UC investments post 19% gains in '06-07

The UC Office of the Treasurer reported Aug. 7 that preliminary figures showed a 19.1 percent gain in UC Retirement Plan investments during the 2006-07 fiscal year.

UC's 19.1 percent gain matched that of the California Public Employees Retirement System, or CalPERS, and fell short of the 21 percent gain reported by the California State Teachers Retirement System, or CalSTRS.

The median return for funds with more than $1 billion in assets for fiscal year 2006-07 was 17.7 percent, based upon data from Wilshire Associates, the UC Office of the President said in a statement.

In the same statement, UC officials confirmed that pension contributions, which have not been required of employees for 17 years but were originally slated to resume last month, have been postponed for at least the rest of the 2007-08 fiscal year.

PacifiCare out in 2008

The UC system's Human Resources and Benefits division recently announced changes in medical coverage for 2008.

Officials said Health Net will be UC's network health maintenance organization provider, and PacifiCare will no longer be offered. However, "Health Net benefits and primary care doctors are virtually the same," according to the At Your Service Web site.

In a separate briefing, UC Davis Benefits Office Manager Bill Brooks stated: "Current PacifiCare members who do not actively make an open enrollment change will automatically be enrolled with Health Net."

UC will continue to offer Kaiser, Western Health Advantage, and the Blue Cross Plus, Blue Cross PPO and Core medical plans.

"Most UC employees will pay the same co-pays (for things like office visits and prescription drugs) in 2008 as they currently do in 2007," according to the At Your Service Web site.

Final information and rates will be available in early fall. Open enrollment is scheduled from Nov. 1 to 27, with changes to be effective Jan. 1, 2008.

More information is available online: atyourservice.ucop.edu.

Biodefense center finalists

UC is not among five finalists chosen by the federal government as possible hosts for a new national biological and agricultural defense center. UC Davis was a major partner in UC's systemwide proposal to house the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility on the grounds of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

In a July 31 announcement in the Federal Register, the Department of Homeland Security announced the finalists as Flora Industrial Park, Madison County, Miss.; Kansas State University, Manhattan; Texas Research Park, San Antonio; Umstead Research Farm, Granville County, N.C.; and the University of Georgia, South Milledge Avenue, Athens.

The government next plans to prepare environmental impact reports on the proposed sites, and choose one of them next year.

The department envisions the new center as a "next-generation" facility for the safe study of diseases such as foot-and-mouth in livestock, and zoonotic diseases such as avian flu — with zoonotic referring to diseases that are communicable from animals to people under natural conditions.

UC was among 29 applicants for the center, and made the first cut that winnowed the competition to 18. The UC application represented a consortium that also included the Irvine, Los Angeles and San Francisco campuses, as well as Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Poster calendars available

University Communications announced the availability of 2007-08 university poster calendars for delivery in late August. Campus units may order the calendars in quantities of 10 or more for 75 cents each through the University Communications Web site: ucomm.ucdavis.edu/pub_orders. For more information, contact Angie Malloy, (530) 752-9609 or ammalloy@ucdavis.edu.

'Innovative' research tools

UC Davis InnovationAccess, a unit of the Office of Research, recently launched a pair of Web guides to help campus researchers and industry form relationships with each other. The campus has also established a database on inventions that are available for commercial licensing and development.

The Web address for the guides is www.research.ucdavis.edu/iuc. Questions should be directed to InnovationAccess@ucdavis.edu. The inventions database is available at innovationaccess.ucdavis.edu.