A UC Berkeley student financial aid fundraising program that matches contributions from faculty, staff and students will be extended to end December 2013, Chancellor Robert Birgeneau announced in a campuswide email Tuesday.
The Chancellor’s Challenge for Student Support — which Birgeneau launched in 2007 in order to support endowments for need-based undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships — garnered $7.1 million in contributions from the campus community, and matching funds provided by the campus doubled the fund’s total to $14.2 million as of June 30, 2011, according to the program’s website.
Nearly 2,000 students, faculty, staff and retirees have contributed to the fund,which Birgeneau called a “hopeful indicator during these challenging times that we share a commitment to making the dream of a Berkeley education possible for many outstanding students.”
Read the full text of the email below.
Dear Campus Community,
To increase funds for student financial aid, I launched a dollar-for-dollar matching gift program in 2007 called The Chancellor’s Challenge for Student Support. All gifts made by members of the campus community to Berkeley’s endowments for need-based undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships have been doubled, providing critical resources for our students. I am pleased to report that nearly 2,000 faculty, staff, students, and retirees stepped up to the Challenge and gave $7.1 million. When combined with the matching funds, the amount totals $14.2 million — a hopeful indicator during these challenging times that we share a commitment to making the dream of a Berkeley education possible for many outstanding students.
Because of this success and the bold actions required to respond to declining State support, I am extending the Challenge through December 31, 2013, to continue matching donations. Joining this community effort is one important way to ensure that our students have equal access to a Berkeley education — access based on the ability to achieve, not on the ability to pay.
I am proud of and inspired by everything the campus community is doing to continue our University’s access and excellence. I thank you on behalf of the students who benefit from the life-changing opportunities that scholarships and fellowships provide. If you are interested in learning more about this innovative program, please visit ourpromise.berkeley.edu.
With warmest regards.
Yours sincerely,
Robert J. Birgeneau
Alisha Azevedo is the assistant university news editor.
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Chancellor Bob’s version of voluntary taxation.
Over the course of several years the Chancellor was successful in surreptitiously funding the Division of Athletics with $78 million from the instructional budget while pretending the DIA was self-supporting.
Harsh Realities:
i) UC’s general fund is a money laundering operation.
ii) Funding from the state is restricted to instructional uses, thus admin does not want state funding. They prefer other funds w/o restrictions.
iii) UC’s endowment lost ~ 1/3 of its value shortly after the Regents started investing that money in their own businesses and other generally high risk areas.
iv) Chancellors Birgeneau and Katehi publicly embarrassed themselves by speaking from a position of willful ignorance. (Failure to watch relevant video of undue use of force b4 speaking to the press. To her credit Katehi appears to have some capacity to feel shame.)
There is no doubt that we should better build schoolrooms for “ the boy,” than cells and gibbets for “the Man” learn to get a degree from High Speed Universities article in few months and get a job
High Speed U = Adderalliciousness!
Too Bad For Script Kiddies* UHS Tang Center CPS Caught On: ADHD Is Ficticious. Thus saith Dr. Allen Frances, editor of DSM-IV. UC’s in house psychiatrists now live in fear of the DEA. The mere thought of writing a schedule II prescription causes tremors in hands of grown men.
UC administrators get played, tough like the ukelele.
Brett Sokolow, wizard behind the curtain, laughing all the way to the Bank of Oz.
*teh other one, derp.