San Diego Summarized | 3-19-18
Welcome to San Diego Summarized where each week we examine headlines from around the city:
This week's summary kicks off with a story first reported on by KPBS that corroborates previous mentions of the fact that San Diego State University is veering off its plotted course as a California State University school.
Public universities in California submit reports to state legislature each year detailing the efficiency of classroom usage on campus. The state wants them full of students at least 75 percent of the time, from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday. SDSU’s most recent figures come in below that benchmark and below what the California State University system reports overall.
In the fall of 2016, the most recent period for which data is available, the university scored 86.6 percent out of 100 for overall classroom use. The CSU system scored 89 percent. The filings show the university met the goal in its large lecture halls, but not in smaller spaces.
This news comes at a time when SDSU is bent on expanding its campus footprint into Mission Valley, oft citing the need to expand classroom and research space. As a CSU school though, research is not the designed emphasis of SDSU. Perhaps the university should seek to solve its identity crisis before it attempts to expand its offering of under-utilized classroom space.
This past week, President Donald Trump's administration made a decision that positively impacted Qualcomm, San Diego's largest employer, when it blocked Broadcom's attempted hostile takeover of the locally based cellular technology company.
That intervention offered a massive, yet still temporary, reprieve for Qualcomm's board of director's but there is still much to do before the company can be said to be firmly back on its own feet. Qualcomm is still embroiled in an ugly legal battle with Apple concerning licensing of technology used in Apple products, and Qualcomm's own attempted $43 billion takeover of Dutch company NXP Semiconductors has yet to be approved by Chinese regulators. Such an acquisition would diversify Qualcomm's business outside of smartphones to the automotive industry where NXP thrives.
On March 23rd, Qualcomm's annual shareholder meeting will take place. There are several senior management changes looming on the horizon as the company looks to refocus its efforts on winning back shareholder confidence. According to a Bloomberg report, four of the six Broadcom candidates gunning for Qualcomm board seats held healthy leads in early votes, and current Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf was in the bottom two.
We round out this week's San Diego summary with a question. Why aren't there more people interested in running for the San Diego Unified School District Board of Trustee seats?
The filing period to run closed on March 9th and there are not one, but two unopposed races. Mike McQuary and Kevin Beiser both ended up without a challenger for their board seats.
The Voice of San Diego's weekly Politics Report highlighted a Twitter thread by the San Diego Union-Tribune's opinion section editor Matthew T. Hall that called out for answers to our question as well. Why aren't more people taking action to improve what is a large and rather troubled school district?
If I'm reading @SDVOTE's candidate list correctly, the two @sdschools board incumbents up for re-election this year are unopposed. That's stunning. In a city of 1.4 million people, no one is unhappy enough with the current state of San Diego schools to mount a challenge? Discuss.
— Matthew Thoreau Hall (@SDuncovered) March 14, 2018
Opinions abound, but before people can start taking action they must first take notice of what is actually going on in their community.
Interested in learning more? VoSD has a great Education section that keeps track of the various issues affecting the school district ranging from inappropriate sexual conduct from teachers to budget cuts and mass layoffs.
Questions? Comments? Concerns? Suggestions? Leave a comment below and join the conversation.
