On Campus

Meet Zona Roberts
By Martin SnappNowadays, people look back on the 1950s as the Happy Days, but for the kids who grew up during that time, it was anything but. Hovering over them were the twin terrors of The Bomb and a raging polio epidemic. One victim of the latter was Zona and Verne Roberts’ eldest son, Ed.

Saving a Language from Extinction
By Madeline Taub90-year-old Berkeley alumna Rebecca Contopoulou speaks Greek, Italian, French, English, Spanish, and another language that sounds a lot like Spanish but is actually Ladino, a Sephardic language that traces its origins to Medieval Spain.

Seamus Heaney in Berkeley
By Edward O’SheaMany Berkeleyans know that Nobel Prize-winning poet Czeslaw Milosz taught at Cal for many years. Fewer likely remember that his fellow laureate Seamus Heaney.

California’s Holiday Gift Guide
By Margie CullenThe holidays are rapidly approaching, and if you’re anything like me, you have no idea what to get your family members. Mom has so many sweaters already, Grandpa has all the cookbooks in the world, and what does a 19-year-old even want? Well, luckily for us, Cal has a wealth of grads who make products perfect for gift giving, be it stocking stuffers or statement presents.

The Push to Abolish Cars on Telegraph
By Margie CullenOn a Sunday in September, Telegraph Avenue looked a little different.

Cheered Up: You Can Be a Dancer and a Lawyer
By Rachel Schuster ’17, J.D. ’23 as told to Margie Cullen, M.J. ’22When I was really young, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease.

11 Things You’ll Never Believe Came Out of Berkeley!
By Pat JosephYeah, okay, you’ll probably believe some of it. Still, we think it’s a fun list.

The Winter Issue’s Editor’s Note
By Pat Joseph“The University is not engaged in making ideas safe for students. It is engaged in making students safe for ideas.”

Trouble with Safe Spaces
By Dhoha BarecheLast Summer on Reddit, someone posted a picture of the house rules at the Person of Color Berkeley Student Cooperative, also called Castro House, that stated “white guests are not allowed in common spaces.”

A White House Correspondent, A Vet, and Cal’s Mic Men
By Martin SnappColumnist Martin Snapp shares alumni’s stories.

Letter from Berkeley’s Chancellor
By Chancellor Carol T. ChristOur university’s return to the full range of in-person research, teaching, learning, and extracurricular activities has helped to confirm what we have long believed: All that we do, and all that we are, is supported and enhanced by the thousands of daily collaborations and interactions among members of our community.

How Berkeley is Improving Equity and Inclusion
By Lizeth De La LuzFive Questions with Dania Matos, Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion