Ronald Reagan and the fall of UC

[bemildred]

Xpost from California.

Once upon a time, the University of California was a sacred trust, the top tier of a model educational system that helped lift the state to unprecedented prosperity. It was jealously protected from outside political interference.

Now UC is more often described in profane terms. The state's entire higher education system has been under assault for decades — free access is long gone; investment per student has shrunk; some rankings have slipped. The passage of Proposition 30 last year will help repair some of the damage, but UC's stature has been diminished and with it the dream of a truly excellent education for every qualified native son and daughter.

The causes are complex and largely economic, but in an important way, the troubles of the nation's greatest public university can be traced to the ascent of a California icon, Ronald Reagan, and his brand of anti-government conservatism.

UC's downfall was eerily anticipated by a man Reagan made his scapegoat: Clark Kerr, UC president from 1958 to 1967. Kerr, an economist and renowned labor arbitrator, sought to make a college education universally accessible. He oversaw the 1960 adoption of the influential Master Plan for Higher Education, coordinating the state's junior colleges, four-year colleges and universities to avoid redundancy, save tax dollars and deliver on the state's commitment to provide a quality education for its high school graduates.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rosenfeld-uc-reagan-kerr-20130510,0,7344574.story

[bemildred]

1. USC gains Bruin brains as neuroscientists switch universities

In a major case of academic poaching involving crosstown rivals, USC has lured away two prominent neuroscientists from UCLA with a promise to expand their internationally renowned lab that uses brain imaging techniques to study Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, autism and other disorders.

Arthur Toga and Paul Thompson will move to the USC Keck School of Medicine campus next fall, along with scores of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and staffers who now work at UCLA's Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, known as LONI. In establishing a new institute at the USC campus in Boyle Heights, they will also move substantial government and private grants that fund the lab's $12-million annual budget as well as some of the highly sophisticated equipment used to investigate the brain's inner workings.

The new hires mark another chapter in a long Los Angeles rivalry in sports and, increasingly, in academic prestige. It also raises concerns about the ability of financially strapped public universities to fend off raids from deep-pocketed private colleges like USC.

http://www.latimes.com/health/la-me-0510-usc-ucla-brain-research-20130510,0,6976660.story

[xtraxritical]

2. Is there anything Reagan didn't fuck up?

[Fuddnik]

3. It was worse than you know. A new book by Seth Rosenfeld, "Subversives" tells the story.

The whole relationship between Reagan, J. Edgar Hoover, Ed Meese, and their hatred for Clark Kerr. And especially Mario Savio.

Well worth a read. Kerr stood tall with his dedication to education and his principles. Reagan and Meese, along with Hoover destroyed him.

[pinto]

4. +1

Good Op-Ed.