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The Class of 1956 celebrated its 65th reunion last October at a luncheon at I-House. We were honored to have Chancellor Carol Christ seated with us and to bestow her with a beautiful lei that all classmates were also wearing. Those classmates were Carolyn Chinn Gan, Benjamin Fong, Robert Hamilton, Jacqueline Oliveri Jackson, Earl Willens, […]
Remember when we were looking for the oldest member of our Class? For a while, Bob Sarquis held that honor, having been born in September 1927. And then Frank Durrschmidt checked in, capturing the title from Bob. Frank was born in June 1927—a full three months before Bob. Maybe there’s someone even older? When we’re […]
Joan Egeberg Hancock, on the eve of her 90th birthday, sends warm wishes to all our classmates. Joan lost her husband this past year after 57 years of marriage. He taught at Stanford, within walking distance of Big Game, so she was torn supporting both teams! Joan has three sons, living in Brooklyn, New York; […]
Hail to California! Cal was in the news again for two very significant reasons. Forbes named Cal number one in its college ranking list, and the University has added two more Nobel laureates to that illustrious group. The campus remains relatively quiet as pandemic protocols continue to be observed, but with remote instruction and creative […]
Betty Jean (Jacobs) Dvorson writes: “Each time California arrives, I search in vain for some notice of the Class of ’47. Are there any folks out there besides me? I graduated in February of that year and, sadly, have kept track of only one other person in the Class. I majored in public speaking at […]
On November 8, 2021, Leon “Pantaleon” Sagun was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal at a presentation in San Francisco for his service as a Filipino guerilla fighter battling Japanese forces who had invaded the Philippines almost immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor. His mission included nighttime reconnaissance and passing along targeting information and other […]
The December chill that proved frigidly fatal to several homeless people in the Bay Area also has spurred a team of students at UC Berkeley and San Jose State into action. They helped launched the Sleeping Bag Drive—which on Friday will begin distributing 300 pairs of wool socks, beanies, and zero-degree sleeping bags to the […]
California periodically touches base on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic with John Swartzberg, a UC Berkeley Public Health Clinical Professor Emeritus and an international authority on infectious diseases and vaccinology. In October, Dr. Swartzberg was hopeful that forthcoming vaccines would be at least 70 percent effective; as it turned out, they far surpassed that figure, with both […]
Last June, in the aftermath of the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, Berkeley joined a handful of cities across the country that began defunding its police, slashing $9.2 million or 12 percent from the police budget. Whether cities like Berkeley will continue on a path towards completely defunding and abolishing the police […]
The news cycle dragged itself out of the political mire and gazed skyward a few weeks ago with word of a radio signal from the direction of our nearest sidereal neighbor, Proxima Centauri. The transmission was discovered by Shane Smith, an undergraduate at Hillsdale College in Michigan and intern at Berkeley’s SETI Research Center. Dubbed […]
In March 2020, UC Berkeley joined the ranks of other universities moving to entirely virtual learning. Undergrad Carly Tran takes us into the life of a student, reflecting on a year of endless Zoom calls and surprising joys.
On Saturday morning, El Cerrito firefighters working on their own time will haul scores of handmade stucco and plaster statues uphill from their storage site to the corner of Moeser and Seaview.
For Americans, raising children is more expensive, in both money and time, than ever before. Even before the pandemic, when many parents were suddenly forced to become teachers and full-time caregivers, the cost of raising a child can be upwards of $13,000 a year for a middle-income family. And, while it’s too early to predict […]
The 2020 election is over and, with a significant lead in both the electoral and popular vote, Joe Biden has definitively beaten Donald Trump for the Presidency. That hasn’t stopped Trump, some Republican lawmakers, and many of the 70 million people who voted for him, from claiming that the election was rigged. Indeed, two weeks […]
For many Americans, Donald Trump’s 2016 victory came as a shock, especially considering how much he’d trailed Hillary Clinton in the polls. Even FiveThirtyEight founder and famed pollster Nate Silver got it wrong. But UC Berkeley business professor Don Moore thinks we should cut Silver some slack.
Aidan Hill is one of four candidates running to be Berkeley’s next mayor, including incumbent and UC Berkeley alum Jesse Arreguín. Hill, 27, is a UC Berkeley senior transfer and re-entry student pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in political science. They were raised in Fontana, California and obtained an associate’s degree in communications studies at Riverside […]
UC Berkeley Public Health Clinical Professor Emeritus John Swartzberg is one of the nation’s leading authorities on infectious diseases and vaccinology—and an eloquent commentator on all things pathogenic, including the novel coronavirus. California caught up with him recently to get his views on the likely directions of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the prospects for a vaccine, […]
