The $15 million facility, to be named the California Aquatics Center, will replace the parking lot adjacent to the Tang Center on Bancroft Way. Despite some concerns that the center will serve only a small number of students and remove valuable parking services, the campus plans to begin construction in August. The project is to be funded entirely by Cal Aquatic Legends, a nonprofit donor group founded to raise money for the facility.

The center is in part a response to limited recreational space on campus. Spieker Aquatics Complex, UC Berkeley’s only aquatic center, struggles to serve both competitive athletes and recreational swimmers despite being open from early morning to late at night most days, according to a UC Office of the President executive summary.

“By building this pool, we relieve some of the use that Spieker Pool currently has, allowing us to open it up to students more of the time,” said Edward Denton, vice chancellor of facilities services, at the meeting.

According to Denton, the campus was planning to use the parking lot to develop administrative buildings but changed plans when donors offered to finance a new aquatic facility.

Despite the project’s private funding source, some are concerned that the new aquatic center will allocate UC resources to only a small number of students.

“It’s probably true that better facilities and resources aid performance,” said Celeste Langan, an associate professor of English at UC Berkeley, in an op-ed for The Daily Californian in April. “But shouldn’t we be applying that principle first to the 99 percent of Berkeley students who are not intercollegiate athletes, and to the object of academic performance?”

Regent George Kieffer also said the university should be wary of pursuing projects simply because private donors offer money.

“I think this is a good project, but I think that we should be careful about simply (pursuing projects where) because someone gives a gift, that’s the direction we go in,” Kieffer said.

The aquatic facility is set to finish construction by July 2014, according to a UC Office of the President executive summary. Following approval from the regents, the campus will begin refining the facility’s design, said Christine Shaff, director of communications for the campus’s Facilities Services department.

Once constructed, the aquatics facility will be home to some of UC Berkeley’s most elite athletes.

“One of the people who is going to swim in this pool is Missy Franklin,” said Chancellor Robert Birgeneau at the meeting. “This facility will be a crown jewel in her ability to train.”

Libby Rainey covers higher education. Contact her at lrainey@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @rainey_l.

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In a study analyzing public universities’ enrollment data, professors Bradley Curs and Ozan Jaquette found that as nonresident student enrollment increased, the number of Pell Grant recipients and underrepresented minority students decreased, particularly at research universities such as UC Berkeley.

“Flagship public universities have been a source of social mobility for low-income and underrepresented minority students who cannot afford out-of-state and private tuition,” the paper reads. “Non-resident enrollment growth — chiefly motivated by revenue concerns — may have the unintended consequence of diminish(ing) socioeconomic and racial diversity.”

The research follows years of debate on the role of nonresident students in the UC system. Nonresident tuition has been increasingly looked to as an alternative source of revenue for the university in light of declining state support. Seeking increased revenue due to budget constraints, UC Berkeley set a goal of increasing nonresident enrollment to 20 percent, which the campus expects to reach next school year.

Nonresident enrollment at UC Berkeley has risen 10 percent since the 2007-08 school year, from 8 percent to 18 percent. UC Berkeley spokesperson Janet Gilmore said that despite this, the campus has maintained diversity.

“Our data clearly shows that our Pell Grant numbers have remained steady, that our underrepresented minority numbers have been steady and actually increasing,” Gilmore said. “There has always been a commitment to making sure that we were increasing diversity.”

According to the UC Berkeley Office of Planning and Analysis, Berkeley’s African American population increased from 148 in the 2009-10 school year to 165 this year. The Chicano/Latino population increased from 589 to 612 in the same period.

Currently, out-of-state students in the UC system pay around $23,000 more in tuition fees than in-state students. Curs and Jaquette’s research identified high nonresident fees as a filter that discourages many low-income nonresident students from attending out-of-state schools.

“(Nonresident enrollment) crowds out low-income people more than racial minorities,” Jaquette said. “People are very aware of racial diversity, but class diversity often doesn’t get highlighted as much.”

Still, some students have raised concerns about the relatively static underrepresented minority numbers on the UC Berkeley campus. Kirk Coleman, executive director of the UC Berkeley bridges Multicultural Resource Center and a campus senior, said increased nonresident enrollment would inevitably exclude underrepresented minority students.

“It’s problematic that (the campus) thinks where the numbers are now are OK,” Coleman said. “If you look at (underrepresented minority) populations based on state demographics, they are significantly higher than how they are represented on campus. I think that shows where the university is going — not towards more diversity but towards making more money.”

Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion Gibor Basri said the campus considered a potential decrease in diversity when it established the 20 percent nonresident enrollment goal but that diversity has remained steady despite substantial growth in nonresident enrollment.

“The socioeconomic piece is pretty obvious because it’s a lot more expensive to come as an out-of-state student, and the financial aid is much lower,” Basri said. “It hasn’t really had an impact on diversity so far. I’m a little surprised by that, but since people were aware of that issue, there was an extra effort made (to improve diversity).”

UC Student Regent Jonathan Stein has spoken out against increasing nonresident enrollment in the past, pointing to the possibility of nonresident “clustering,” a phenomenon in which out-of-state students flock to top-ranking schools such as UCLA and UC Berkeley more than to other UC campuses. Student Regent-designate Cinthia Flores echoed this sentiment, pointing to the university’s public mission of access and inclusion.

“The primary purpose of the UC is it is supposed to be a system that provides Californians with an affordable education, and a big part of owning up to that commitment is making sure the diversity of California is shown in the UC system,” Flores said. “When you have such an out-of-state-student-focus strategy, the demand for out-of-state students does not translate throughout the system … Then that creates a shortage in the system.”

Libby Rainey covers higher education. Contact her at lrainey@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @rainey_l.

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Despite promising greater system efficiency, the proposed unit cap — part of Brown’s proposed 2013-14 budget for higher education — failed in an Assembly subcommittee hearing Wednesday and a Senate subcommittee hearing this March.

Brown’s proposal would cap the number of units students could take at the state-subsidized rate. His plan initially limits students to taking 150 percent of the units required to complete most degrees. Two years after implementation, students would be restricted from taking more than about a year’s worth of additional units, according to the budget proposal.

“I don’t believe the administration has looked carefully into solving the issue that students find, which is their great frustration in finding the classes they need to take. Making an arbitrary ruling punishes the students,” said Assemblymember Susan Bonilla, D-Concord, who chaired Wednesday’s hearing and joined the majority’s 3-2 vote against the unit cap.

Bonilla urged California school systems to consider unit restrictions internally instead of imposing a statewide limit. A unit cap would have a far greater impact on the CSU system than on the UC, according to UC spokesperson Dianne Klein.

“We told the Legislature that it would only impact maybe 2,200 students systemwide if it were implemented in the fall,” Klein said. “We’re not opposed to a unit cap, but we think a more gradual implementation would give students more time to adjust, and it wouldn’t affect seniors.”

A report issued by the California Legislative Analyst’s Office, which is the state’s nonpartisan fiscal and policy advisor, said that unit caps would likely increase efficiency within the UC and CSU systems,  but it warned against a one-size-fits-all limit, such as the one Brown proposed.

“Setting a specific unit cap, however, will require consideration of the reasons students accrue excess units, including unavailability of courses, inconsistent transfer requirements, and requirements of particular majors,” stated the report.

UC Student Association President Raquel Morales and other UCSA representatives spoke against the unit cap at the Wednesday hearing. Other student leaders have also expressed dissatisfaction with the proposal.

“While the premise of a unit cap is to ensure or help facilitate that students graduate within a reasonable time period, I think that there’s also a possibility that (a unit cap) will actually hurt students in terms of being able to gain the academic and educational experience that they want to gain at the CSU and UC,” said Student Regent-designate Cinthia Flores.

Brown will publish a revision to his budget this May, which will consider the Legislature’s recent considerations.

Libby Rainey covers higher education. Contact her at lrainey@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @rainey_l.

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California freshman applicants admitted to UC Berkeley for fall 2013 have a nearly identical ethnic composition to those of previous years, even as campus groups and the university continue to push for greater minority inclusion.

While African Americans, Hispanic/Latino and American Indian constituted 32.1 percent of California residents applying to UC Berkeley, they make up 22 percent of admitted students, according to data released by the UC Office of the President last week. Last year, the same groups made up 30.9 percent of the resident applicant pool and saw comparable admissions numbers.

“Though (the numbers) remain pretty flat, it’s actually not a good thing, because most of them are severely under the demographics of the state,” said Kirk Coleman, executive director of the UC Berkeley bridges Multicultural Resource Center.

Of the resident students admitted to UC Berkeley this year, the proportion of students who identified as Chicano/Latino dropped 0.1 percentage points, while the proportion who identified as African American rose 0.1 percentage points. Those who identified as American Indian have made up the same proportion of admitted resident students since 2011.

“One of the things that is clearly a challenge here is that we don’t have an opportunity to know the race or ethnicity or gender as we read the applications,” said Amy Jarich, UC Berkeley’s assistant vice chancellor and director of undergraduate admissions. “We have a long way to go, so we need to keep working with our partners.”

The release of this data comes at a time when the U.S. Supreme Court is considering Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, a case challenging the constitutionality of race-conscious admissions. The court’s ruling could have implications for Proposition 209, a California ballot measure that prevents the University of California from considering race, ethnicity or gender in admissions.

“We, as bridges, do a lot of the work that undergraduate admissions should be doing but can’t due to Proposition 209,” Coleman said. “We try to make (admissions) numbers remain the same.”

University administrators also expressed frustration with Prop. 209 in a brief submitted to the Fisher v. UT Austin case last summer.

UC Berkeley sophomore Kristina Duncan, an American Indian student and a volunteer for the Native American Recruitment and Retention Center, said the flat growth of admissions stems in part from lack of direct communication with the university.

“I hear a lot of, ‘Oh, you got into Cal because you’re Native American,’” Duncan said. “I find that interesting, because if that were true, our numbers might be 5 percent, 4 percent, even 1 percent. I feel like if (the university) were more involved with us, more programs would be formed. We are going to need the assistance and guidance of the university itself.”

Libby Rainey covers higher education. Contact her at lrainey@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @rainey_l.

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The campus accepted 9,219 in-state freshman applicants for fall 2013, a decrease of 1.4 percent from 2012 numbers. The drop in in-state admissions follows a year of continued debate about the role of nonresident students within the UC system. Despite a drop in nonresident admissions last year, UC Berkeley saw a 26 percent jump this year in out-of-state student admissions and a 46.4 percent increase in international student admissions.

This increase is intentional, according to Amy Jarich, assistant vice chancellor and director of undergraduate admissions, who said the campus has been working toward a goal of 20 percent nonresident undergraduate enrollment, a target she said the campus could meet by the 2014-15 school year.

“(Rising admission for nonresidents) is something that we’re doing just to be able to bring the numbers in line with the available state funding from California,” Jarich said. “The increase definitely is a reflection of the campus’s ongoing effort to build the overall percentage of undergraduate nonresident students.”

The university saw a similar decrease of 2.2 percent in admission for in-state students systemwide. The university admitted 14.3 percent more out-of-state students and 28.5 percent more international students, as compared to last year.

According to a statement from the UC Office of the President, “The slight decline in the number and proportion of admitted students who are Californians reflects the fallout from years of severe budget cuts to UC, which has enrolled thousands of California students for whom it received no state funding.”

Michael Trevino, UC director of undergraduate admissions, echoed this sentiment in a press conference Thursday, noting that nonresident students pay around $23,000 more than resident students annually.

The university has looked to nonresident tuition as a source of potential revenue in the past. The UC Board of Regents considered adopting a formal policy to increase out-of-state enrollment at its November meeting, but UC Student Regent Jonathan Stein and others have voiced concern about further opening the university to out-of-state students.

“There are consequences to dramatically increasing our out-of-state student body,” Stein said at the November meeting. “There’s far less racial diversity, and because the tuition for out-of-state students is higher, there is a corresponding lack of socioeconomic diversity.”

According to UC Berkeley admissions data, 3.6 percent of newly admitted students from California are African American, 0.7 percent are American Indian and 17.7 percent are Hispanic/Latino. Jarich said the campus is looking to increase these rates — which have remained relatively stable over recent years — in part by continuing to work with campus groups such as bridges, the UC Berkeley multicultural center.

The data also report that UCLA had the lowest admission rate across the system, accepting 20.1 percent from an applicant pool of more than 80,000. UC Berkeley accepted 20.8 percent of its applicants.

Libby Rainey covers higher education. Contact her at lrainey@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @rainey_l.

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The campus accepted 9,219 in-state freshman applicants for fall 2013 enrollment, a decrease of 1.4 percent from 2012 numbers. Meanwhile, UC Berkeley saw a 26 percent jump in out of state admission. Around 14,000 freshman applicants were admitted from a pool of nearly 68,000.

“The slight decline in the number and proportion of admitted students who are Californians reflects the fallout from years of severe budget cuts to UC, which has enrolled thousands of California students for whom it received no state funding,” read a statement from the UC Office of the President.

Systemwide, the UC saw a 2.2 percent decrease in admittance for in-state students compared to 2012 rates. Meanwhile, the university admitted 14.3 percent more out of state students, and 28.5 percent more international students, compared to last year.

According to UC Berkeley admissions data, 3.6 percent of newly admitted resident students are African American, 0.7 percent are American Indian and 17.7 percent are Hispanic/Latino. The admission rates of different ethnic groups for campus have remained relatively stable over recent years.

UCLA had the lowest admittance rate across the system, accepting 20.1 percent out of an applicant pool of over 80,000. UC Berkeley accepted 20.8 percent of applicants.

See the full document of admissions data below:

Fall 2013 Admissions table1 (PDF)

Fall 2013 Admissions table1 (Text)

Libby Rainey covers higher education. Contact her at lrainey@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @rainey_l.

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Breslauer, who became executive vice chancellor in 2006, is stepping down after 42 years as a faculty member at UC Berkeley. The campus has initiated a search for a new executive vice chancellor and provost following the announcement.

The search for Breslauer’s replacement will involve the formation of a committee to interview candidates for the job — a process that will be headed by Chancellor-designate Nicholas Dirks, who will make the final decision on who will fill the position. The makeup of the committee has yet to be finalized, pending input from the incoming chancellor, according to UC spokesperson Dan Mogulof.

“The provost has to be a good listener, has to have a steady hand, has to have a reassuring voice, has to win confidence as an honest broker,” Breslauer said. “The next wave of leadership is going to have to ensure that we stay on course to make sure we ensure the continuation of excellence and access.”

Breslauer spent his entire academic career at UC Berkeley and was recognized as both a professor and administrator. A scholar of political science, Breslauer came to UC Berkeley in 1971 as a specialist on the Soviet Union and foreign relations. He was awarded the Distinguished Teaching Award in social sciences in 1997 and was later appointed as a chancellor’s professor for service to the university.

In his tenure, the executive vice chancellor took on many roles, serving as the head of the Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, the chair of the department of political science and the executive dean of the College of Letters and Sciences before becoming executive vice chancellor in 2006.

Breslauer was at the forefront of many student issues in his seven years as executive vice chancellor, a position second only to the chancellor himself. While in office, he played a part in navigating through several student fee hikes, revising the UC Berkeley student code of conduct and overseeing the launch of Operational Excellence. He also played an active role in negotiating for the campus during student protests — his response to Occupy Cal November 2011 prompted some students to call for his resignation.

Breslauer, who originally planned on retiring in June, will spend his final months at UC Berkeley assisting Dirks as he acclimates to his job as chancellor. Dirks will assume office in June.

“I look forward to the opportunity to relax,” Breslauer said. “Once I get tired of being spontaneous, the wonderful thing about the university is I can continue my research, I can continue teaching. We’ll see.”

Libby Rainey covers higher education. Contact her at lrainey@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @rainey_l.

Clarification(s):
The caption for the photo accompanying this article previously may have indicated that Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost George Breslauer was speaking against fee hikes. In fact, Breslauer was speaking in support of public higher education along with students at a rally in Sacramento.

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Gumperz was an intellectual and adventurer — a curious, unassuming scholar who studied people and language all around the world. He used his research to fill the gaps that written language could not, focusing linguistic study on solving issues of social justice and helping people communicate across cultural boundaries.

He brought this passion for language to UC Berkeley, where he taught for 35 years until his retirement in 1991. The professor pioneered research in linguistic anthropology — studying language as a social and cultural endeavor as well as a form of written communication.

“He was totally unpretentious,” said lifelong friend and colleague Dan Slobin, who is a professor emeritus of psychology and linguistics at UC Berkeley. “I struggled at first to make sense of him and was finally just overwhelmed at how profound his ideas were.”

Among the focuses of Gumperz’s work was code-switching, a process in which speakers use multiple languages in one conversation. He also studied the way culture affected linguistics, finding at times that two people speaking the same language were in fact communicating very differently, depending on the different environments in which they learned to speak.

Born in 1922, Gumperz quickly became a scholar of language when he left his native Germany to finish high school in Italy. This move was prompted by an increasingly dangerous Nazi regime, which Gumperz, a Jew, eventually escaped by moving to Holland and then the United States in 1939.

Gumperz completed his education in the United States, eventually earning a doctorate in Germanic linguistics at the University of Michigan in 1954. He went on to work in India alongside other linguists, a post that had a lasting influence on his research.

Gumperz was an engaging, amiable man who could sit down with professors and farmers alike to talk about the world.

“He had a way of being totally at ease with people,” Slobin said. “He would just sit down with them. He was such a sweet man.”

This interest in people led Gumperz to the center of a vibrant intellectual community in Berkeley, which formed in the early 1960s. He often hosted dinner parties where graduate students and professors from different disciplines would discuss and share ideas, a practice that led to great support for interdisciplinary studies at UC Berkeley.

“We had constant afternoon and evening dialogues,” said Susan Ervin-Tripp, a professor emeritus who taught psychology while Gumperz was at UC Berkeley. “It was an exciting time.”

Gumperz left the UC Berkeley community after retiring but continued to work and study linguistics until his death.

“He opened people’s eyes to the fact that language isn’t just the language you read in texts,” Slobin said. “It’s in face-to-face interactions.”

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They talk quietly on the steps of Upper Sproul Plaza, eating reserves of bread and cookies as the minutes tick by. Protest signs — laid carefully out on the plaza steps  — outnumber people.

Alone on a campus that will soon be bustling before morning classes, they wait for sunrise.

By 1 p.m., they will be done with a 27-hour standing campaign — a “Stand for Freedom” — organized by the International Justice Mission Berkeley, a campus club that advocates ending human trafficking worldwide.

The club — a chapter of the human rights agency of the same name — stood in solidarity with other university groups around the nation that took part in a larger campaign to raise awareness of the 27 million people enslaved in the world today. The International Justice Mission urged groups nationwide to do standing campaigns in their communities.

The campus club has only 20 active members, according to club President Wesley Cheung. Despite concern that the group would lack the manpower to meet the 27-hour challenge, members lasted all throughout the night, keeping volunteers standing on Sproul from Wednesday morning to Thursday afternoon.

“For Stand for Freedom, we were really worried we wouldn’t have people standing … I mean, it’s 27 hours,” said senior Leanne Chan, who helped organize the event. “(But) it’s 5 a.m., and we’re still here. And there are more coming.”

Around 15 club members stood in shifts for the 27-hour period, standing in groups of three or more while other participants took breaks to study, nap or head to class.

Students used different motivations to remain standing. Senior James Dabalos stood for the work the International Justice Mission does for people in the Philippines, his country of origin.

“I have back problems,” Dabalos said. “Standing for me for too long is not really a good idea. But I stood anyway.”

Dabalos stood for 11 hours.

Senior Florence Hsueh stood for her faith and said she prayed throughout the night to stay warm.

“Knowing that Berkeley is so avant-garde in social justice, (I’m) sort of integrating that with my Christian faith,” Hsueh said. She stood from midnight until well into the morning.

The club used social media to draw attention to its campaign, taking photos of passing students holding signs reading “Freedom” and “I Stand” and posting them to its Facebook page. It also recruited the UC Men’s Octet and other UC Berkeley music groups to attract passers-by.

The club packed up Thursday afternoon, gathering signs sprawled across the steps and clearing off Sproul after its daylong campaign.

“It definitely got a lot of attention,” Cheung said. “Not many groups stand for a night.”

Libby Rainey covers higher education. Contact her at lrainey@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @rainey_l.

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The extension of the $60 surcharge passed despite criticism that it was funding the costs of a settlement incurred when a court ruled the university had inappropriately raised tuition on students for the 2003-04 academic year. With the extension, the surcharge — which was first enacted in the 2007-08 school year — will now last through the 2017-18 academic year.

“The university lost a lawsuit against students and made them pay for it,” said Student Regent Jonathan Stein at the meeting.

The regents should have found an internal mechanism to pay for the costs of the lawsuits instead of putting the burden of payment on students, he said.

Students from the university’s professional schools filed class-action lawsuits against the university in 2003 and 2010, and in both cases, the court determined that the UC system raised tuition without adequately warning affected students. In total, the litigation process cost the university nearly $100 million, according to UC spokesperson Dianne Klein.

Since UC insurance did not cover the lawsuit, the university had to rely on students to fund the settlement, Klein said.

“I don’t think this is right,” said UC Regent Eddie Island. “Students are being asked to pick up the surcharge for a lawsuit with no benefit.”

When Stein and Island drew issue with extending the surcharge, UC President Mark Yudof said that students would end up paying for the lawsuits in an indirect form even without the surcharge.

“I don’t know what to say,” Yudof said. “Where would you have us take the money?”

Nathan Brostrom, executive vice president of UC business operations, lauded the regents’ decision to be candid with students about the fees.

“This is actually a hallmark of transparency, to show what it is and that it will be paid off,” Brostrom said.

While he acknowledged the funds could have come from cuts to UC programs, he said that that would have come at the expense of the quality of UC services.

According to UC Regent Richard Blum, university officials made a mistake by pursuing costly litigation and should have settled the case.

The extension will expire when the costs of the second lawsuit, Luquetta v. Regents of the University of California, are fully paid off. The first lawsuit, Kashmiri v. Regents of the University of California, is set to be paid off this school year. As per UC policy, 33 percent of the fees collected from the extension of the surcharge on professional students will go toward financial aid.

“Let’s face it, this is ugly,” Klein said. “Nobody likes this. (The university) felt strongly that we were in the right — that’s why we went through all the appeals. And guess what, we lost.”

Contact Jeremy Gordon and Libby Rainey at newdesk@dailycal.org.

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