Culture plays a critical role in the life of any institution, including our remarkable university. At its essence, culture is the “operating system,” reflecting foundational norms and values. If strategy defines what we intend to achieve, it is culture that dictates how we do what we do, and why people choose to help advance our mission.
When I was dean at the Haas School of Business, these are the reasons we prioritized a collaborative effort to define and differentiate the school’s culture. Together we landed on four defining cultural principles: “Question the Status Quo,” “Confidence Without Attitude,” “Students Always,” and “Beyond Yourself.” These principles were embraced so that our students would thrive and excel on campus and in their careers to come, and so that they would be proud of the UC Berkeley that shaped them.
These four principles are also apt descriptors of the campus culture as a whole. But now, with a wider view of our university from California Hall, I want to consider another principle, particularly in the context of the challenges and opportunities now before us: “Pride Without Arrogance.”
This principle recognizes the cultural importance and benefits of fueling sources of pride we have in Berkeley, without becoming a community of insufferably proud people. I like this principle not simply because I love being Cal’s cheerleader-in-chief. Pride isn’t just a “feel-good” metric—it is critical to what pulls our community together, and what drives our institutional excellence. When alumni, students, faculty, and staff are genuinely proud of their university, it elevates the campus from being a mere service provider to an epicenter for a vibrant, lifelong community.
Here’s how. First, pride functions as an organic marketing engine. When members of the university community are proud, they become our best ambassadors. Alumni who are proud of their degree hire fellow graduates and speak highly of the institution in professional circles. Faculty who take pride in their affiliation are more likely to stay and produce top-quality research and represent the university well at academic conferences. And proud students are our very best recruiters, by a long shot.
Then there’s the direct correlation between pride and giving. To state the obvious, donors rarely give to institutions they feel indifferent toward. Pride is a primary driver for major gifts and endowment growth.
Pride is also essential for talent recruitment and retention. Top scholars want to work where their contributions are celebrated. They could be anywhere, after all. Pride sustains a culture of excellence that attracts not just the best, but the principles-aligned.
Last, but not least, pride strengthens resilience during challenging times. A community proud of its institution’s culture is more likely to offer support and patience when needed most. Our most powerful defenders are proud community members who feel the institution’s mission must be protected.
The pride we feel does need tight tethering to reality, and that places a welcome onus on your leadership to ensure that Berkeley operates in a way that makes us proud, that we provide our faculty with what they need to sustain their track record of world-changing discoveries, and that we provide our students with the education—and the culture—they need for fulfilling lives of meaning and impact. If we get that right, we create a virtuous cycle where accomplishments fuel pride, and that pride, for the reasons I described, helps set the stage for our next eras of excellence.
Taking advantage of that virtuous cycle depends on the extent our community is aware of our accomplishments. Berkeley is a firehose of achievement, and it’s hard to keep up. That is exactly why we created a new “Points of Pride” website. Search for that term on the berkeley.edu site and you’ll learn something you never knew, whether it’s the fact that we lift more students farther and faster up the economic ladder … that we are the No. 1 public university in the country in all five major rankings … that our undergraduate alumni produce more venture-funded new enterprises than those of any other university in the world … or that 63 (and counting!) Nobel Prize winners are affiliated with Berkeley.
We most often feel pride about those efforts and accomplishments in which we play a role. If I have learned anything since becoming chancellor, it is that just about everything achieved, taught, or discovered at Berkeley is the result of our strong, engaged community and creative collaboration among our members. This is why Berkeley is more than a place, it’s a promise. I could not be prouder.
