In an effort to increase involvement in the UC Berkeley campus community during the selection process for the next chancellor, six members of the selection committee heard feedback from students, faculty and staff at a public forum Thursday.
Campus community members expressed concern over the confidential nature of the search process, saying that providing input to the committee should be a more accessible and open process. The trend toward a more accessible campus was a common theme throughout the forum, during which many advocated for a commitment to increased communication between students, faculty and staff and the senior campus administration.
“We should make sure that we value openness and accessibility (of the next chancellor) over perceived boldness or inspiring leadership,” said junior Julia Gettle at the forum. “A lot of the problems we have are structural … so interacting with students, faculty and staff is important. Personal stories and connections help make a lot of headway.”
This view was echoed by the committee’s graduate student representative, Bahar Navab, who said that in addition to being an effective communicator, the next chancellor should be “forward-thinking” and “willing to take risks” to increase the access to and affordability of the campus.
“There was a time that UC Berkeley was at the forefront of experimental policy,” Navab said. “The next chancellor should be someone who understands the value of a Berkeley education and also the affordability and access of education.”
Some emphasized the importance of an ethnically diverse chancellor and said it was time for a woman to lead the campus. Others called on the committee to consider a candidate’s support of student protests and commitment to actively engage with students during protests during the search process.
“Berkeley has a fine tradition of a protest culture,” said incoming Student Action Senator and junior George Kadifa. “But there is a sentiment that decisions were made haphazardly (in the past). The new chancellor has to have a clear understanding of these things.”
The five faculty members on the committee will play a crucial role in the coming months as the committee begins reviewing nominations to select the chancellor’s replacement.
According to Robert Powell, a UC Davis professor and a faculty representative on the committee, all the faculty representatives will initially screen the nominations before creating a list of candidates for the entire committee to consider.
“This is an institution that has exceptionally high academic standards,” said Donald McQuade, a faculty representative and UC Berkeley English professor. “We ask if (the new chancellor) is somebody who could lead this academic community.”
The forum is the first of two events — organized by the ASUC, campus Graduate Assembly, Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate and the Berkeley Staff Assembly — planned for the committee to receive feedback on what qualifications the next chancellor should hold.
The two student representatives, the one staff representative and three of five faculty representatives were present, but the five official representatives from the UC Board of Regents were not present at the forum. The campus alumni representative and the UC Berkeley Foundation representative were also not present.
Paul Riofski, the committee’s staff representative, said that while the five regents on the committee were informed of the forum, the short notice prevented them from attending. According to Riofski, most were at the committee’s first closed-session meeting on Friday, May 4, where they heard from members of the campus community.
The second planned forum will be held on May 22. The location has yet to be determined.
Amruta Trivedi is the lead academics and administration reporter.
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Awarding in state tuition to illegal aliens is fiscally irresponsible and patently unfair.
Push your state representative to make a change. Google this: NUMBERSUSA .
Once you are registered, go to the “action board” to send free faxes to your state representative .
They are all typed up and ready to go, you just need to click your mouse to send.
Oh look, everyone has different pet interests. And since under postmodernism all interests are equally valid, the only logical means of selecting a leader is Athenian style democracy – we’ll all vote. Then the losers will throw a tantrum and try to undermine the winner. It’ll work out great. To keep from being undermined, the winner need only avoid making any hard decisions or defending any particular value as being universal or more important than another, so as to offend the fewest pet interests possible. It’s the system of the future. Totally transparent and participatory, we’ll call it . . . MEDIOCRITY.
The next chancellor needs more INTEGRITY than Birgeneau exhibits.
Birgeneau lied about whether the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics was self-financing.
Birgeneau lied about the tree sitters, calling them racists in writing w/o any evidence to that effect.
Birgeneau lied about whether he knew students were beaten by officers last November.
Birgeneau lied about whether the administration asked the DA to request stay away orders and to maliciously prosecute various individuals as recently as a few months ago.
Birgeneau is a habitual liar.
His administration is riddled with habitual liars.
They lied about only pursuing on-line education if they could find outside money to finance it.
They lied in student conduct hearings: making assertions of fact when the administration had documentary evidence to the contrary, and allowing police officers to give false testimony based on falsified police reports.
To this day they assert that the code and its enforcement are “educational” and not disciplinary in nature while simultaneously claiming that enforcement may result in various punishments, including expulsion.
The next chancellor must behave with greater HONESTY than Birgeneau and his cronies have.