop on any headlines regarding fees, etc. —davisaggie1

• I agree with much of what you say here. We cannot, and should not, continue to increase tuition. You should know, though, that over the last several years cuts have been made, to programs, to staff, to numbers of faculty by slowing hiring, etc. All of which hurt educational quality. At some point, you really just can't cut any more without sacrificing what makes the UC such a stellar institution. And many people feel we're at that point. We've been getting less and less money from the state, and may receive another cut soon. So, something has to give. I think the state needs to increase, not decrease, its funding of the UC, but to understand why it hasn't, we'd have to get into complicated issues about why our state is so dysfunctional to govern. —CovertProfessor