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I am honored to stand before you as part of a community that represents the very best of UC Berkeley. And just as the Cal Alumni Association (CAA) is undergoing a redesign of its leadership structure, so is California magazine. We hope you like it! Having returned to Berkeley in February 2026, after two previous […]
This year, the Cal Alumni Association leaned into a shared aspiration: becoming the #1 alumni association for the #1 public university. Interim Executive Director Kirk Tramble shares the plan.
This past year, donor contributions supported our Alumni Scholars Program, awarding 212 new, deserving students across our five different scholarships.
As a proud member of the Class of 1993 and former President of the Board, I know firsthand the value of our Berkeley experience and the bonds that unite us.
In May of 2020 17-year-old Darnella Frazier, in the regular course of her day, saw police activity and then saw a man in pain. She stopped, pulled out her cell phone, and began recording. During the trial, Ms. Frazier expressed, “When I think of George Floyd, I see my father, my brothers, my cousin, my uncle. They are all Black. It could have been them.”
I write this after watching the inauguration of the 46th president of the United States and the swearing-in of the first female and Black vice president. Though still operating at physical distances from one another, we, in many ways, have grown closer together through the shared experiences of life during a pandemic, social unrest, and the transition of leadership in our nation’s capital.
Women have long been at the forefront of civil rights. As we commemorate the past 150 years of women at Cal, we are offered a chance to reflect on the legacies of resilient women who laid a strong foundation for UC Berkeley. Throughout our university’s history we find women leading us forward: teaching respect for human life, fighting for progress, and creating avenues for change.
UC Berkeley is changing the paradigm. Through innovation, we rise to meet our shared challenge—to connect our community during these virtual times. Our approach strengthens our commitment to raising the next generation of leaders and ensuring the diverse voices of our students and alumni are heard.
“Oh Freedom!”—the song you just heard—was what my mother sang with the Freedom Riders. She trained in Philadelphia and traveled to the South to engage in nonviolent resistance alongside Martin Luther King Jr. As an eight-year-old girl, I marched in the March on Washington. So, I speak to you today not only as Cal Alumni Association’s executive director, but also as a wife, mother, sister, aunt, and grandmother who comes from a family involved in the fight for civil rights in the United States of America.
Our students and alumni are demonstrating their commitment to supporting the next generation of trailblazers in thoughtful and solution-oriented ways, in spite of the challenges they themselves face.
Dear Cal family, We know that the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has had a tremendous impact on the personal lives of all those in our global Cal community. Your ongoing connection and collective support is invaluable as we face challenges together during this time of uneasiness and unpredictability. We must demonstrate our commitment to uplift all […]
At UC Berkeley’s winter 2020 commencement, I celebrated Maria Smith ’20, who I had the privilege of meeting and mentoring when she worked as a student assistant for the Cal Alumni Association’s Alumni Scholars Program.
