Year-End Letter

(The Year-End letter from Chancellor Berdahl to the campus, friends, and supporters.)

July, 1998

Dear Friend:

It has been a year now since I first walked through Sather Gate, the Campanile's carillon chiming. It might as well have been the blast of a starter's pistol, so quickly and intensely has the year sprinted by. And yet, as I look back over the past 12 months I am struck by how much we have faced together and how much we have accomplished. Thus, it seems a fitting time for me to provide you, who make this campus the great university it is, a review of the past year and a few thoughts about what we can expect as we move toward the 21st century.

Research and Teaching Take the Forefront

In my inaugural address in April, I said that providing our faculty with the means to excel must be the determined passion of this administration. I also said that no issue related to research and teaching had been brought to my attention more emphatically than the future of our library and the completeness of our collection. To begin the rebuilding of the library, we will invest a total of $5.5 million of new permanent money in the library over the next three years with the objective of bringing the collections budget to parity with peer institutions.

We will also be investing substantially more to improve the ability of departments to support the teaching and basic needs of faculty -- funds for telephones and travel and photocopying, the mundane but important tools needed to do the job.

I have also authorized additional funding to increase the number of the highly popular Freshman Seminars so that our freshmen may experience a small, more personal learning experience with senior faculty. I am looking forward to teaching a Freshman Seminar on the history of the campus, reading for which has been an entirely delightful and enjoyable task.

On the research front, Berkeley faculty and researchers this year have been awarded approximately $362 million in contracts and grants for research, teaching, and public service. Among them was a major coup for the campus, the funding of the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center.

And our Office of Technology Licensing reports that inventions and agreements with industry to use Berkeley technology continue to increase, with 90 new inventions disclosed and 32 license agreements signed during the year. Products supporting the biotechnology industry provide a major portion of the estimated $4 million licensing income earned this past year with the successful IPO of Inktomi, a company based on licensed Berkeley software, making financial page headlines in June.

Transitions and New Leadership

My arrival in July has not been the only shift in leadership at Berkeley this year. In my cabinet, I have elevated Carol T. Christ to Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost, and James Hyatt is now Vice Chancellor for Resources Planning and Budget. The new titles recognize the work both were already doing.

We are currently recruiting for a new position, a Vice Chancellor for Capital Projects, to oversee our seismic rehabilitation, deferred maintenance and all other planning and construction efforts. And we must now also fill the shoes of one of Cal's most dedicated leaders and a great and valued colleague. Vice Chancellor for University Relations Dan Mote has been appointed the President of the University of Maryland at College Park. We wish Dan great success, but we will miss him enormously. John Cash, who has served as Associate Vice Chancellor for University Relations and campaign director, will step in as Acting Vice Chancellor for University Relations when Dan departs later this summer. Also departing the campus after 31 years of distinguished service is Anthropology Professor and Dean of Social Sciences William Simmons, who was instrumental in the establishment of our American Cultures courses. He leaves to become the Executive Vice President and Provost of Brown University.

This summer we also welcome several new deans. Berkeley Professor Laura D'Andrea Tyson, former chief economic advisor to President Clinton, will lead the Haas School of Business. Edward E. Penhoet, a former faculty member has left Chiron Corporation, where he was president and chief executive officer, to become the new Dean of the School of Public Health. Michael Nacht, former Dean at the University of Maryland and an expert in U.S. national security, joins us as Dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy. Ralph Hexter, professor of comparative literature, takes over as Dean of Humanities. Paul Licht, Dean of the Biological Sciences, is now Chair of Letters and Science Deans; and Kwong-Loi Shun, professor of philosophy, will be Dean of Undergraduate Advising.

An Impressive New Class and a New Reality

The class of 2002, admitted this spring, is the most academically impressive group of entering students in the history of the university. At the same time, freshman applications for fall '98 reached an all-time high; in excess of 30,000 seniors sought admission. This created enormous competition with the consequence of making Berkeley the most selective public university in the country. We are also now more selective than elite private institutions such as Cornell, Duke, and Penn.

The tremendous competition is a testament to the quality of our faculty, our facilities, and our academic programs. There was however, a much publicized downside to this popularity -- it meant that many, many highly qualified students could not be admitted. This, coupled with the voter-mandated elimination of race and ethnicity as factors in admissions, led to a significant decline in the number of underrepresented minority students admitted. It has been a difficult and distressing time for many on campus who have dedicated themselves to building a diverse learning environment.

Fortunately, a vigorous recruitment effort to telephone personally as many students as we could reach resulted in a gratifyingly high acceptance rate. It was particularly satisfying that so many minority students -- students who were heavily recruited by our nation's top private universities and had very difficult choices to make -- accepted our offer and will enroll this fall. These efforts were the first step in what must be a concerted commitment to recruitment and outreach if we are to sustain the diversity that has distinguished Berkeley for the past two decades.

Taking Stock and Taking Action

I must admit that while the quality of the university's students and faculty exceeded my very high expectations, I was somewhat dismayed by the state of the campus' aging infrastructure.

This year we received a sobering report on the seismic strength of our university buildings. We now know that 95 buildings, accounting for 27 percent of all usable university space, need corrective work. This finding led me to initiate the 10-point SAFER (Seismic Action Plan for Facilities Enhancement and Renewal) Program, a comprehensive program of seismic rehabilitation that will take 20 years or longer to complete at a cost more than $1.2 billion. I am pleased that work is beginning on the earliest stages.

In this age of cyber everything, it is especially delightful to spy the high-wire ballet of steel workers guiding huge beams hefted by a crane (appropriately plastered with a "GO BEARS" banner) into place for the emerging privately supported 12,100-seat Walter A. Haas, Jr. Pavilion. Construction is to be completed in late 1999. Nearby, construction of the new Environment Health and Safety building is moving along.

Earlier this month, we undertook our most ambitious building transformation ever -- guiding the grand 1907 Hearst Memorial Mining Building into a center for 21st century technological innovation. We also completed and dedicated Memorial Glade this spring thanks to the War Classes and began the replacement of aging family student housing with nearly 400 new units at University Village in Albany.

Generous Gifts Help to Secure the Future

The Campaign for the New Century continues strong. To date, generous alumni and friends and supporters have contributed in excess of $770 million to the ultimate goal of $1.1 billion. Major contributions this year included a gift of $10 million from the Richard & Rhoda Goldman Fund for the Graduate School of Public Policy, which was renamed in their honor; $5 million by alumni Brian and Jennifer Maxwell, co-developers of the PowerBar, to support the new Haas Pavilion and to improve academic life on campus; and a $3.5 million gift to honor Mario Savio and the Free Speech Movement through support for the Library from alumnus and former library employee Stephen M. Silberstein.

Student Leaders Meet the Challenge

It did not take long to recognize the impressive quality of Berkeley students. Two decades-long issues were resolved this year and I give high marks to the leadership of the two student associations, the Associated Students of the University of California and the Graduate Assembly, for finding solutions.

Together a dedicated team of university staff and ASUC representatives resolved an extremely difficult issue regarding management of the ASUC bookstore, whose financial situation had put student government in serious debt. The agreement calls for a third-party to operate the store under the direction of a Store Operations Board comprised of student and university representatives. Profits from the store will be returned to the ASUC to fund student activities and services.

On another issue that had lingered for a good ten years and had become particularly contentious in recent times, the ASUC and Graduate Assembly worked through their stalemate to reach agreement over the distribution of student fees to the GA.

Giving Back a Berkeley Tradition

Berkeley continued its tradition of service to society. In April, the campus' 3,000th volunteer to the Peace Corps was celebrated. Berkeley's contribution is by far the most of any college or university in the nation.

The Berkeley Pledge, our commitment to strengthen partnerships with K-12 schools to show how a university can work with schools in disadvantaged areas to improve the academic performance of youngsters, showed excellent results. We are now involved with four Bay Area school districts with mathematics, science, and literacy programs. The Pledge programs and the extraordinary work of our staff and our corps of Cal students who tutor in the schools won praise from both U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley and Governor Pete Wilson.

Bringing the Glory Home to Cal

Cal teams, both the men's and women's squads, did well on many fronts and three efforts brought home national titles. It was a dream season for the undefeated men's gymnastics team, which captured its second straight NCAA championship. The men's rugby team seized its eighth consecutive national rugby title by besting arch-rival Stanford in the championship match-up. And in women's tennis, the Cal team of Amanda Augustus and Amy Jensen won the NCAA doubles championship, the first-ever tennis championship for our women. And on a different note, the Men's Octet celebrated its 50th anniversary as national champion of College A Cappella at a Carnegie Hall competition.

A Final Word

With my freshman year completed, I now know better what to expect from this remarkable place. I know, for example, that change here is both inevitable and difficult. Many of the challenges we faced in this past year were resolved with great success, but many more must be systematically managed and will be with us for years to come. I also have come to know that Berkeley is truly a place dedicated to excellence in all that is undertaken. It is a tradition that will serve us well as we move ahead. There is a great deal happening on campus, and I urge all who are not here regularly to make a point to come by and see for yourself how this beautiful campus is preparing for the next century.

Sincerely,

Robert M. Berdahl

Chancellor