Shirin Ghaffary/Staff

Approximately 40 protesters marched from Tolman Hall to the residence of UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks early Wednesday evening to protest the University of California’s implementation of changes to patient-care employees’ wages and benefits last week.

AFSCME Local 3299, a union representing the patient workers, organized the unannounced protest in response to what they said were significant cuts being made to workers’ benefits under the new contract imposed last Wednesday. Protesters cited issues with changes to the patient-care technical unit contract, such as an increase in health insurance premiums, parking increases of up to 10 percent and reductions in paid leave.

Revisions to the plan for AFSCME workers also include a guaranteed step increase of 2 percent for eligible employees on or about July 1 as well as a guaranteed wage increase of 1.5 percent on or about Oct. 1.

“We’re not asking for a big package to go on vacation,” said Maricruz Manzanarez, a UC Berkeley senior custodian and bargaining team member for AFSCME. “We’re just asking to keep what we have.”

The protest largely comprised AFSCME-represented UC workers and a few supporting students. The protest culminated on the front lawn of the chancellor’s mansion, and protesters demanded to meet with Chancellor Dirks to voice their concerns.

The protest ended peacefully after protesters left the chancellor’s residence around 6 p.m. Union organizers say they plan to continue protests in the future.

Shirin Ghaffary is the executive news editor. Contact her at sghaffary@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter at @sghaff.

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Jacob Brown/Staff

The University of California released its annual report on systemwide employee compensation for the 2012 calendar year today.

The 2012 gross salaries of more than 191,000 career faculty and staff employees, as well as part-time, temporary and student employees, are disclosed in a searchable database on the UC website.

The database includes big-name UC figures like:

• UC President Mark Yudof: $600,599.00
• Former UC Berkeley chancellor Robert Birgeneau: $445,716.00
• UC Berkeley professor Alexei Filippenko: $247,676.20
• UC Berkeley professor and former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich: $246,199.84
• UC Berkeley professor Ananya Roy: $147,161.15
• UC Berkeley law professor John Yoo: $329,451.07
• Former Cal Football coach Jeff Tedford: $2,146,581.24
• UCLA visiting professor James Franco: $12,249.84

Shirin Ghaffary is the executive news editor. Contact her at sghaffary@dailycal.org.

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At approximately 6:52 p.m., police responded to multiple reports of shots fired to find the victim suffering from multiple gunshot wounds, according to a press release by Berkeley Police Department. The victim was then transported to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.

BPD homicide detectives are actively investigating the scene, canvasing the area, interviewing witnesses and following up on leads, according to the statement.

The victim’s name is not being released by BPD at this time.

BPD is urging anyone who may know anything about the homicide to call the BPD Homicide Detail at (510) 981-5900. Anonymous calls can be made to Bay Area Crime Stoppers at (800) 222-TIPS.

Shirin Ghaffary is the executive news editor. Contact her at sghaffary@dailycal.org

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Shirin Ghaffary/Staff

While his parents were outside of the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., 18-year-old Berkeley resident Spencer Perry was on a tea plantation in South Carolina anxiously checking his cellphone. Spencer was waiting for a decision his family had been hoping for the past four years — a decision that would determine not only whether his mothers could legally wed but also whether they would win a historic Supreme Court case in their fight for marriage equality.

Spencer’s mother Kristin Perry served as a respondent in Hollingsworth v. Perry, in which the Supreme Court decided in a close 5-4 ruling to void a previous lower court trial on California’s Proposition 8 bill, which upheld the statewide ban on same-sex marriage. In lower court trials against Proposition 8, Perry was listed as a plaintiff in the case.

For the time being, the decision will allow Spencer’s parents and other same-sex couples to legally marry in the state of California but will not expand this right to other states.

The day was largely considered a victory for same-sex marriage activists, as the court also struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, which said that the federal government could not overturn states’ decisions regarding the definition of marriage.

As Spencer saw the news pop up on his iPhone screen, he began to tear up.

“It’s out of this world — I’m kind of starstruck,” Spencer said. “This case alone has occupied all four years of my high school experience. A part of my growing up has been this case.”

For most of his childhood, Spencer was raised by three moms. Spencer’s moms Kristin Perry and Adrian-Ann McMurray separated when he and his twin brother, Elliott, were young. Soon after, Perry welcomed another mother into his family, Sandra Stier, along with two stepbrothers.

“For me, growing up, I never thought of my parents as being different,” Spencer said. “I never had that thought.”

Elliott joked that growing up without a dad, he had “a little bit of a hard time learning some of the manly stuff, like shaving,” but ultimately never felt set back by his parents’ relationship.

The Perry brothers attribute the ease of their childhood in part to the open-mindedness of their neighborhood of Albany — a tight-knit community with a strong liberal leaning. Instead of being considered strange or taboo, having same-sex parents was something the Perry brothers felt respected for.

This May, Albany High School chose to honor their moms for their commitment to LGBTQ rights, naming them civil rights activists.

“Around here, it’s not an odd thing to have families with same-sex parents,” said Sebastian de la Rosa, Perry’s YMCA Youth and Government adviser. “Since kids are around it more, and parents are around it more, and it’s not an abstract idea.”

It wasn’t until Spencer heard people argue against same-sex marriage, he said, that he came into contact with people who viewed his family as being “not normal.”

Spencer said he clearly remembers seeing a Prop. 8 advertisement on TV that warned of the supposed dangers of gay couples to children. “I kept thinking, ‘My parents would never harm a kid,’” he said. “My mom does more for children than most, so that was tough, watching those ads.”

In March, Spencer and his brother flew out to Washington, D.C., to support their moms at the oral argument for the case. He said he was shocked to hear some of the arguments made — such as that a same-sex parent environment could be harmful for a child.

During the oral arguments, Justice Antonin Scalia questioned the consequences of a single-sex parenting environment, citing single-sex parenting as having a possible “deleterious effect” on a child’s upbringing. This is in spite of an amicus brief filed by the American Sociological Association in February that argued that according to research, children raised by same-sex parents fare just as well as those raised by heterosexual parents.

When Spencer heard comments such as Scalia’s, he said he felt shocked.

“When they asked, ‘Is there any evidence to say children who have gay couples suffer?’, it really hit home,” Spencer said. “I wanted to jump up and say no.”

Spencer has kept a relatively low profile at high school regarding the case, but more recently, he has publicly supported his parents’ activism, speaking to the press at Supreme Court oral arguments and delivering a speech at a Human Rights Campaign conference in March.

About an hour after the decision, Spencer said that it is too early for him to declare an end to his parents’ push for same-sex marriage rights, as in many other states outside California, same-sex marriage remains illegal.

But for now, he has something to look forward to: his parents getting married again — legally — and this time, he says, hopefully for good.

Shirin Ghaffary is the executive news editor. Contact her at sghaffary@dailycal.org.

The post Locals win in Supreme Court’s historic ruling on Prop. 8 case appeared first on The Daily Californian.

J. Hannah Lee/Staff

Arriving a few minutes early to his first official day on the job, Nicholas Dirks was eager to begin his term as UC Berkeley’s new chancellor.

“We had to kill a little bit of time because I had an inkling there was going to be a musical entry,” Dirks said. The chancellor was greeted by the sound of the marching band’s trumpets as he walked into California Hall Monday morning.

Addressing a room full of approximately 60 administrators in a casual welcome reception, Dirks joked that he looks forward to getting rid of the “designate” part of his title.

“The fact of the matter is that I’m ready to move in and get to work,” Dirks said. The new chancellor has just finished a seven-month transition from his previous position as executive vice president and dean of the faculty of arts and sciences at Columbia University.

The transition has been a particularly time-consuming one for Dirks, who has been making monthly trips from his former residence in New York to California, meeting with high-ranking politicians — such as Gov. Jerry Brown — and fundraising for UC Berkeley in a whirlwind trip across Asia. While taking over his administrative duties, Dirks has also been busy watching his son prepare to graduate from middle school and taking care of his family’s 4-month-old puppy, Boo Bear, who was named after the Cal mascot.

As the chancellor socialized with administrative staff, many of whom were meeting him for the first time, he kept a casual tone, asking to be called by his first name, “Nick,” instead of “Chancellor.”

UC Berkeley/Courtesy

“He comes right up to you, shakes your hand and looks you in the eye,” said Jenna Thibodeau, student assistant to the chancellor. She has previously met with Dirks during his trips to Berkeley.

Although Dirks’ hectic bicoastal days are over, he has a busy few weeks ahead of him. In the coming days, Dirks has scheduled meetings with top-ranking administrators, media organizations and politicians. On Tuesday, he filmed a taped video introduction to the campus, in which he laid out his broad goals for the university and paid tribute to the “exemplary leadership” of his predecessor, Robert Birgeneau. On Thursday, Dirks will travel to Sacramento to meet with legislators and the governor.

Back in Berkeley, one of the few changes Dirks plans to make to the chancellor’s office is adding more bookshelves to house his extensive collection of literary works. A distinguished scholar of history and anthropology, Dirks says he hopes to teach a class on Gandhi — but only once the initial rush of his new job dies down. His wife, history scholar Janaki Bakhle, will hold a faculty position in the campus department of history. Dirks will also be finishing his book of essays and will continue advising three graduate students from Columbia University, who will be moving to the UC Berkeley campus to complete their dissertations under his supervision.

While setting up technical office equipment, Dirks revealed his fondness for literature as well as his sense of humor.

“I’d like my first tweet to be a haiku,” he said while being trained on the university’s social media accounts. “Since you only have 140 characters, I heard the two are very similar.”

When summing up his sentiment of the beginning of his term, Dirks cited a refrain from what he says was an influential book on his studies: E.M. Forster’s “A Passage to India.”

“Only connect — all I have to do is connect, literally,” he said, with both his new UC Berkeley email login and his new campus of more than 30,000 students.

Shirin Ghaffary is the executive news editor. Contact her at sghaffary@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter at @sghaff.

The post Chancellor Nicholas Dirks welcomed as he begins term at UC Berkeley appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The crime alert, which was released last Wednesday, named the three suspects as Jamal Dunnorm, 21, Jabori Holmes, 20, and Michael Melson, 18. UCPD employed plainclothes officers to infiltrate the Field House area, where most of the thefts took place.

In order to catch the suspects, police worked with RSF management to conduct the undercover investigation as well as to examine surveillance footage. Police believe the three suspects are connected to each other, but officers are still investigating the details of the alleged connection.

“A lot of people like playing basketball here,” said Lynn Mymala, a UC Berkeley student and a front desk assistant at the RSF. “They bring their phones and leave it in the corner and go and play, and that’s the perfect time to have it stolen.”

UCPD formed a team to investigate the thefts after noticing an increase in the number of stolen smartphones and wallets, according to UCPD spokesperson Lt. Eric Tejada. A team of plainclothes officers spent weeks monitoring the basketball court areas for suspicious activity. Police also used footage from surveillance cameras to track down suspects. RSF staff members, including Jason Maddy, the RSF operations manager, helped the police with the investigation.

In the most recent arrest, which was on May 11, UCPD executed a search warrant on Melson’s home and retrieved stolen property. According to the police crime alert, the suspect admitted to multiple thefts at the RSF in the past 16 months. None of the suspects are affiliated with UC Berkeley.

Currently, anyone can purchase an RSF day pass for $12. According to Maddy, day-pass visitors must present copies of identification at the front desk. Tejada said that while some of the suspects paid the daily fee, others snuck in through a back entrance.

Tejada and members of the RSF staff emphasized the importance of gym visitors storing valuables in lockers, which are available free of charge.

Michael Rodder, a UC Berkeley senior who uses the basketball courts, said that a friend had his iPhone stolen in the area.

“The RSF has been a safe place before, but the gym is always going to have thieves,” Rodder said. ”If you lay your wallet down, there’s a possibility your stuff will get stolen.”

The RSF and UCPD have taken measures to inform students of the thefts by posting crime alerts around the basketball courts with photos of the suspects. Maddy said the RSF is looking into putting mechanical lockers in the Field House area itself to make storing valuables easier.

The investigation is ongoing, and anyone with information is encouraged to contact UCPD.

Clarification: A previous version of this article may have implied that day-pass visitors must leave a copy of their IDs with the front desk. In fact, visitors must present a valid ID and leave copies of a registration form, which includes an identification number, with the front desk.

Shirin Ghaffary is the executive news editor. Contact her at sghaffary@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter at @sghaff.

The post UCPD arrests three suspects in cellphone theft spree appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Kevin Foote/Senior Staff

After standing in a crowd of impatient students for more than 45 minutes, UC Berkeley student Max Murphy decided not to participate in what should have been a milestone in life: walking across the stage in his university’s commencement ceremony.

Murphy, a recent graduate in the department of molecular and cell biology, was one of 3,900 graduating students who were left frustrated with the logistics of Saturday’s general commencement, which was held at Memorial Stadium for the first time in 44 years. Many attendees reported that they waited for as long as two hours before being able to walk across the stage because of the rush of students who stood up to get in line.

“I thought commencement was really embarrassing,” Murphy said, “both for the university but also for the students who decided to act that way and mob the stage.”

Although students were supposed to rise from their seats in sequence — according to rows organized by color — many students allegedly cut to the front of the line, resulting in a large cluster of graduates at either end of the stage. While Murphy was critical of the students themselves, other students took aim at what they perceived as a lack of adequate staffing and planning for the event.

“I shouldn’t have been embarrassed at the sheer disorganization shown at commencement,” said UC Berkeley student Greg Struck, who posted a comment in the UC Berkeley Class of 2013 Facebook page that has received nearly 100 “likes” and 86 responses by fellow students sharing similar experiences.

“I paid well over $100 for tickets just as many other people did,” Struck’s popular comment reads. “Where did those funds go?”

According to UC spokesperson Jose Rodriguez, the UC Berkeley university relations department is responsible for the overall organization of commencement and worked with the Senior Class Council and Intercollegiate Athletics on planning for the day.

Rodriguez acknowledged that the “confusion caused by some students getting up before their rows were called caused frustrations” and said that the university is “listening to all feedback and working to ensure that such problems do not occur in future ceremonies.”

In addition to the problems with crowd organization, the ceremony lacked enough seats to accommodate all of the attendees. Around 20 graduates did not have seats and were asked to sit on the artificial turf floor of Memorial Stadium.

Eli Wirtschafter, one student without a seat, said that although he was “sort of amused” to be sitting on the ground and found it comfortable, some of his friends and his parents felt it was an undignified way to celebrate commencement. Wirtschafter said he looks forward to the undergraduate interdisciplinary studies commencement later this week, when he will deliver the student speech as the departmental citation winner.

Shirin Ghaffary is the executive news editor. Contact her at sghaffary@dailycal.org

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SB 160 divests ASUC funds from companies affiliated with the Israeli military. The Judicial Council originally issued the gag order around 8 p.m. Saturday evening, demanding silence on the case from all parties involved. The gag order came after the ASUC rescinded its previous decision to approve a settlement of charges against SB 160 that removed any clauses that required the ASUC to divest its funds.

“While the judicial procedures allow for a gag order to be placed any time, I believe that their reason was not sufficient to overstep the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,” said Noah Ickowitz, a petitioner in the case, SQUELCH! party chair and a former Daily Cal columnist.

In an email obtained by The Daily Californian, Associate Justice Scott Lara thanked all parties involved for their patience during the gag order and stated that currently, “the confusion about trial procedure and the judicial process between the parties has largely been cleared up.”

Members of the ASUC Judicial Council could not be reached for comment as of 4:30 p.m.

On Friday, the Judicial Council voted in favor of a settlement between the petitioners and the bill’s author, Student Action Senator George Kadifa. The settlement would have removed clauses that petitioners had said were unconstitutional. Petitioners alleged that the bill had not been approved by the appropriate ASUC committees and was not passed by the necessary two-thirds vote. Two ASUC officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the gag order, were sharply critical — even angered — at what they called the council’s freehanded use of the gag orders, which the officials said was an overreach of the council’s authority.

The original charges will now go to trial, and the Judicial Council will rule on their validity. The trial for Ickowitz-Freeman v. ASUC Senate & SB 160 is scheduled for Wednesday at 11 a.m. at a location to be determined.

UPDATE at 6:12 pm: The trial will be held at Anna Head Hall and is open to members of the public.

Staff writer Jeremy Gordon contributed to this report. 

Contact Shirin Ghaffary at newsdesk@dailycal.org

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Dean Ignacio/File

The voice of the campus is about to change. In June, Chancellor Robert Birgeneau will step down and make way for Nicholas Dirks, the former executive vice president and dean of the faculty of arts and sciences at Columbia University.

Birgeneau, who became the campus’s ninth chancellor in September 2004, said he stayed longer than originally intended due to “the extraordinary circumstances facing the University of California that emerged with the financial crisis and steep loss of state funding.”

Dirks has been described by his peers as a “soft-spoken intellectual” with a strong hand in running administration. Although Dirks was chair of anthropology, one of the more radical departments at Columbia, he has still shown himself to be a firm administrator.

Below is a side-by-side comparison of the outgoing and incoming chancellors. The two come from different countries, experiences and fields of academic study, so it remains to be seen how the voice of the campus will change in the coming months.

The post Voice of the campus appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Lu Han/Staff

Only three weeks after being selected as UC Berkeley’s next chancellor, Nicholas Dirks received a less-than-welcome introduction from Gov. Jerry Brown.

Brown decried Dirks’ $50,000 salary increase over that of Chancellor Robert Birgeneau at a time of fiscal austerity for the university.

The public spat — emblematic of the troubled relationship between the state and university — appeared to set an uneasy tone for the start of Dirks’ tenure.

But when Dirks assumes office on June 1, he may find an unlikely ally in Brown at a time in which state funding has fallen to constitute just above 10 percent of UC Berkeley’s budget.

Dirks and Brown have quickly developed a close friendship. Privately, the two call each other, dine with their wives together and have long conversations about the history of the Indian caste system.

“We like talking to each other,” Dirks said of Brown in a recent interview with The Daily Californian.

Both Brown and Dirks have been called “big-idea” leaders. Both have followed in their fathers’ footsteps and entered public service. Both have spent time studying Asian cultures — Brown having studied Zen Buddhism and Dirks being an expert on Indian history and culture.

“Nick is a very interesting man in himself,” said Peter Awn, dean of the School of General Studies at Columbia University. “Like Brown, he really is an idea man. I think that Brown will get a kick out of that.”

Dirks’ arrival coincides with a critical time for the university in its relationship with the state.

“Nick is a very
interesting man in himself.
Like Brown, he really
is an idea man.” – Peter Awn, Dean
of the School of General Studies
at Columbia University

Both the passage of Proposition 30 and the flurry of new legislation related to higher education being introduced in Sacramento hint at the potential for a reset in recent trends.

For Dirks, Brown represents an opportunity to bridge unstable ties between the university and the state. For Brown, Dirks is a leader who shares his steadfast commitment to cost efficiency as a solution for the university’s problems.

(Sharon Liu/Staff) Sources: Columbia Spectator; Berkeley News Center; LA Times

Tight pockets

At January’s UC Board of Regents meeting, Brown — who has become markedly more involved in the state’s higher education system — called for the university to cut back on what he deemed excessive spending.

The governor voiced the need for limitations on executive pay, student unit caps and a move toward expanding the university’s online program in the name of cost-saving.

“Teaching costs have to be brought down,” Brown said at the meeting. “I won’t tell you how to do that, but you need to figure it out.”

According to Gareth Lacy, a spokesperson for the governor, Brown remains “absolutely committed” to holding the line on tuition hikes.

“Students should not be the default financiers of higher education in California,” Lacy said.

Brown’s recommendation follows his deep cuts to social services, including millions of dollars of reductions to programs such as state child care and college scholarships.

Brown could not be directly reached for comment.

Like Brown — who famously chose to sleep on a bare mattress on the floor of his simple apartment during his first term as governor rather than in the governor’s mansion — Dirks has developed a reputation as an administrator dedicated to cost efficiency even in the face of public concern.

At Columbia, where he served as the executive vice president and dean of the faculty of arts and sciences, Dirks helped push forward an administrative restructuring of the faculty of arts and sciences. In 2011, the consulting group McKinsey & Company, which was hired by Dirks and Columbia President Lee Bollinger, made recommendations about how to implement this structural streamlining.

“His goal administratively was to increase efficiencies, quicken decisions and to try to build more collaborative relationships among the various deans,” Awn said.

But the program drew significant criticism from both students and administrators. In 2011, the former dean of the undergraduate Columbia College, Michele Moody-Adams, resigned abruptly. Both The New York Times and the Columbia Spectator reported that her decision to step down was related to her concerns regarding the administrative overhaul.

“Dirks is thought of as positive in some ways, but he’s also seen by some undergraduates as someone who is centralizing power and taking it away from individual schools, especially the undergraduate school,” said Jared Odessky, an elected student representative on the Columbia University Senate. “The problem is, when allocating financial resources, a lot has gone to the top.”

Dirks’ management of the program was in part facilitated by the administrative flexibility afforded to him by the private nature of Columbia — a comfort he will no longer benefit from at UC Berkeley.

“One thing I’ll say about University of California is there’s a high level of transparency,” Dirks said. “I’ve never had transparency like this in my life.”

“I’ve never had transparency
like this in my life.”
-Chancellor-designate Nicholas Dirks

While administrators at private schools like Columbia have more maneuvering room, by virtue of being at a public school like UC Berkeley, administrators are required to be more cautious, according to Director of the campus Center for Studies in Higher Education C. Judson King.

“I’m fine with the transparency and the open records, but sometimes it makes it more difficult to make decisions,” said UC President Mark Yudof. “Of course it may be easier to make a decision at somewhere like Harvard than Berkeley, but at the end of the day, we have a public university with a public mission.”

Still, Dirks hopes to spark dialogue with the campus’s active community. He said he plans on holding regular fireside chats and meetings with student groups during his visit to the campus in May.

(UC Berkeley NewsCenter/Courtesy) Dirks shakes hands with Chancellor Birgeneau after being confirmed by the UC Board of Regents in late November of 2012.

“I like that professor Dirks is really engaged with students — he’s very open-minded, intelligent and trustworthy,” said Graduate Assembly President Bahar Navab, who sat on the chancellor search committee.

Creative solutions

Both Dirks and Brown have a history of looking for outside partners to help finance state and university programs.

Recently, Brown secured a deal with a China-based investor to help pay for a $1.5 billion development deal in Oakland. During a trade mission last week in Beijing, Brown also sought support from China for the state’s recently approved high-speed rail project.

As the senior administrator working on the development of global outreach, Dirks was a fundamental force in seeking international support for Columbia, according to Kathy Okun, vice president for university development at Columbia. Under his leadership, the university established five global offices to represent it.

(Joy Lee/China Post/Courtesy) Dirks speaks to students at Doe Library in November of 2012.

“It is critical to engage Berkeley’s global community — and in order to do just that, I recently  completed a tour of Asia, where I met with the Berkeley Clubs in Mumbai, Delhi, Taipei, Hong Kong and Singapore,” Dirks said.

Over the last decade, UC Berkeley has put increased emphasis on garnering private support through different campaigns, initiatives and a shift in alumni relations. Haas School of Business development efforts, such as the thank-you letter event, are among the many programmatic efforts toward closing this gap through a cultural push toward philanthropy, said David Blinder, former associate vice chancellor for university relations.

“Ironically, we need more private money to sustain our public character,” Birgeneau said.

“Ironically, we need more private money
to sustain our public character.”
- Chancellor Robert Birgeneau

In 1987, the state funded 54 percent of the university’s budget. In 2012, the state supplied only 11 percent. Over the last eight years, total yearly private giving has increased by around $80 billion.

Although UC Berkeley still lags behind its private peers, with an endowment about half the size of Columbia’s, the university’s efforts have significantly increased in recent years, said Vice Chancellor of University Relations Scott Biddy.

“We are not simply wringing our hands,” he said. “We are working hard to sustain our excellence … and to ensure that Berkeley competes academically at the very top tier on the global stage — one of the ways we do this is by raising private gifts.”

The new chancellor’s history of engaging with alumni and donor communities comes to the University of California at a time of heightened stakes. His experience as a fundraiser at Columbia may be key in Brown’s advocacy for the university to seek a larger degree of financial independence from the state.

As vice president, dean and primary fundraiser of Columbia’s faculty of the arts and sciences, Dirks raised more than $900 million of the $5 billion Columbia Campaign — the largest campaign in Columbia’s history.

(Chris Taggart/Courtesy) Dirks and his wife, Columbia associate professor of history Janaki Bakhle, pose with Columbia trustee William Campbell.

“In order to have successful philanthropy, you need two things: big ideas and people who make those big ideas happen,” Okun said. Dirks has both, she said.

Like both state and university administrators, Dirks agrees that the university needs to search for new sources of revenue. But he remains reluctant to embrace Brown’s leading proposal that the university take on a more expansive online education program.

In January, Brown proposed a budget that allocated $10 million for the development of online education, calling for the university to take advantage of new forms of technology to improve graduation rates and increase access to the university.

Although Dirks helped create online extension programs at Columbia, he has come down against the use of such programs as a one-stop solution to the university’s financial problems.

“The emphasis of online education should be on enhancing the learning experience, not thinking of it as some great fantasy for revenue production, which is completely untried and untested at this point,” Dirks said.

Looking forward

As both Brown and Dirks move forward, they will have to negotiate what in recent years has been a testy relationship between their two institutions.

“Although the state is only (about) 10 percent of our budget, our relationship with the state is important,” Birgeneau said. “We need to keep it straight.”

Between their shared history of controversial efforts toward fiscal discipline and their search to find more sustainable sources of revenue for the university, the brewing friendship between Dirks and Brown comes at a true inflection point for the university.

“Governor Brown and I are having so much fun talking that we haven’t had the chance to think about the next Prop. 30,” Dirks said. “But we will.”

Contact Alex Berryhill and Shirin Ghaffary at newsdesk@dailycal.org.

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