People ask me, “If you could change one thing about UC Berkeley, what would it be?” While I’m tempted to respond, “Not a thing,” here’s my honest answer: We need to evolve faster.
Berkeley’s quality and impact are, to a large extent, relative. No institution exists in a vacuum. “Excellence” is always a benchmark defined by the current landscape, and as societal needs shift, external standards change, and competitors innovate, standing still is effectively moving backward.
The world is changing rapidly and UC Berkeley, in support of its sustained excellence, must keep pace with and adapt to those changes. Resting on our laurels is not an option. Our quality and relevance will always be considered in the context of the ever-changing mix of opportunities and challenges that lie before the students we educate, the researchers and explorers we support, the public we serve, and the campus’s own operations.
We are now embracing the ethos of continuous stewardship. We recognize that achieving distinction does not guarantee its endurance. Excellence is perishable.
Our capacity to evolve, to rise up and take on new opportunities, demands thoughtful adaptation and new ways of thinking. And that’s exactly what we’re doing.
The first category of action—enhancing our openness to change—is based on our new embrace of the “Yes, if” ethos. While Berkeley is famous for questioning the status quo, we’re far better at that in our research and education programs than in campus operations. Migrating our mindset from “No, because” to “Yes, if” is facilitating a shared belief in the possibility—and necessity—of change.
Next in line is a new, sharpened focus on raising awareness about, and celebrating the success of, our changemakers. Incentives matter. To advance beneficial changes, we will support those who make tough decisions and encourage successful changes, particularly those that have traditionally been hard for Berkeley.
Funding matters too. Change does not come cheaply. Here’s a recent example of our readiness to invest: As we embarked on the formation of a new, long-term strategic plan, it became evident we needed to pivot and quickly address fundamental issues that impede faculty from doing their best work. Rather than adhere to the time-consuming practices of the past, an innovative set of First Things First initiatives was launched, catalyzed by $5 million in fresh funding and with new, built-in accountability mechanisms.
On the operational front, we are taking careful but concerted steps to harness AI’s potential to facilitate change. A great example is leveraging AI to reduce bureaucratic burden by quickly identifying those rules that are required (e.g., federal/state law) versus those that simply reflect discretionary practices or changeable university policies.
Another area of opportunity is training and professional development. We are now including offerings related to: change leadership; having difficult conversations in a constructive way; the potential—and limits—of AI; the sort of project management that paints a sharper picture of where change can take us; and providing our people with the tools, skills, and knowledge they, and we, need to grow and adapt to a constantly evolving workplace.
These changes in our administrative culture and operations are just the beginning. Our research enterprise is accelerating the translation of fundamental discoveries into the technologies and inventions that support the health, well-being, prosperity, and security of the American people. This includes the work of our world-class humanists who are helping us sharpen what it means to be human at a time when we so need it. At the same time, our campus is providing new opportunities for students to think and act more entrepreneurially, both in the private and social spheres. And as we expand the reach and impact of our startup incubators and accelerators, we are investing in founders in ways that return capital to the university and its core operations, enabling us to benefit more from the value we are helping to create.
We are also expanding our 50-course-strong suite of “Berkeley Changemaker” courses that focus on three C’s—critical thinking, communication, and collaboration—to foster, across all disciplines, a mindset that both anticipates and embraces the need for adaptive change. Responding to emerging contemporary issues, we have launched many new courses and academic programs aimed at educating students about the ethical and sophisticated use of AI tools, encouraging openness to opposing points of view, and facilitating discourse across divides. And there’s more to come.
I’ll leave you with that famous saying, a paraphrase of Darwin, that captures it nicely: It’s not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
