Is there something in the air there?

A giant odorous cloud billowed over UC Santa Cruz's Porter Meadow on Saturday as a few thousand people took a bong hit or two or three during an event that's evolved into an international holiday for marijuana smokers.

Hoards of mostly college-aged men and women streamed into the grass field in a valley near College Eight throughout the day to celebrate and consume copious amounts of marijuana on April 20 -- a date some call "Weed Day" that has come to symbolize a free-for-all smokefest...

Full story at http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_23072047/thousands-light-up-at-uc-santa-cruz-celebrate

There definitely seems to be something in the air:
  
Or maybe it's in the ground: 

Who Owns the Course?

Inside Higher Ed today carries a story about concerns at UC-Santa Cruz about the ownership of MOOCs.  UC-Santa Cruz is the one UC campus at which the local faculty association has collective bargaining rights:

Faculty union officials in California worry professors who agree to teach free online classes could undermine faculty intellectual property rights and collective bargaining agreements. The union for faculty at the University of California at Santa Cruz said earlier this month it could seek a new round of collective bargaining after several professors agreed to teach classes on Coursera, the Silicon Valley-based provider of popular massive open online classes, or MOOCs... The union said the professors lobbied for a 12-year-old California law to guarantee that faculty - not universities - own the intellectual property rights to class lectures and course materials. But before professors can have their courses put on Coursera, they are expected to sign away those rights to the university so the university can give the professors’ work to Coursera...

Full story at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/03/19/u-california-faculty-union-says-moocs-undermine-professors-intellectual-property

Your own course could be singing:

UPDATE: A report in the San Francisco Chronicle indicates that state assembly leader Steinberg with meet tomorrow with unnamed UC faculty concerning his bill to establish online courses.  See the last sentence of:
http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/Faculty-spurns-online-course-approval-plan-4365018.php

UC Student Medical Insurance Limits

From the Contra Costa Times:

UC Santa Cruz graduate student Micha Rahder suffers from a rare disorder that requires her to be hooked up to an IV over two days, five to eight hours at a time, every four weeks... In November, she got a letter from the university saying she had used $378,000 of the $400,000 lifetime limit for students on the University of California student health insurance plan (also known as UC SHIP), Radner said. In early January, a little more three years after her first treatment, she received another letter. "It comes from the Office of the President of the University of California and it says, 'You've reached your lifetime maximum benefit. You're no longer covered under the student insurance plan. Please be advised that all students at the UCs are required to have health insurance in order to be enrolled.' And that's all it says. That's the last line," said Rahder, who is studying for her doctoral degree in anthropology. 

Many students on the UC student health insurance plan don't know there is a $10,000 a year cap on annual prescriptions and a $400,000 lifetime limit on all medical benefits...

Full story at http://www.contracostatimes.com/breaking-news/ci_22453646/health-care-limits-leave-some-students-few-options