Alumni Scholars Program
What Pedro De Anda Plascencia ’21 Wants His Fifth-Grade Self to Know
Dear Fifth-Grade Pedro: I want to begin by telling you that I love you. You are valid, and you are worthy of love and protection.
Supporting the UC Berkeley Community
Please join us in congratulating our incoming 2021 – 2022 Alumni Scholars and honoring our continuing students.
2020–2021 Leadership Award Recipients
Please join us in congratulating our incoming 2021 – 2022 Alumni Scholars and honoring our continuing students.
A Letter from the Executive Director | Fall 2019
Reflections on an epoch-making year for diversity and student excellence
A Letter from the Executive Director | Summer 2019
We’re getting older—and that’s great news! This year, the Cal Alumni Association’s Alumni Scholars Program celebrates 85 years of support for the best and brightest in the Cal community.
Freshman Scholar Takes Flight at Berkeley
Justin Hogenauer ’22 dreams of becoming an Air Force pilot, but when it came to choosing where to go to college, he wanted a top-tier school—one that provided the kind of broad academic, professional, and social advantages for which Cal is so well known. “The Air Force Academy was an option,” he says. “But the […]
Creation of The Achievement Award Program
In 1996 California voters approved Proposition 209, which prohibited the consideration of race, ethnicity, or sex in the admission process at public universities. Immediately, the percentage of students at the University of California, Berkeley from low-income, minority communities decreased dramatically. As a result, the Cal Alumni Association (CAA), encouraged by Chancellor Robert Berdahl, formed a task […]
‘A New Day’: One Alumna Finds Cal Pride, 40 Years After Graduation
By Courtney Cheng“It is refreshing and healing—liberating, actually—to see a new day, a new message to African American students, and to all of us,” Dana shares. “When I told one of the students that assisted in the interviews how much I appreciated her presence, she responded with, ‘Yes, but I am standing on your shoulders.’”
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 […]
A Letter from the Executive Director | Spring 2018
“It is a disturbing fact to me,” joked President John F. Kennedy in his 1962 Charter Day speech, “that the New Frontier owes as much to Berkeley, as it does to Harvard University.” Happy Birthday, Golden Bears! 2018 is an exciting year, marking the 150th anniversary of the founding of Berkeley—the shining star of public education. How […]
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 […]
