COUNCIL NOMINATIONS SOUGHT

The Academic Council is accepting nominations for persons to serve as the Council's vice-chair for 1997-98. After one year of service in the post, the vice-chair succeeds to chair of the Academic Council, the most important position in the statewide Academic Senate.

The Council vice-chair is elected by the Senate's Universitywide Assembly at its spring meeting, with nominations coming from the council and from the Assembly floor.

Academic Senate members who would like to place faculty names in consideration to be the Council's nominee for vice-chair should contact Jane Carey, executive director of the Academic Council, at (510) 987-9458, or at jane.carey@ucop.edu. Names should be received no later than March 10, 1997.

PROP. 209 ENFORCEMENT HALTED

With the December issuance of a temporary restraining order and then a preliminary injunction against California's Proposition 209, U.S. District Court Thelton Henderson returned the University of California to the status quo ante with respect to providing race and gender preferences in undergraduate admissions. UC has now reverted to the policies in place before Proposition 209 was passed, meaning that its campuses may take race and gender into consideration for the undergraduate class entering in fall 1997.

Henderson's ruling has no effect on UC Regents' Resolution SP-1, however, under which race and gender preferences will be ended for all undergraduate classes entering from the spring of 1998 forward.

403(B) RULE CHANGE

UC employees are no longer limited to making a single change per year in the amount they contribute to their 403(b) plans. Further, if they choose to stop contributing, they can begin contributing again in the same year, whereas previously they had to wait until the following tax year to do so.

Thanks to federal legislation passed last year and an enabling action approved by the UC Regents last month, UC employees may now end or renew their 403(b) salary reduction agreements or change the amount they contribute under them "at any time within a tax year, subject to payroll transaction deadlines."