Chancellor's Summer Letter
August 7, 2000
Dear Friends,
The calendar page has turned to August, the moment in the year calling for reflections about the academic year just past and I am inspired to report to you, the many friends of Cal, who have supported the University's consistent drive for excellence, year after year. And this year the calendar page turned to a new millennium in which Cal faces new challenges and opportunities in a world that is increasingly a global community, electronically connected, and driven by information. With these new challenges, Cal is working hard to renew its own foundations of excellence to assure that we will remain the premier public university in America, renewing the world with our research, teaching, and public service.
Endings and Beginnings
T.S. Eliot once wrote, "what we call the beginning is often the end and to make an end is to make a new beginning." This year has been marked by the cycle of endings and beginnings. We say good-bye to Carol Christ, who has elected to return to full-time research and teaching after having served the campus so effectively as Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost. Also returning to the classroom this year are Vice Provost Nick Jewell and Vice Chancellor for Research and Dean of the Graduate School, Joe Cerny. Replacing Carol Christ is Paul Gray, who has proved his extraordinary administrative talent as Dean of Engineering during the past four years. He will be assisted by Professor of History and Economics, Jan de Vries, as the new Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Faculty Welfare, and Professor of Engineering William C. Webster as Vice Provost for Academic Planning and Facilities. In addition, we have created the position of Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and Instructional Technology, soon to be filled, to give a renewed focus to improving undergraduate education at Berkeley.
Replacing Joe Cerny as Vice Chancellor for Research will be Beth Burnside, Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology and former Dean of the Biological Sciences. Mary Ann Mason, Professor of Social Welfare, will become the new Dean of the Graduate School.
In addition, John Dwyer will serve as Dean of the Boalt Hall School of Law, replacing Herma Hill Kay; Richard Malkin has agreed to serve as Interim Dean of the College of Natural Resources, replacing Gordon Rausser; and Richard Newton has been named Dean of the College of Engineering, filling the place vacated by Paul Gray; Thomas C. Leonard has been appointed Interim University Librarian, taking the place of Gerald Lowell; and Kwong-Loi Shun has just been selected as the Dean of the Undergraduate Division in the College of Letters and Science.
I am confident that this new leadership team will bring renewed energy and fresh insight into the administration of the campus, enabling our administrative structure to respond quickly and efficiently to the challenges that lie ahead.
Sustaining Berkeley's Excellence in Research and Teaching
Each year, the Berkeley faculty garner laurels and awards that reflect its scholarly and scientific excellence. This year has been no exception. The awards are too numerous to list entirely in a letter of this length. But some are especially noteworthy. One member of the faculty -- Carlos Bustamante (Physics) -- has been named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, and three other faculty members -- Adam Arkin (Bioengineering), Carolyn Bertozzi (Chemistry), and Eva Nogales (Molecular and Cell Biology) -- are candidates for this position, which is one of the most distinguished awards available for faculty in the life sciences working on basic research related to health. Matthew Rabin (Economics) has been named a MacArthur Fellow, the famous "genius" award for people doing unusually creative work. Gordon Rausser has been given the U.S. Department of Agriculture's top honor for exemplary work in areas of agricultural public policy research. Randy Hester, professor of landscape architecture, was one of nine professionals selected to judge the best design for the Washington, D.C. monument to Martin Luther King. Six faculty were elected to the National Academy of Sciences, three to the National Academy of Engineering, and eight to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
On campus, the Distinguished Teaching Awards this year went to a marvelous trio of professors: Claire Kramsch in the German Department, Nilabh Shastri in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, and Eleanor Swift of Boalt Hall School of Law. The testimony of current and former students about the impact each of these professors has had reminds us once again of how inspired teachers transform the lives of their students.
Researchers at Berkeley have garnered over $400 million in the competition for grant and contract support, reflecting once again the outstanding quality of our faculty. With $400 million brought into the campus from external sources, the faculty-driven research budget is equal to that provided by the State in general revenue funds.
Renewing the Foundations for the Future
While I enjoy reporting on the many manifestations of excellence at Cal, it is important to remember, as I said in my inaugural address over two years ago, "The future research capacity of this University, which we take so easily for granted, is neither inevitable nor assured. But it must be."
Our future, of course, is linked closely to the future of the State of California. Given the vigorous economy in California, the Governor and the Legislature have provided the University with a strong budget. In addition to needed salary increases for faculty and staff, the State has provided substantial support for University outreach programs to the public schools, in which Berkeley has been heavily engaged. In addition, the Governor has supported the creation of three California Institutes for Science and Innovation in the University of California, intended to link the University closely to the new technological industries in the state. The three Institutes to be funded will be selected by a competitive process; we are hopeful that Berkeley will play a major role in one or more of these Institutes.
Increasingly, Cal's future is also dependent on support from private sources. I am happy to report that you, our alumni and friends, have rallied marvelously to the support of Cal. With five months remaining in the Campaign for the New Century, we have already exceeded our campaign goal of $1.1 billion by nearly $130 million. With a substantial final effort, we are confident that we can complete a campaign larger than any other public university without a medical school.
Last fall, we also announced the Health Sciences Initiative, combining the talents of several hundred of Berkeley's faculty in many disciplines who are engaged in basic research related to health. This important initiative will bring together the efforts of scientists and engineers working on the development of new drug design and treatments based on basic research in cell and molecular biology, on new diagnostic imaging techniques, and on the basic neuroscience related to degenerative diseases. Engineers working on new materials and new computer chips for the delivery of medications will also be central to the bioengineering component of the Initiative.
The Health Sciences Initiative is leading to the construction of two new buildings, one replacing Stanley Hall and the other replacing Warren Hall. We are busy raising the $300 million to build these two new buildings and have raised nearly half of the amount necessary to complete the projects.
To renew the physical foundations of our excellence, we are accelerating the seismic retrofitting of the campus and renovating portions of the affected buildings with available funds. Work has begun or will be underway this coming year and beyond in Wurster, Barrows, Hildebrand, Latimer, Space Sciences, and Hearst Memorial Mining buildings. Also, generous support from private donors will enable us to build a new music library. The East Asian Library and Studies Center remains a priority, and we are working hard to meet this challenge and realize our goal. Efforts have begun to raise the funds necessary to replace the Berkeley Art Museum, which is rated seismically very poor.
Renewing the foundations of excellence depends on the renewal of human as well as physical capital. This involves helping prepare students for college, making sure we admit the most deserving students who apply to Berkeley, and assuring that we recruit and retain the best faculty.
Beginning with the children in elementary and secondary schools, Cal is building partnerships with some of the most disadvantaged schools in Northern California. In addition to our own efforts, Berkeley has been a leader in organizing the Bay Area Consortium for Urban Education, which joins area school districts, community colleges, four-year colleges, and universities in a collaboration that is unique in California. Seeing this Consortium as a model for other areas of California, the Irvine Foundation has provided a three-year grant to launch its activities.
Cal has become a leader among public universities in redefining the concept of merit in the university admission process. Able to admit only one-fourth of the students applying to Berkeley, we have worked to maintain a student body that continues to provide opportunities to a wide spectrum of the population of California, without taking race into account. The Berkeley process was highlighted in a PBS Frontline documentary last fall. No longer relying solely on standardized test scores and high-school grade-point averages, we assign at least two readers to carefully and independently review each of the over 34,000 applications the University receives. Each applicant is reviewed within the context of all other applicants and within the context of other applicants from similar schools to ascertain how well the student has performed relative to the opportunities provided. Evidence of drive, ambition, determination to overcome obstacles -- these are also taken into account. Obviously, many very talented students do not win admission to Cal, but we believe the process is a fair one.
Berkeley's excellence has always been measured in part by the fact that it could attract the very best graduate students from all over America and the world. Increasingly, however, we find ourselves unable to compete with the well-endowed private universities that can offer multiple-year fellowships with stipends several thousand dollars per year higher than Berkeley's. During the next several years, we will have to work hard to raise the private endowment that will render us again competitive in the recruitment of the very best graduate students.
Likewise, recruiting the very best faculty is essential to remaining the top-ranked university in America. The more successful we are in identifying and recruiting the best young faculty to Berkeley, the more other universities come here to recruit them away. While we win most of these contests, we also lose some. One of the challenges we face, along with every other employer in the Bay Area, is the high cost of housing. In the course of the next year, we will be examining the means by which we can address this growing obstacle to the renewal of the human foundation upon which Berkeley's excellence is built.
A Final Word
Since coming to Cal, just over three years ago, I continue to be impressed, more than almost anything else, by how hard people work here. Whether it is the staff of the computer center who gave up their Millennium New Year's celebration to make certain Y2K didn't have any surprises, and who then gave up their 4th of July to install a new financial system at the beginning of the new fiscal year, or whether it is the faculty whose office and laboratory lights burn late into the night, or the students who pour out of the libraries when they close -- the people who comprise this university are dedicated to keeping it the best.
Above all, therefore, I want to salute them, and you, members of the extended Cal family, for all the extraordinary work that you do to support this place, making certain that it will remain, for future generations, as it has been for past generations, the finest educational institution in the land.
Sincerely,
Robert M. Berdahl
Chancellor