California Dreams: The Making and Remaking of the University of California
By Miriam Pawel
Author Miriam Pawel took it upon herself to write the history of the University of California—all ten campuses. That’s biting off more than any writer could reasonably hope to chew, even across 350 pages. And yet she does a tremendous job digesting the material, which runs from Berkeley’s origins as the College of California in Oakland in 1868 to the founding and development of UC Merced, the newest in the constellation of UCs, in 2005.
Pawel is a biographer by inclination. Her past titles include The Browns of California and The Crusades of Cesar Chavez. (While highly critical of her subject, Pawel did not uncover the labor leader’s shocking pattern of sexual abuse, which only came to light this year.)
Here, the author structures her account around five characters who helped shape and were shaped by the University: Milicent Shinn, the first woman at the University to earn a doctorate, in 1898; Kenneth Bailey, the first Ph.D. recipient from UCLA (formerly the Southern Branch); Clark Kerr, Ph.D. ’39, Berkeley’s first chancellor and, later, UC president; David “Mas” Masumoto ’76, a peach and grape farmer who studied at both Berkeley and Davis; and Jose Manuel Alamillo, alumnus of UC Santa Barbara and a pioneer in the field of Chicano studies.
Of all these characters (and there are countless cameos in the book), Kerr looms largest. His section—Act Three—is filled with palace intrigue and power plays—somewhat surprising given the famous administrator’s mild demeanor and lack of vices. But there was resolve and guile behind the façade. Pawel calls him the “Machiavellian Quaker.” Massed against the man were foes from all sides, including his predecessor Robert Sproul, FBI moles, student rabble-rousers, certain SoCal regents, and, of course, Ronald Reagan, who ran for governor on a pledge to “clean up the mess at Berkeley.” Sadly underplayed here is Kerr’s famous wit. After his termination, he quipped that he left the University the same way he arrived, “fired with enthusiasm.”
His greatest contribution was his three-tiered Master Plan for Higher Education, which promised a college education to any Californian who sought it, free of charge. As egalitarian as it sounds, there was always a baked-in tension between populism and elitism. Pawel sums it up this way: “There should be room for everyone—but only the best students would go to the University”—that is, the UCs, as opposed to the CSUs and the community colleges. And within the UCs, Berkeley and UCLA were first among equals—and rivals to boot.
While Berkeley dominates the narrative, the author is careful to shine ample light on the other UCs. One of the more interesting and surprising chapters is about UC Irvine, the “Instant University,” which began recruiting and hiring faculty before there was so much as a single building on site. Early visitors came in by helicopter as there were no roads. The first class of students, in 1965, lived in cottages, and the “faculty club” was a trailer. Just 30 years later, the former frontier outpost would claim Nobel Prizes in both physics and chemistry.
Among other things, the book is a catalogue of battles: the faculty revolution of 1919, the loyalty oath controversy, the Free Speech Movement, People’s Park, Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, etc. Perennial issues run through the account, from debates about standardized testing, to the concern that research overshadows teaching, and alarm over supposed indoctrination by leftist faculty. Plus ça change.
The beauty of Pawel’s narrative is that it puts the battles in context and even, at times, explains their origins. At Berkeley, for example, she traces the lack of housing to the original design, which “was modeled on German universities, where many of the early faculty had trained, with minimal provisions for student life and no cultural facilities.”
But the UCs shine on and Pawel celebrates the triumphs of the institution that writer Joan Didion ’56 famously called the state’s “highest, most articulate idea of itself.” Anyone curious as to how that idea took shape will benefit from reading Pawel’s outstanding account.
—Pat Joseph
A Wall Is Also a Road
By Annalee Newitz
Gardenpath is, in many ways, a typical graduate student: ambitious, socially awkward, and determined to make a discovery that will change the course of history. They’re also a many-eyed slime mold in disguise.
Leave it to author Annalee Newitz ’89, Ph.D. ’98, to build an intergalactic sci-fi adventure around a precocious, single-cell organism.
A prolific science journalist and fiction writer, Newitz has a knack for creating unlikely protagonists, from the ragtag band of robots in their novella Automatic Noodle to the intelligent moose in their Nebula Award–nominated novel The Terraformers. In Newitz’s latest novel, A Wall Is Also a Road, readers follow Gardenpath, an ancient amoeba living beyond the galaxy and studying to become an acclaimed scientist. But when the tiny slime mold turns their eye—erm, eyes—toward a suspiciously Earth-like planet, they find their academic plans derailed by a little city called Pompeii and a woman named Murtis.
Newitz, who consulted biologists and slime mold experts, brings remarkable humanity to a brainless, microscopic organism that communicates mostly through chemical signals and a probing appendage. There are the juicy questions, too: How would a slime mold smile? Flirt? Have sex?
This novel has a little something for everyone who loves cozy sci-fi: speculative biology, history about the Roman Empire, a lesbian romance. In a recent interview, Newitz said, “I hope everybody develops a deeper appreciation for sapphic tentacle sex.”
Listen to a podcast interview with the author.
—Leah Worthington
The Pitt
If you followed this year’s Primetime Emmy Awards, you definitely know about The Pitt, HBO Max’s wildly popular medical series, which dramatizes a single 15-hour work shift at a Pittsburgh trauma center. The show, which garnered five Emmys in 2025, entered this year’s awards with a whopping 25 nominations, including for Outstanding Production Design for a Narrative Contemporary Program and Outstanding Casting for a Drama Series. Behind those nominations are two Cal alums.
Production designer Nina Ruscio ’83 designed the set of The Pitt’s emergency department. Ruscio used curves in the floors and ceilings to make the finite halls seem boundless, reflecting the sense that, as she told California, “time never stops.” Other details help elevate the setting while preserving the movie magic: a lack of mirrors conceals cameramen, countertops bounce light onto actors’ faces, and all crew members wear scrubs in case they appear on camera.
Casting director Cathy Sandrich Gelfond ’83 assembled the ensemble cast, including actors who could think on their feet, work well in a group, and convincingly deliver medical jargon. Some even had medical backgrounds. “We had a wall of pictures so we could see what different actors looked like as a group. As my casting partner, Erica Berger, and I watched through hundreds and hundreds of self-tapes, we started to understand so much about the characters,” Sandrich Gelfond said. “We called this show the great experiment because no one knew if it would work.”
Both Ruscio and Sandrich Gelfond found their creative footing at Berkeley. Ruscio was a set designer for Cal’s theater department while Sandrich Gelfond performed onstage. “Everyone just couldn’t stop creating,” Ruscio said. “Everything had value. Everything was a possible experience.”
—H.J. Valerio
Wired for Connection
If there’s one thing the pandemic taught us, it’s that humans are a social species. So much so that, in 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General declared a “loneliness epidemic,” publishing an extensive report on the healing effects of social connection. But if the pandemic spotlighted the dangers of isolation, then the insistent creep of technology into all aspects of our personal lives, from therapy to dating, has exacerbated the problem.
Wired for Connection, a one-hour documentary that premiered on PBS in June, examines the biological necessity of human social bonds. From primate field studies to surveys of AIDS crisis outcomes, the documentary brings current research to bear on big questions: How does social disconnection manifest in physiological conditions like heart disease and cognitive decline? What threat do social media and AI pose to our health? And how can meaningful relationships reverse the course?
Directed and produced by Kiran “Kiki” Kapany ’81, the film features interviews with Berkeley experts including journalist Michael Pollan and bioethicist Jodi Halpern.
The film is a good reminder to stop scrolling and phone a friend. Wired for Connection is available to stream on PBS.
—L.W.
The Head & the Load
By William Kentridge
Cal Performances, Nov. 12–15
South African artist William Kentridge returns to Cal Performances in November with The Head & the Load, a multimedia spectacle that melds dadaesque speech and shadow play, elaborate costumes and dance, projection and music—wonderful music, if past Kentridge performances are anything to go by.
Zellerbach previously staged Kentridge’s Sibyl in 2023, when the artist was in residence at Berkeley, and The Great Yes, The Great No in 2025. The Head & the Load, which takes its title from a Ghanaian proverb, explores the untold story of the two million Africans who, compelled by their imperial rulers, fought, labored, and died in the First World War.
The Head & the Load is too big a production for the Zellerbach stage and will be presented at the Kaiser Center for the Arts in Oakland instead.
The titular proverb? It goes: “The head and the load are the troubles of the neck.”
—P.J.
