Dear Cal alums, parents, and friends,
I’m an economist. But when I was an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, I took some advanced French classes. In one, we read “L’Etranger” (“The Stranger”) by Albert Camus. The novel’s first lines are striking: “Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know.” The mother plays no particular role in the rest of the book.
I opened my essay on the book with, “I died today, maybe yesterday. I don’t remember which.” My French teacher was struck by this and said that no one in her class had ever written that essay from the mother’s perspective. Her encouragement elevated my confidence that I could bring both the intellectual and the creative to my life.
That marriage of intellectuality and creativity captures something so fundamental about what we do here at Berkeley — imagining what’s possible and then seeing it through. I see it in the astonishing upward mobility we produce at scale. I see it in discoveries that reveal for the first time one of our world’s deep, underlying mechanisms. I see it in the startups and the nonprofits founded by our students and faculty.
First-year student Israel Sanchez embodies intellectual creativity. Israel started working at a small family farm on California’s central coast when he was 12. Later, he became interested in mechanics and began tinkering with a machine that transplants seedlings to the field to make it less labor- and time-intensive. The biggest change he made was to automate its self-cleaning function. The machine would break down when it got clogged, he wrote in a first-person narrative, not only delaying the work, but compromising the seedlings’ survival and the workers’ health when temperatures rose above 100 degrees.
Until then, “something as big as going to college” scared Israel, but his employers told him to “Go out and seek better.” He wrote that he is exploring everything at Berkeley that he did not have access to at home, including different majors, research opportunities, student clubs, and the university’s startup culture. “The world isn’t perfect,” he wrote. “But when I got inspired to do something for the greater society, I said, ‘What better place than Berkeley?’”
Israel’s embrace of intellectual creativity shows what can happen when one person takes a risk on something new, even if they’re not sure it will work. Imagine how many gorgeous forms it takes across our whole campus. Thank you for joining me in marveling at Berkeley’s intellectual creativity, and in so doing, stoking even more of it.
Fiat Lux, and Go Bears!
Chancellor Rich Lyons
Chancellor’s Choice
Two films highlighting disability issues—View two powerful films, “Audio Description” and “The Rebound: A Wheelchair Basketball Story.” Afterward, a panel featuring the filmmakers, a staff member who supports students with disabilities, and a five-time paralympian will discuss the films and broader disability issues. Wednesday, October 28, at 2 p.m. in Banatao Auditorium. Tickets are free, but you must reserve a seat
Alumni Virtual Book Club — Read along with alums in a free, private online book club. “The Lion Women of Tehran,” by Marjan Kamali ’93, will start on October 9. Set during mid-20th century Iran, the novel follows one friend who embraces radical activism and another who navigates the precarious security of social ambition. Rich with historical atmosphere and moral complexity, this book probes the heartbreaking consequences of betrayal and the quiet courage required to resist systemic oppression.