WATCH: What’s In A Fossil?
Want more? For a behind-the-scenes tour of the ancient bones of the Campanile, check out Part 1 here.
Posted on June 21, 2018 - 4:26pm
Cal Culture
Chancellor’s Letter: Developing People’s Park
Even though college students and faculty rarely wear the long, black medieval gowns symbolic of their status, the term “town and gown” still denotes the relationship between a college or university and its local community. The quality of that relationship can vary over time, as it has here, when interests converge and diverge. Yet, our campus and neighboring communities all benefit when we are able to collaborate for the greater good. And that is exactly what we are now doing to address the paired, pressing challenges of housing and homelessness, on our campus and in our city.
From the Summer 2018 Our Town issue of California.
10 Questions for Cal Football’s Favorite Bookworm
Cal running back and rising senior Patrick Laird is known for more than just his walk-on career and impressive collection of awards. An avid reader since childhood, Laird isn’t afraid to flaunt his bibliophilia—on the football field and now, in the classroom. With the support of Cal Athletics, he’s using his platform as a standout football player to encourage younger students to pick up a book (or four, or six) this summer.
Posted on June 20, 2018 - 1:21pm
Reading Roundup: World Cup, Summit Humor, Notable Firsts, More
Break out the vuvuzelas
The World Cup is underway in Russia, and the Americans aren’t there. Team USA failed to qualify after losing to Trinidad and Tobago. As some wag observed, it clearly wasn’t fair: We shouldn’t have to play two countries at once.
Posted on June 15, 2018 - 5:23pm
Talk of the Town
You might not expect the mayor of Berkeley to show up for a meeting in dad jeans and running shoes. Or to be just 33 years old and living in a rented apartment with two roommates. Or to engage a reporter in a freewheeling discussion on some of the most controversial topics of the day without an aide or PR flack in attendance. But then again, Berkeley wasn’t expecting Jesse Arreguín ’07, who swept into office in 2016 in an upset victory over Councilman Laurie Capitelli, who had been endorsed by former Mayor Tom Bates.
From the Summer 2018 Our Town issue of California.
Editor’s Note: Goodbye
For most of the last ten years, this spot has been home to my 500-plus-word personal essays—somewhat eccentric attempts to lure readers into the magazine by riffing on the current theme. Themes that have included, among the 43 issues, global warming, electioneering, music, war, food, and power.
From the Summer 2018 Our Town issue of California.
WATCH: The Bones of the Campanile
There’s more to dusty old bones than meets the eye. For more on what fossils can teach us about climate change and evolution, watch Part 2 here.
Posted on June 8, 2018 - 3:02pm
Reading Roundup: Baby Falcons, Godless Liberals, and More
Hatching Elements
The Campanile has a trio of new peregrine falcon chicks nesting on it, and their names are Californium, Lawrencium, and Berkelium, after three of the 16—count ‘em, 16!—elements discovered at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab.
Posted on June 7, 2018 - 3:40pm
Reading Roundup: Robots, Hiring Time, CRISPR Wars, More
CRISPR Wars
UC Berkeley’s Jennifer Doudna has chalked up another award for her discovery of the revolutionary CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing tool. The Kavli Prize in nanoscience is worth $1 million and will be shared among the three recipients, which includes Doudna’s collaborator, Emmanuelle Charpentier of the Max Planck Institute.
Posted on June 1, 2018 - 5:59pm
Hidden Treasures: Take Home a Masterpiece from Doe Library
Compared to the opulent and tranquil UC Berkeley Morrison Library, the modest adjoining art storage room, at first glance, isn’t much to write home about.
But looks can be deceiving; what it lacks in appearance, it makes up with cultural richness. The Graphic Arts Loan Collection (GALC)—peeling white shelves, offset by dusty linoleum floors—houses more than 800 original pieces of art, diverse as the university itself.
Posted on May 17, 2018 - 4:59pm
Save the Drama For Your Llama: Cal’s First Llamapalooza
It was a Friday morning and I was feeling distressed, unsettled. Maybe because I sensed the stress of Cal students as finals week approached… or maybe it was the bad lamb I had the night before. Regardless of cause, there was one thing for certain: I needed a reason to smile (and to get a paycheck). So I grabbed my notebook and headed to Llamapalooza, UC Berkeley’s first llama festival, in the hopes of lightening my emotional load.
Posted on May 1, 2018 - 2:54pm
The Berkeley Bowl Cookbook Celebrates the Unusual and Unknown
When I go to Berkeley Bowl with Laura McLively, I immediately feel like a tourist, too delighted to keep my cool among the rows of citrus and loose leafy greens. Used to produce sold in hard plastic clamshells at my Los Angeles Trader Joe’s, I marvel at the wall of eggplants, not just purple but white, green, and some—like the tiny, speckled Indian graffiti eggplant—all three colors at once.
Posted on April 26, 2018 - 3:15pm
New Report: How UC Can Meet Its Ambitious 2025 Carbon Neutrality Goal
The University of California believes it can go carbon neutral by 2025. That means zero carbon emissions from powering its buildings and vehicles on all ten campuses. But according to a recent report and related commentary by experts from across the system in the journal Nature, it could be a tough goal to reach. That’s a position shared by Berkeley professor and energy expert Dan Kammen, who was not affiliated with the report. “We’re not actually on pace for our 2025 goal,” he said—more like 2035 or 2040.
Posted on April 23, 2018 - 1:25pm
Retiring Cal Bands Director Robert Calonico’s Many Musical Lives
Robert Calonico hasn’t been leading a secret life, but his nocturnal activities might shock the thousands of students who’ve played under his baton. During his four-decade career as a band director, including a 28-year reign as Cal’s director of bands, which is rapidly coming to an end, Calonico has quietly maintained a thriving practice as a top-shelf saxophonist and clarinetist.
Posted on April 17, 2018 - 2:51pm
Finally Done: A New Biography of Jerry Rubin Fills a Surprising Void
It was in the 1990s that Pat Thomas read Growing (Up) at Thirty-Seven by Youth International Party (Yippies) co-founder and Jerry Rubin. Then in his mid-30s, a little depressed and not sure what to do with his life, Thomas describes the book as a little bit autobiography and a little bit self help.
Posted on April 16, 2018 - 4:13pm
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