The University of California Board of Regents appointed a new student regent for the 2017-2018 school year, discussed state funding for the UC and heard about UCLA’s response to the June 1 murder-suicide on campus from Chancellor Gene Block.

Board of Regents

• The board officially appointed Paul Monge, a UC Berkeley law student and UC Santa Barbara alumnus, as student regent for the 2017-2018 school year. Monge, who was selected from three finalists, hopes to focus on food insecurity, housing affordability, and sexual harassment prevention.

Committee on Finance

• The committee discussed the state of California’s approved budget for the coming year. The budget will provide $25 million for 5,000 new Californian undergraduates in fall 2016 and $18.5 million for 2,500 in fall 2017, but no funding for graduate enrollment growth. Regent Russell Gould and student regent Marcela Ramirez said they were concerned about the lack of funding for graduate students.

• Additional funding will go toward deferred campus maintenance, retirement plans, and diversity programs. Regent Hadi Makarechian said he did not think the budget dedicated enough money to maintenance because the funding provided did not cover the current costs of renovation.

• UC San Francisco Chancellor Sam Hawgood presented the campus’s financial goals and challenges. He said the campus will see low net revenue in the next few years because it recently opened hospitals at its Mission Bay campus.

• The committee also discussed UC San Francisco’s efforts to increase faculty and student diversity. Regent John Perez said there’s been a slight decrease in the amount of underrepresented minorities the campus hired in the 2010-2015 period compared to the 2005-2010 period. Hawgood said the campus’s School of Medicine, which employs 85 percent of UC San Francisco’s faculty, has set specific diversity goals.

• UCLA Chancellor Gene Block presented the campus’s response to the June 1 murder-suicide and introduced a task force of faculty, staff and students dedicated to strengthening the campus’s response to violence, which would review the BruinAlert system and door locks.

• Michael Beck, UCLA administrative vice chancellor, said some laboratories do not have locks in case researchers need to leave the room in an emergency and fire codes require doors to open with a single movement. He added predators could take advantage of interior locks by following people into rooms and locking them from the inside.

• UC Student Association President Kevin Sabo asked the board to address food insecurity and housing shortages across the UC campuses.