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Cal for All: Thriving Communities for All

A quarterly speaker series aimed at creating a more inclusive alumni community.

November 1, 2023
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Columbia & Snake Rivers Journey

September 30 - October 07, 2023
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Lair Winter Getaways

Camp Oski’s heated, winterized cabins are a cozy home base for weekends in Pinecrest.

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Cover of the latest California Magazine issue.
Latest Issue

2023 Spring/Summer

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‘A very big deal’: Proposed legislation would tax California gun sales to fund violence prevention

“I joined the gun violence prevention movement because of school shootings like Uvalde and Parkland. Shootings that left me terrified to go to school. Shootings that left me worried that I was going to be the next headline,” the Oakland 9th grader told the senators emphatically. “I am here today pleading for a change.”
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For Our Print Readers

Changes to Our Print Distribution

In 2023, the magazine will appear in print twice per year instead of quarterly. Learn why.

Featured

San Quentin / Pat Joseph

Stuck in the Middle

Kevin Sawyer is a man of many parts. He's a certified commercial and residential electrician. A trained paralegal. A skilled guitarist and pianist. He's also an inmate at San Quentin State Prison serving an indeterminate life sentence for burglary and sexual assault.
Rebekah Shirley

Want to Solve the Climate Crisis? Invest in Africa

As Deputy Director of World Resources Institute Africa, Shirley is on a mission to accelerate the continent’s clean energy industry and spread awareness about the paltry financing the sector currently attracts.

Current Issue

2023 Spring/Summer
sistock.com/sportpoint

Lift Your Gaze

By Pat Joseph

At the height of the pandemic, I took a motorcycle safety course—partly for research, partly for the hell of it. Most of what I learned has since been forgotten or relegated to muscle memory, but one thing has stuck in my mind: target fixation.

Climate Change is an Energy Problem. Here’s How We Solve It.

By Glen Martin

Preventing environmental collapse won’t be easy, but we can still squeeze through the bottleneck.

Marcus Hanschen

Regional Parks Provide Refuge and Recreation

By Margie Cullen

Preparing to head out from the popular Skyline Gate Staging Area in Redwood Regional Park, a hiker is presented with a number of options.

Illustration by Pushart

Dacher Keltner is Awe-Inspired, and You Should Be Too

By Laura Smith

What Dacher Keltner teaches isn’t likely to land you a job on Wall Street or even make you more hireable, but that’s not really the point.

Fiat Lux

Stories from University Development and Alumni Relations highlighting the positive impact of donor support on our students, faculty, research, and facilities.

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Top Stories

(Pat Joseph)

Pac-4 Blues: Monday Morning Quarterbacking the Pac-12 Implosion

In case you missed the headlines, the Pac-12, Cal’s athletic conference, blew up over the weekend, leaving observers slack-jawed.
Giobbi in a signature Grateful Dead t-shirt / Tomas Morgan

Hippie House Music: DJ Puts a New Spin on the Dead

Around 11 p.m., a curly-haired woman, twinkling in a black, sequined pantsuit, took to the stage to roaring applause. A tie-dye Dead shirt peeked out underneath her jacket as she fit headphones over her ears and hit play.

(Phillipe Halsman)

The Day After Oppenheimer

In late May of 2022, UC Berkeley entered a time machine.

“Nakata,” Roamer October 1910 Album, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Nakata’s Smile: Unlocking the Diaries of Jack London’s Valet

The reference librarian slid the archival container across the counter. “This looks like a fun box to look through,” he said. I smiled behind my face mask.

Listen to The Edge Podcast

California magazine's Laura Smith and Leah Worthington host The Edge, a podcast for surviving today's modern world.

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Quick Reads

Paul Wonner (American, 1920–2008), North Sea Coast, circa 1954. Oil on canvas, 50 x 50 in. Private Collection.

‘Breaking the Rules’: The artists who abandoned abstraction and helped reinvent the still life

In 1952, UC Berkeley graduate students and artists Paul Wonner and Theophilus Brown met and fell in love. 
Shuttered California Theater in downtown Berkeley (Pat Joseph)

A Writer Returns to Berkeley in his New Novella

Writer James Terry, ’92, loved Berkeley and the culture that surrounded it—all the funky moviehouses, legendary bookstores, and iconic cafes, most of which have disappeared with the times.

Margaret being sworn in as a judge as her mother and daughter look on (Courtesy of the Fujioka family)

Her Honor: Judge Carries Lessons Handed Down From Heart Mountain

On January 11, 2017, Margaret Fujioka ‘79 took the oath of office in the Rotunda of Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland as the first Japanese American woman Superior Court judge in Alameda County. She was flanked by her proud mother, husband, and children, but her thoughts turned to two people who weren’t there: her late father, Yoshiro “Babe” Fujioka, and his hero, his big brother Teruo “Ted” Fujioka.
Courtesy of Emilie Raguso

On the Story: Emilie Raguso Covers Berkeley’s Crime Beat Like No One Else

When news first broke that a human skeleton was found hidden under a building on Berkeley’s Clark Kerr campus, Emilie Raguso was horrified.

California Magazine

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When you support California, you support independent journalism.

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From the Archives

Hell or High Water: How Will CA Adapt to the Anthropocene?

On February 12, 2017, nearly 200,000 Californians got the order to flee for their lives. Record winter rains had filled Lake Oroville, the vast reservoir that anchors the California State Water Project, to the brim. To avoid overtopping, project managers had released massive quantities of water down Oroville Dam’s main spillway, but fissures in the […]
Image source: Berkeley Public Library

September 17, 1923: The Day That Berkeley Burned

North Berkeley was a showcase for the city's exceptional architects. As it turned out, it was also a tinderbox.

The Chalk Market: Where Mathematicians Go to Get the Good Stuff

Filmmaker Kyung Lee never dreamed she’d become a dealer. But bringing her first feature-length documentary to fruition required money she simply didn’t have. What she did have, however, was an idea for getting high-quality product and access to exclusive clientele. It all started about a year prior when UC Berkeley math professor David Eisenbud was […]
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