The online survey was launched in October 2012. The results were originally expected to be released in the summer and fall of 2013 but are now expected to be presented in early 2014, said UC spokesperson Shelly Meron.

The survey, which included participants from all 10 UC campuses, the UC Office of the President, the agriculture and natural resources department and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is the first of its scope on this topic in the university’s history, said Meron.

“The Campus Climate Survey has been a major undertaking — believed to be the largest study of institutional climate ever conducted — and everything has taken longer than had been anticipated,” Meron said in an emailed statement.

The survey included questions about institutional access, perceptions and experiences, academic and professional success, sexual and gender identity, spirituality and socioeconomic status, among others. UC Berkeley’s survey closed last spring.

There will be both an analysis of individual sites’ results and a systemwide report that will be presented to the UC Board of Regents in early 2014, said Meron.

“The results will help us develop future initiatives and action plans that build on past successes, address challenges and promote institutional change,” Meron said.

The results will not go public until they have been presented to the regents.

Contact Adrianna Dinolfo at adinolfo@dailycal.org.

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Andrew Kuo/File

UC Berkeley students will have a health insurance option in addition to the Berkeley Student Health Insurance Plan as a result of the Affordable Care Act.

Covered California, the state’s new marketplace for health insurance coverage, enables people to review different insurance plans and receive financial assistance to help pay for them. Although coverage will not take effect until Jan. 1, 2014, enrollment for health plans began last week.

“Under the ACA, basically all the health insurance plans have to provide health insurance benefits,” said Sarah Sol, an information officer at Covered California. “These include, but are not limited to, preventive care, prescription drug coverage and chronic disease management.”

With the ACA, states must either set up their own marketplace or do so through the federal government. California, along with states such as Oregon, New York and Nevada, opted to establish its own marketplace.

The act mandates all health insurance plans must now meet a minimum standard of quality, such as offering people health coverage even if they have a pre-existing medical condition.

Although all UC students must have health insurance under a UC Regents mandate, students are now presented with both Berkeley SHIP and plans offered under Covered California.

Health insurance packages through Covered California could be less costly than plans offered through the university, said Kim LaPean, communications manager for the Tang Center at UC Berkeley.

For example, Covered California offers a minimum coverage plan to people below the age of 30 to prevent financial disaster in the event of a medical emergency.

However, LaPean said Berkeley SHIP has the benefit of close, highly accessible networks.

“When students are enrolled in Berkeley SHIP, they can see our counselors, specialists, nurses and doctors at the Tang Center right now,” LaPean said. “If we don’t have necessary resources readily available, we can refer out into the community providers. What we know so far is that these exchanges (through Covered California) are going to have smaller networks.”

Both options provide some of the same services, including fully covered preventive care and permission for people 26 years of age or younger to remain on their parents’ health care plans.

Between now and next year, University Health Services will be displaying information online and conducting forums allowing students to obtain a greater understanding of both options, LePean said.

“(The students) still have time to make sure that they’re making the right choices,” LePean said. “We don’t want students to be fearful of these health exchanges offered by Covered California. We want students to be engaged, informed and to really understand what their options are.”

Contact Adrianna Dinolfo at adinolfo@dailycal.org.

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Michael Drummond/Senior Staff

UC Berkeley received national media attention Monday night following a bizarre series of events that culminated with an explosion near California Hall and the swift evacuation of campus.

By midnight, the campus was eerily dark, empty except for the flashing lights of fire engines and the haze of lingering smoke.

A series of innocuous disruptions

It began with a campuswide power outage at 4:30 p.m.

Students in Doe Memorial Library, who were evacuated when the lights shut off and fire alarms were triggered, were surprised to find that students in Moffitt Library and other buildings were experiencing similar confusion.

“I figured I’d get in some last-minute cramming (when) all of the buzzers and fire alarms in the North Reading Room went off,” said Max Morton, a campus sophomore. “Everyone was looking around, clearly really confused. Then I headed over to Moffitt, and everyone’s pouring out of there too.”

Within 15 minutes, both UCPD and Berkeley Fire Department were responding to reports of black smoke at locations across campus. According to Acting Deputy Fire Chief Avery Webb, firefighters at Koshland Hall discovered a plume of smoke coming from a backup generator.

That was when the calls started pouring in, Webb said. BFD dispatchers, hearing reports of smoke clouds, strange odors and people trapped in elevators campuswide, quickly passed word on to crews across the city.

“The system was on the verge of being overwhelmed by calls coming in from different places,” Webb said.

By 5:15 p.m., Berkeley Fire Department was so overwhelmed with calls that officials requested crews from Alameda County Fire Department to cover duties at fire stations in the city, Webb said.

Meanwhile, a similar spectacle developed outside Sather Tower in response to the release of smoke from another underground generator. One of the backup generators, which automatically starts in the event of a widespread power outage, was running and emitting smoke, which is typical of the system, said UCPD officer Barry Boersma. UCPD, along with Berkeley Police Department and BFD, was present at the scene.

About 5:20 p.m., firefighters evacuated Latimer Hall after students and faculty smelled ammonia in the building. According to Webb, the chemical escaped into the building when a laboratory circulation fan shut down after the power outage, but concentrations were never high enough to cause serious harm.

“A small amount of ammonia can produce a large amount of odor,” Webb said. “Most of what was being done was precautionary.”

As responders began to stem the tide of stuck elevators, a lull in the action emerged about 6 p.m.

“It looked like things were winding down,” Webb said.

The big bang

About 6:40 p.m., the lull ended.

Officials at their makeshift command post on the west side of the Campanile turned abruptly at the sound of a large explosion originating from an electrical vault just downhill, according to UCPD Lt. Marc DeCoulode.

Campus sophomore Jennifer Han was walking past Wheeler Hall on her way home from a midterm review session when the explosion sent her and other students sprinting in the opposite direction.

“The first thing I thought was, ‘What the heck is going on?’ ” Han said. “I initially thought it was a bomb and just wanted to run away. As I was leaving, someone was yelling through a megaphone, but everyone kept walking towards the area.”

A fire engine waiting to respond to another call was parked just 30 to 40 feet away from the explosion, DeCoulode said. Four people sustained minor injuries from the blast, one of whom was taken to the hospital to be treated for minor burn injuries.

At the command post, DeCoulode and other leaders made a quick decision to evacuate the campus. A number of similar electrical vaults are spread across campus, and first responders were worried they would burst as well, he said.

Officers spent the rest of the night checking buildings for malfunctioning elevators and other problems, DeCoulode said.

The aftermath

UC Berkeley will now begin investigating the events that led up to the power outage and explosion, said campus spokesperson Dan Mogulof.

Authorities determined early on that the power outage was caused by damage from vandals attempting to steal copper ground wiring in a manhole a half-mile east of campus. Whether this is also related to the explosion is still unknown, Mogulof said.

An entry from the UCPD crime log shows a burglary of copper wire and other ground wires was reported on Sept. 17 at the Big C Trail.

UCPD Lt. Eric Tejada confirmed that this burglary is the incident officials believe is related to the outage and said that high-voltage wire was stolen.

Mogulof said the vandals had a sophisticated understanding of what they were doing due to their ability to locate the access point and the amount of pressure they were able to apply to the wiring.

“These are people who understand their illicit business and know where the access or weak points are of any electrical grid,” Mogulof said.

Another explosion occurred nearly three weeks ago in an underground high-voltage vault, causing a power outage in several buildings. At the time, officials said that the explosion, located near Evans Hall, was a result of construction. Mogulof said the campus has no reason to believe the two incidents are related.

However, the campus is “open to the possibility that there might be something systemic,” Mogulof said. “Just because that’s what we assessed at the time doesn’t mean we’re going to stick to that.”

Chase Schweitzer contributed to this report.

Contact Adrianna Dinolfo and Connor Grubaugh at newsdesk@dailycal.org.

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Elizabeth Deakin, a UC Berkeley professor of city and regional planning and urban design, has officially taken on her role as chair of the Berkeley division of the Academic Senate for the 2013-14 school year after serving as vice chair last year.

As vice chair, Deakin oversaw the development of new online degree programs, helped establish appropriate criteria for evaluating professors and promoted research opportunities, particularly for undergraduate students.

“You have to be nimble and ready to take on another issue,” she said of her leadership philosophy. “That’s just part of the job.”

The Academic Senate represents the interests of the faculty to both the campus and the UC system in issues including academic freedom, research and student affairs.

Before serving as vice chair, Deakin was a member of the campus Committee on Academic Planning and Resource Allocation, which provides recommendations to the chancellor about budget and resource allocation.

As chair, Deakin said she will work to increase the involvement of faculty in the senate, among other things.

“We’re trying to get even more people involved in the Academic Senate, so we’re speaking with a clearer voice on behalf of the faculty,” she said.

Above all, Deakin said her main priority is to enhance the overall student experience. Specifically, she hopes to improve the quality of instruction, student health, the availability of research opportunities and the accessibility of study abroad programs.

Andrea Green Rush, executive director of the Berkeley Division Staff, worked with Deakin when she was a member of CAPRA and said Deakin brings a wide breadth of knowledge to her new position.

“(Deakin) is especially well versed on issues at the intersection of the academic mission and the administrative structures supporting it, such as budget and finance, resource allocation and long-range planning,” Rush said.

This breadth of knowledge extends to her academic pursuits. Deakin has studied a variety of subjects during her academic career, including political science, law and engineering. She said she intends to use her diverse educational background to move UC Berkeley in a more interdisciplinary direction.

“Teaching is not just in the classroom but in many other venues,” she said.

Panayiotis Papadopoulos, a UC Berkeley professor of mechanical engineering and the vice chair of the Academic Senate, emphasized the importance of the chair’s role in advising Chancellor Nicholas Dirks in his first year on campus. Papadopoulos, who was appointed vice chair this year, has known Deakin for three years and said he is looking forward to working with her again.

“(Deakin) understands the complexity of the institution and is passionate about maintaining Berkeley’s excellence,” Papadopoulos said. “(She) is the ideal.”

Shannon Carroll contributed to this report.

Contact Adrianna Dinolfo at adinolfo@dailycal.org.

Correction(s):
A previous version of this article incorrectly identified Elizabeth Deakin as chair of the UC Academic Senate. In fact, she is chair of the Berkeley Division of the senate.

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