On a late morning in July, 17 days after formally beginning work as Berkeley’s 11th chancellor, Carol Tecla Christ sat in her sunlit office in California Hall, reflecting on the meaning of her new job title. “It’s essentially a representational role,” she said. “As the chancellor, you’re the storyteller-in-chief.”
The brouhaha over University of California President Janet Napolitano’s $175 million “slush fund” continues, with another UC Board of Regents meeting scheduled for Thursday and the Office of the President (UCOP) enduring ongoing opprobrium from legislators, the press, and state auditors.
Posted on May 17, 2017 - 11:43am
Janet Napolitano and I met in her office in downtown Oakland on the afternoon of November 4, 2016, just four days before Hillary Rodham Clinton was thwarted in her attempt to make history by becoming the first woman president of the United States of America.
Some people thought that Napolitano, a former governor of Arizona and Secretary of Homeland Security in the first Obama administration, might herself have been a candidate for the White House. Instead, she became the first woman president of the University of California in 2013.
When he embarked on his freshman year at UC Berkeley in 2014, Esteban Vasquez was set to become the first in his family to graduate from college. A couple of months in, he was ready to drop out.
Posted on May 11, 2016 - 1:52pm
From the peculiar to the passionate, the alarming to the inspiring, 2015 never left us at a loss for words, or story ideas.
Posted on December 30, 2015 - 1:24pm
The Golden Bear has taken on a distinct greenish tinge this week. First there was the announcement at the United Nations Climate Change Conference outside Paris that the University of California is the sole university participant in Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Coalition, a conglomerate of investors dedicated to developing low-carbon energy sources. UC will dedicate $1.25 billion to the venture over the next five years.
Posted on December 3, 2015 - 1:06pm
In the wake of astronomy professor Geoff Marcy’s resignation—after a campus finding that he had been sexually harassing female students for years—University of California President Janet Napolitano says there’s an “urgent need to review University policies that may have inadvertently made the investigation and resolution of this case more difficult.”
Posted on October 16, 2015 - 8:15am
Your Facebook feed has probably already told you this, but the public response to U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew’s decision to feature a woman on a redesigned $10 bill has been overwhelming—he says the Treasury has received nearly a million and a half comments and tweets about it. Not everyone is happy, particularly those who campaigned to get a woman on the more popular $20, and are still fighting to change his mind.
Posted on August 4, 2015 - 3:44pm
In March of last year, Alice Waters, the food activist and owner of the Chez Panisse restaurant, surprised everyone by prematurely announcing the University of California’s plans for a major, sweeping initiative to take on the many problems in the food system—not just on campuses but around the globe.
Posted on July 2, 2015 - 8:13am
When Keala Keanaaina came to Cal on a football scholarship in 1998, a career in the NFL was not on his radar.
“I wasn’t one of those football guys that dreamed of going to the pros,” says Keanaaina. “I chose Berkeley because of its academic reputation. My goal was to graduate and get my degree.”
Do the majestic vistas of Yosemite National Park make you swoon? Are you besotted with the equally splendid landscapes of Yellowstone, Zion, the Smokey Mountains, the North Cascades and Rocky Mountain National Parks?
Thank UC Berkeley.
Posted on March 19, 2015 - 4:56pm
It’s hardly news that money has a corrosive effect on the political process. Well, maybe it’s news of the dog-bites-man variety: Your jaw isn’t likely to drop to your clavicle in shock, total shock, when you hear that Senator So-and-So voted to deregulate the highly-polluting widget industry shortly after receiving a hefty campaign contribution from Widget Amalgamated.
Posted on February 20, 2015 - 8:21am
In September, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law the Yes Means Yes rule, the first law in the nation to require California colleges to adopt an affirmative consent standard in sexual assault cases. The legislation is controversial, but advocates see it as an acknowledgment that a “rape culture” is prevalent on university campuses, and politicians and campus administrators need to address that.
It’s being called a treacherous game of chicken. A brutal chess match in which students are pawns. A battle for the soul of public higher education in California.
Whatever it is, it isn’t over yet.
Posted on November 20, 2014 - 5:44pm
When Nelson Mandela died last December, it seemed that the whole world mourned his passing. Twitter overflowed with love for the former South African president. South Africans of all colors and ages sat vigil outside his Johannesburg home. Leaders from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe traveled to FNB Stadium to memorialize Africa’s secular saint, and Barack Obama told the assembled dignitaries, “Nelson Mandela reminds us that it always seems impossible until it is done.”
