Local News in Brief : Irvine : Second Think Tank at UC Irvine Receives OK

The UC Board of Regents voted Friday to establish a humanities think tank at UCI, the second approved for the university in three months.

The regents, meeting in Riverside, unanimously agreed to a proposal by UC President David Gardner to create a new Critical Theory Institute at UCI.

The institute stems from a campus study group begun at UCI about five years ago. The cost, now about $45,000, will be absorbed by the entire UC system.

In September, the regents voted to create the Humanities Research Institute at UCI. It will receive about $800,000 a year from the UC system, and will invite up to 25 scholars a year to live on campus for a year while studying some aspect of history, philosophy or the other humanities.

Also at the regents’ meeting this week, a committee expressed concern about the drift back into debt by some UC hospitals, including the UCI Medical Center in Orange. That hospital will probably have a $9-million shortfall in the 1987-88 fiscal year, according to Leon Schwartz, director of the medical center.

Ron Kolb, a spokesman for the UC system, said the committee “focused concern on the deficits and said that special state assistance will continue to be needed.”