UCLA UPROAR : The number of black students at UCLA has dropped since the voter-approved Proposition 209 outlawed the use of race in admissions decisions beginning in 1996. The university projected in June that fewer than 100 black first-year students planned to enroll this fall, which amounts to less than 2 percent of the class. More than 200 black students were part of the fall 1997 class. Administrators say that the number of African-American students at the institution are now at the lowest level since the 1970s.

As a result, UCLA is considering a new admissions model based on UC Berkeley's current admissions process, adopted after Proposition 209 passed. That institution's policies call for consideration of students' achievements in the context of their life experiences. A UCLA faculty committee has already approved the framework that could lead to a change as early as this fall for students seeking to enroll in fall of 2007. ...

FEMALE FACULTY: A new study of four-year colleges and universities — one of the most ambitious ever of the attitudes of young professors — finds that there is a notable gap between female and male academics in their confidence that tenure rules are clear, with men feeling more confident. The study also looked at many other issues — and found numerous instances suggesting that female faculty members are less satisfied than their male counterparts with certain college policies and the climate of their workplaces. The data released last week come from the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education, or COACHE, which is run by the Harvard University Graduate School of Education. For its study, the project surveyed 4,500 faculty members at 51 colleges and universities in the United States.

ALL-UNIVERSE GIFT: The private foundation of filmmaker George Lucas is donating $175 million to the film school of the University of Southern California — $75 million for facilities and $100 million for the endowment. The gift is the largest in the university's history. ...

GENIUS AWARDS: The John D. and Catherine MacArthur Foundation recently named 12 professors — most of them in science fields — among its 25 new fellows, who will receive $500,000 in "no strings attached" support over the next five years. The academic winners and their institutions are: Kenneth Catania of Vanderbilt University, Lisa Curran of Yale University, Kevin Eggan of Harvard University, Atul Gawande of Harvard, Linda Griffith of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, John Rich of Drexel University, Jennifer Richeson of Northwestern University, George Saunders of Syracuse University, Terrence Tao of the University of California at Los Angeles, Claire Tomlin of Stanford University, Luis von Ahn of Carnegie Mellon University, and Matias Zaldarriaga of Harvard. Biographies of the winners are available on the foundation's Web site. ...

UC EMPLOYMENT: The UC system has paid $12 million over the last three years to settle lawsuits involving employment matters, including issues of sexual harassment and discrimination, The San Francisco Chronicle reported recently reported about $9.3 million involved 168 employment cases at the campuses and medical centers from 2002 to 2005, according to a confidential internal audit and an attorney-client letter dated Sept. 12 from acting General Counsel Jeff Blair. The documents were sent to members of UC' Board of Regents. Blair wrote regents that the litigation should be considered in context. California is known as a state that is "favorable" to plaintiffs in employment cases, he said, and Los Angeles County is "notorious" for producing large plaintiff's employment verdicts. ...

FREE CAMPUS SPEECH: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation last month granting broad First Amendment protection to the state's college journalists. The new law — the first of its kind in the country — is a response to a federal appeals court ruling last year that many journalism educators feared could lead to far more intrusive oversight of the student press by college administrators. ...

ANIMAL ANGST: Dario Ringach, an associate neurobiology professor at UCLA decided this month to give up his research on primates because of pressure put on him, his neighborhood, and his family by the UCLA Primate Freedom Project, which seeks to stop research on animals.