The upcoming UC Board of Regents bimonthly meeting, which was originally intended to be at UC San Diego from Tuesday until Thursday, will now be held via teleconference on Thursday morning, according to a University of California press release.
The change is due to the recent outbreak of the H1N1 flu in Mexico and the United States. In a statement, UC Board of Regents Chairman Richard Blum said that the board did not want to divert resources away from the UC San Diego campus as they work to prevent health problems related to the outbreak, although no cases have been reported at the campus.
“We thought it best to meet our legal and operational obligations and conduct the meeting by phone, without asking the campus to stretch resources better applied elsewhere during this challenging time,” Blum said in the statement.
Student-regent designate D’Artagnan Scorza said that he understood the board’s decision to not hold the meeting in San Diego, given that other institutions have closed down as a preventive measure against swine flu.
“In hindsight, you can make a determination but you really don’t know so all you can do is plan to prevent the worst possible outcome. To have an outbreak at the meeting where you have hundreds of people gathered in one place could further the pandemic,” Scorza said.
During Thursday’s meeting, the regents are scheduled to vote a raise in student fees, including increases of 10 percent in educational fees and 4.2 percent in registration fees. In addition, the regents will vote on whether or not to add 10 percent to the nonresident tuition fee for undergraduates, according to the UC Regents Web site.
The regents will also be appointing new chancellors for UC San Francisco and UC Davis.
Although the meeting will be held via teleconference, the public can still be involved by setting up viewing rooms on most UC campuses throughout the state.
At UCLA, the meeting can be viewed online at the UC Regents’ Web site, www.universityofcalifornia.edu, beginning at 9 a.m. on Thursday.
Compiled by Julienne Lauler, Bruin contributor.