After months of discussion and consideration, the UC Board of
Regents is expected to make a final decision on the
university’s future involvement with the Los Alamos National
Laboratory at its meeting Wednesday.
With a final request for proposals released last week, the
regents are expected to vote on whether the University of
California will bid to continue its management of the lab, which
has now lasted for over half a century.
“The UC Board of Regents is planning to take action on the
competition at the regents’ meeting Wednesday morning,”
said UC spokesman Chris Harrington.
Along with the discussion of the lab, the board will discuss
student fees, financial aid and enrollment when they meet in San
Francisco on Wednesday and Thursday.
The regents have been gradually warming up to the idea of
bidding for lab management, but have given no definite indication
of what their decision will be.
At their most recent meeting in March, several regents said they
supported the UC’s continued involvement with the lab and
were impressed with the quality of the work conducted there.
The university has been moving toward competing for and managing
Los Alamos, most recently appointing a team leader and potential
lab director.
The candidate for the job is Michael Anastasio, who has led the
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory since 2002.
“Should the UC Board of Regents decide to compete … and
win the contract, he would be director,” Harrington said.
The regents will discuss Anastasio’s appointment in a
closed session Wednesday.
Students’ opinions on the UC’s lab management are
varied, and neither the University of California Students
Association nor the UCLA Undergraduate Students Association Council
have taken a stance on the issue.
“UCSA tends to feel very split, much as the way the
faculty and other people who have been polled in this process
are,” said Jennifer Lilla, president of UCSA.
If there is one consensus among people at the UC, it may be that
the UC is the best candidate for the job.
“Generally, I think students feel that it’s better
us than anyone else,” Lilla said.
Some say they believe too much attention has been given to the
lab competition and that other areas have been neglected.
“There’s been a tremendous amount of university
resources … associated with (the lab),” Lilla said.
“The university might have suffered because of it.”
Topics like fees, financial aid and admissions ““ which are
more immediately relevant to UC students ““ may have been
pushed by the wayside with all the focus being given to the lab,
she added.
And though the lab may be bigger news in the media and the
state, many students are more concerned with who is being admitted
into the UC and how much they will pay once they get here.
With only a few months left before incoming students will begin
school, the regents are considering an additional 7 percent
increase in graduate fees on top of the 3 percent that was already
agreed upon earlier in the year.
This means that graduate students who applied to and enrolled in
the UC expecting to pay one price may have to pay a higher one,
Lilla said.
“The implementation of this fee just seems like a bad
place, a bad time,” Lilla said. “They’ve already
been raised once this year.”
The fee increase would affect anyone who is currently attending
graduate school at the UC as well as any student who is considering
doing so, said Jeannie Biniek, external vice president of the
Undergraduate Students Association Council.
In terms of admission, the board will look at the
admission-by-exception policy, which allows UC chancellors to admit
students who do not meet minimum eligibility requirements. The
program is meant to give special consideration to students who have
not received the same opportunities as others.
“Right now, the chancellor can use up to 6 percent of the
student admits for admission by exception,” Binie-k said.
Not all of that 6 percent is currently being used, and some
students think it should be.
“They’re talking about ways to encourage that,
because right now they only use about 2 percent,” Biniek
said.
The regents will also continue the ongoing discussion on Return
to Aid, the percentage of the income from student fees put toward
financial aid.
The problems related to fees and financial aid are closely
related to the funding the UC receives from the state, which was
laid out in the May revision of the budget released on May 13.
“The state budget just came out, and so (the regents will
discuss) how that is going to affect the UC,” Biniek
said.