Scholars

Celebrating 85 Years of Alumni Scholarships
Established in 1934 in the depths of the Great Depression, the Alumni Scholars Program now supports 800+ undergraduate scholars each year, awarding more than $2.2 million in financial aid.

The Gift That Keeps on Giving
Two hundred is the lucky number. Two hundred lives, two hundred educational paths, two hundred potential thoughts of imposter syndrome, and a multitude of familial pressures are what CAA’s five-person Alumni Scholars Program team support on a daily basis. For the 2018–19 academic year, the Alumni Scholars Program is supporting 200 new and returning students […]

The Value of My Public Education
Betty Yee ’79 made her first political act at age 13: a plea before city officials not to close the local school. The move would force her to bus to school, away from her responsibilities to her family business. Her act “was about giving a voice to people who didn’t speak English,” Betty says. “That’s […]

Celebrating 100 Years of Cal
Golden Bears forever, Bob and Sheryl Wong are celebrating a combined 100 years at Cal—first as students, then as volunteers, philanthropists, and now as Builders of Berkeley. Sheryl ’67, C. Mult. ’68, whose parents also attended Berkeley, loved Cal the minute she stepped on campus. She believes navigating Cal is as much a learning experience as […]

The Thrill and Awe of UC Berkeley
Independent and driven, Linnea Norton ’19 displayed leadership talent as a toddler with her earliest phrase to her mother: “Nea do it!” she protested. Now a recipient of CAA’s Leadership Award, Linnea continues to drive her own success. Prior to entering Cal as a transfer student and molecular environmental biology major, she studied veterinary science […]

Everyone Needs a Hand
Kruttschnitt Aspire Scholarship Program (KASP) scholar Pedro Flores, Jr. took the non-traditional route to UC Berkeley. An admittedly disinterested high school student, he hung out with gangs in his South Central LA neighborhood. “I had trouble staying away because my friends were gang members,” Pedro explains, who attributes much of his success to his mom. […]

Making Your Own Berkeley Way
Running and cycling. Both are fitting leisure activities for Phi Beta Kappa Cal graduate Glenn Kelman ’93, who operates at warp speed. Now the busy CEO of Redfin, an online real estate brokerage, Glenn chose Cal because “it was the best public university in the world, my best friend in high school attended, it had […]

Bringing Past and Present Together
The Cal Alumni Association (CAA) named the Bowles Hall Foundation as the recipient of the 2017 Loyal Company Outstanding Volunteer Group Award. The award honors a CAA alumni chapter that has maintained a meaningful relationship to Berkeley while successfully engaging its members through events, programs, and philanthropic opportunities. In 2005, a group of former residents established […]

Tietta Mitchell
Tietta was overjoyed when she received acceptance to UC Berkeley, but the excitement was bittersweet: she couldn’t afford to go.

KASP Scholar Ups Her Cal Game
Accepted to all twelve colleges where she applied, including UC San Diego and Loyola Marymount, Frida Hernandez always had Cal in her sights. “I was used to being first in my class,” she says. “At Cal, everyone is, and some of my lectures are bigger than my entire graduating class. It means I’ve had to […]

Cal Alumni of Los Angeles Are on the Move
Cal and Stanford—besties? Yes, according to CAA’s Los Angeles chapter president Gerald Nicdao ’08. “We reached out to Stanford alumni with an invitation to join our Big Game viewing party, and a couple hundred Golden Bears and Cardinal fans got together for the Big Game. We want to broaden and deepen our connection to a […]

Former Leadership Award Scholar Gives Back
Steve Sulack ’03, M.S. ’05 isn’t new to leadership. As an undergraduate, he was an outstanding Leadership Award scholar and treasurer of the Pi Tau Sigma Mechanical Engineering Honors Society. Now, he gives back to the community that supported him as a young student through the Sulack Family Leadership Scholarship he established with the Cal […]