Assuming vaccines become widely available in the spring and the public takes them, I think fall 2021 is the earliest the university welcomes the general public back on campus. Right now UCD has compulsory testing and documentation for students and staff, which will probably be in place until community spread subsides. Those measures may be more difficult to impose on the public, which isn’t subject to employee or student discipline. In the world of optics, I don’t think UCD is as worried about currying favor with Newsom as they are about not wanting to contradict UCD Health, which is trying to position itself as a COVID leader. Agree with your point that the short term selfishness and greed by a few has only extended this situation for everyone else.

My guess is it will feel more like a PBS pledge drive with somebody in khakis and a blue button up asking for cash in front a green screen of the arboretum, only it will cutoff every 45 minutes because nobody at CAAA upgraded the Zoom account. If it helps get you in the mood, Bar Bernardo is apparently selling the Wicky Wacky Woo in 4-pack cans now.

My guess is that if UCD really wanted to circumvent Yolo County, they could. They may not have the desire to do so.

agree on introductory ARC classes. Outside of classes, I remember it as a meat market with coeds on the ellipticals making sure everyone saw their midriffs and bros on the weight racks making sure everyone heard them grunting and slamming weights, not necessarily safely. And if you had a question, the ARC staff would disappear faster than a Home Depot employee.

Are the ways in which student fees are spent locked in or are they more advisory in nature? I know with donations there is always fine print that the chancellor can reallocate to other uses without your consent if they wish (and occasionally they do).

Personally, no I don’t think PE or other “fun” classes like tractor driving impede academic progress, and I do believe they have intrinsic value as part of the university experience. What I was getting at is that US News and WSJ type rankings include elements of “cost efficiency” in their algorithms and shaving a few units here or there to possibly get a few people out in 3.75 years may manipulate that a fraction of a point. Personally, I think requiring multiple classes in chemistry, calculus, and foreign language for majors with no practical application is a much bigger waste of time than anything else.

My speculation might be that they want to get rid of classes seen as tangential to core academics so they can maybe push people out the door a quarter sooner since that plays into rankings. I also wouldn't be surprised if there was some level of lobbying from Campus Rec to transition PE to paid recreation. They did a major renovation on the ARC from 2017-19 and I might guess increasing class revenue was part of the performa.

You other point about priority registration is well taken as a campus-wide problem. There are some classes you won't be able to take until your last quarter or maybe never at all if you are not part of a "priority" group. Definitely a supply and demand mismatch for a lot of courses. For all the talk of data, I think there are still a lot of non-data points that go into course offering. Plenty of professors declare they will only teach specific quarters, at specific times, or in specific rooms. I experienced dumb things like room changes because a professor didn't like the light switches in a particular lecture hall, with little concern given that the change impacted the capacity of that and other classes.

If the issue was that assistant coaches didn’t want to teach a couple PE classes anymore, I would question whether their commitment is to teaching their craft or personal prestige, in the same way I take issue with professors who feel teaching undergraduate classes is below them. Exercise walking would be a silly class for someone who’s already works out but I can tell you places like the ARC can be intimidating and unapproachable for someone new to fitness. There’s also value in being well rounded, taking unusual classes unrelated to your major, that I think the bean counters lose sight of.

Interestingly, the “declining enrollment” period coincided with major construction at the ARC, pools, and bowling alley. I bet sections were cancelled due to facility availability rather than lack of real demand.

I agree. Some of this is defensible, like the campus architect charging hours to the project to review plans. But the 6-10% that Mrak Hall skims off every donation and spends on who-knows-what is frustrating.

You are correct it is hard to know what the scope at Bob Foster is from the brief description. Not sure what the Sac construction climate is; nationally labor is better but materials are scarcer than a year ago. AECOM as the general contractor seems like a reasonable choice, much more so than Brown was for the stadium. I think UC functions as their own building inspector, for better or worse. Some cost is self inflicted with the quest for LEED certifications, which are kind of a farce for optics. Based on the little I know, I still think the costs probably include some nice-to-haves, but I’m not upset by this since it is substantially funded by donors. Regardless, it was an impressive fundraising haul in a short period of time.

Finishes can make a huge difference. Looking at comps adjusted for inflation, similar facilities at Montana $280/sf, Sac State $450/sf, UCLA $950/sf, UCD $1150/sf - but it’s not exactly apples to apples because the others didn’t include a practice field. Not out of line if it’s PAC12 level finishes. If it’s more modest finishes, there might have been a hidden driver, like utilities or drainage or something.

Yes, cost includes 45,000 square foot building, natural turf practice field, and renovation of existing locker rooms in Aggie Stadium. Being in the business, this does seem a little high unless there is some unusual mitigation on the site.

I’m sure mileage varies. In my time, PE classes were no pickup spot. The eye candy was at the ARC and PE classes were more nearly the awkward kids who didn’t know which end of the racket to hold. Several of my friends took squash with Bob Biggs and said it was the most profound class they took. But I’m sure some instructors phoned it in and I’m not really trying to make the case for PE so much as criticize the decision process. A transparent policy process exists to cut programs and the admin disregarded it (and said this cut was planned before the pandemic). My issue is they expect students, faculty, alumni, and visitors to respect every policy to a tee, but then they ignore it themselves when convenient and even try to obscure who in particular is making said decisions. And since UCD charges by quarter, not per unit, a 0.5 unit PE class is basically included as a free offering, where it will now be an up-charge through Campus Rec. One more step in the long walk of lowering value for each tuition dollar paid. In my view, a public university is owned by the taxpayers and tuition payers, and the admin are simply the hired help to serve at our pleasure. Somehow they have gotten the mistaken idea that the university is a corporation for their private benefit and that the collective public is something between a customer and indentured servant obliged to offer them tribute for whatever services they see fit. If the Coffee House has to hold public comment sessions when deciding to switch from fresh to packaged guacamole (yes, a real thing), certainly more important issues deserve transparency of process in broad daylight without the decision makers hiding behind a cloak of anonymity. While I agree that the legislature shouldn’t be concerned about one squash class, I think they should be concerned about the broader narrative of the admin sitting on back room decisions and then moving to implement without warning so as to avoid organized opposition.

Unfortunate for UCD, but not unexpected that he moves on. I would have guessed a P5 school his destination, but I can also see how a good job in Canada must look pretty good to Canadians right now. And there may well be some serious troubled waters ahead for UCD athletics. I hope he does well in this endeavor. What will be interesting is to see how May responds. Announced so far is asst director will be interim director and a search committee being formed to fill the position in early 21. If this was a known departure, there may already be a successor on deck for a quick strike. If it’s a real search, will be interesting to see if the committee focuses on qualifications or tries to shoehorn a diversity hire.

My understanding is that PCR looks for virus DNA while the rapid antigen test looks for a particular protein on the surface of the virus that interacts with our immune system. The criticisms I've heard are that the PCR test is sensitive, perhaps too sensitive at picking up non-infectious virus fragments (false positive) while the rapid test is maybe not sensitive enough for pre/mild symptomatic people that have marginal levels of this protein (false negative). I'm not a biologist, so if I am not understanding this correctly, please help me learn.

@movielover From what I gather, both tests are reasonably accurate for people with significant viral load but the stats are much worse for cases at the margins depending on the test, the problem being that some people at the margins are contagious and don't know it. So you're right that 50% accuracy is not very helpful in some scenarios, especially when someone uses one potentially false negative as free license to get up close and personal with others.

I went to grad school in the south, where administrators kind of check their academic ethics at the door for P5 football. In some of my grad classes, we had a football player who had too many credits to be an undergrad. It was an open secret that the department had not "accepted" him, but it was some deal between the AD and provost, and the professors were obligated to give him a negotiated B- for work clearly done by his eye-candy personal tutor. He disappeared after football season (which amounted to a losing record unable to clinch even an obscure bowl game). A waste of state money for sure. But he also presumably filled a seat that someone qualified and interested may have been turned down for.

I'm not sure why Elon Musk doing the antigen test. It is not definitive, especially among asymptomatic people, compared to the more expensive and slower PCR test. Antigen tests have a place, like where you are testing a whole team every day and need to basically run a continuous sieve to determine who should get more scrutiny from the limited PCR resources, but Musk could buy his own whole PCR lab if he wanted so he wouldn't have to wait on results for 3 days like the rest of us.

Will be interesting to see if teams are their usual selves or if the change in season has thrown anyone off their game. Not an easy schedule, but at least the home/away dynamic is more or less in our favor temperature wise. While below average for sure, last year it was a high of 6 F on the mercury on Feb 27 in Bozeman.

, @NewGuy Interesting points on grad school but perhaps two key assumptions would be that a particular player would be accepted to a grad program (some have precious few competitive seats) and that the student would still have time for football on the side. I don't know how a football time commitment looks compared to being a TA, but I don't remember feeling like I had a lot of spare time my first year of grad school.

If the years were having a poker match, 2020 would be the player who had too much to drink and was driving up the bet with 1929, 1941, and 1968 while only holding a pair of 2s.

As a long distance Aggie fan, I miss how Scott Marsh marches forward with calling the play after DK makes one of his signature oddball remarks.