At this year’s CAA Donor and Volunteer Appreciation Brunch, the room felt like a family gathering. CAA President, Dr. Marsha Roberts, M.D. ’90 recognized the people who head our chapters near and far, with a special nod to visiting leaders from Taiwan. The Cal Men’s Octet set an easy rhythm with humor and harmony. The Cal Band followed and the room lifted. I watched recent grads lean in beside decades-strong stalwarts, with partners, parents, and kids threading between greetings. It was a morning about belonging, not formality.
What “giving back” looks like at CAA this year and every year
Behind the applause is a system of care that runs all year. Alums volunteer in six scholarship programs, with The Achievement Award Program and The Leadership Award drawing the biggest corps of readers and interviewers. The work looks ordinary from the outside. Files to read. Interviews to run. Training to lead. The impact is anything but ordinary because the process is what makes access real. Most volunteers live in California, but many serve from across the country and abroad. The span of class years stretches from the 1950s to the present, which is another way of saying that the instinct to serve does not expire. It matures.
Roughly twenty-nine scholarship chairs carry the pressure points of the application cycle. They host makeup interviews so a late bus or a sudden work shift does not erase a student’s chance to be heard. They read overflow files when the numbers swell. They present training materials so standards are clear and consistent. They wait in lobbies to greet finalists, and help calm nerves. None of this is flashy. All of it is decisive.
Two portraits of service
I keep returning to two names because they make the abstract real.
Les Hausrath, class of 1969 and 1973, has served as a TAAP and TLA Berkeley Scholarship Chair since 2018. The phrase everyone uses for Les, is steady presence. Students arrive anxious. They talk with Les. They walk out smiling. That change is not cosmetic. Calm invites clarity. In a selection space that values context over polish, that first minute is a form of access. It lets a student be legible on their own terms.
Jane Lin, class of 1990, has volunteered since 2012 and has chaired since 2017. Jane is the person who sees the gap and quietly moves to cover it: makeup interviews across TAAP and TLA; last-minute pivots when schedules shift;mentoring first-time volunteers so they feel at ease from day one. Capacity does not appear on its own. People like Jane build it, one conversation at a time.
Chapters in action
The same habit of care shows up across our chapters, where alums turn connection into momentum for students and for one another. In Berkeley, the Japanese American Women Alumnae marked its 35th Annual Scholarship and Awards Luncheon at Alumni House, recognizing scholar awardees and honoring a distinguished alum. A student a cappella performance kept the spirit bright. The most telling result was the follow-through. Attendees volunteered for future planning and expressed interest in joining the board. An event became a pipeline.
The Chinese Chapter partnered with the Graduate School of Journalism to host a reception and book talk with veteran journalists Bruce Koon and William Gee Wong on Wong’s memoir, Sons of Chinatown. Turnout was strong and the conversation was generous. Later in the year, the chapter organized a national webinar with Professor Harvey Dong that traced two centuries of U.S.–China relations and the Chinese American experience. More than a hundred registered and a wide community showed up. The learning did not stop at the content. The team documented what worked and what to adjust, from co-sponsorships to platforms.
Prytanean Alumnae gathered for its annual meeting at Alumni House and wove mentorship, history, and logistics into one afternoon. Business was conducted, senior students were celebrated, and a faculty award recipient shared current work. The team noted lessons that will improve future flow, from buffet layout to vendor timing. Even operational notes become part of how care compounds.
The Berkeley Student Cooperative Alumni Association hosted Co-op Graduation, its biggest event of the year, welcoming roughly two hundred people with blended speeches, community, and joy. When the sound system faltered, the night continued on because the community pulled together and adapted.
In Washington, D.C., the Cal Alumni Club honored Governor Lisa D. Cook, Ph.D. ’97, at its 15th Annual Reception. The room filled with alums, including students from UCDC, and the conversation stretched well past the formal program. The challenge of estimating food became a lesson for next time. The success became a reference point for what draws people in.
Chicago alums welcomed Cal Black Student-Athletes during the national summit with a dinner that sparked practical conversations about leadership and the student-athlete experience. The gesture of gifting chapter T-shirts mattered because it turned welcome into belonging. In Tuolumne County, the Blue and Gold Country chapter held its flagship gathering at the Lair of the Bear and added a silent auction to fund scholarships. A tradition evolved into direct student support. In New York, a cross-UC new-grad mixer in Times Square gave recent alums a quick way to find footing and older alums a reason to hold the door open. In Houston, a talk on AI in data analysis and education framed lifelong learning as a community practice. While each story is local, the pattern is shared.
Why this matters now
Public universities expand opportunity only if processes truly see students. A strong volunteer corps widens access because more applications are read with care and more finalists are interviewed by people listening for context, not performance. Chairs who greet students, explain the flow, and calm nerves, make selection less opaque for first-gen and low-income students. A geographically diverse volunteer base broadens the lens so evaluation reflects the lives Berkeley serves. The mechanics are ordinary. The outcomes are not. One more trained reader means one more story understood on its own terms. One more welcoming chair means one more finalist heard at their best.
The brunch, beyond the brunch
The program gave us headline moments. The Octet’s timing. The Band’s arrival. The applause for chapter leadership, Taiwan included. What I keep replaying are the quieter scenes. Chapter leaders who usually meet on Zoom greeting each other like old friends. A new grad asking how to plug in and leaving with clear on-ramps. A parent explaining to a child why blue and gold still matters. That is the work beneath the celebration. Alums do not only remember Berkeley. Alums keep remaking it together.
How we carry it forward
The music has faded and the thank-yous are in. The work continues in the places that never make a program. The next reading shift. The next makeup interview. The next chapter event where a student meets a mentor and a mentor remembers why this matters. The most faithful response to a morning like this is to put it on the calendar. Sign up to read. Join a finalist room. Offer an hour at a pressure point. Bring an idea to your chapter and host one meaningful touchpoint this quarter. The habit becomes the tradition. The tradition becomes the infrastructure that makes a public university more fair.
Gratitude, named
To every donor who underwrites possibility. To every volunteer who sits with stories until they sing. To chairs who work behind the scenes so the visible moments shine. To chapter leaders who keep building rooms where alums feel at home and students feel seen. To the Octet and the Band for giving the morning its rhythm. The tradition that endures is not a slogan. It is a habit of care that keeps opening doors, one student, one file, one conversation, and one chapter gathering at a time.
Photo Credits: Don Collier, KLC fotos
