Our school normally sent us home on buses. But on that day, the administration could not assume that we still had parents. We were kept waiting in the assembly room for hours while they contacted our parents, one at a time, asking them to pick us up. I remember Sept. Read More…
For the most part, Cal students remain completely and blissfully detached from UC Berkeley’s conduct process and equally unaware of the many problems associated with its implementation. Yet for the fraction of students who find themselves accused of violating the code of conduct, the process immediately throws their college experience Read More…
The year 2011 marks unprecedented change. A “super committee” is at work in Washington, D.C., attempting to solve our nation’s debt crisis, leaving key programs like Pell Grants at stake. A budget crisis plagues Sacramento, forcing our tuition to skyrocket. Closer to home, the UC Berkeley campus is in the Read More…
Attention students, faculty, staff and workers! As you very well know, the state of our university system is undergoing unprecedented changes. With fee and tuition increases continuing and more to come, with diversity ever more rapidly being diminished and with low-income and middle class families suffering more because they can’t Read More…
I want to welcome everyone back to campus and share some reflections on what I think makes this campus so special. It is no secret that UC Berkeley is going through challenging times and that the state’s persistent disinvestment in higher education forces us to make unhappy choices, such as Read More…
This week marks the fortieth anniversary of Chez Panisse, the legendary Berkeley restaurant that pioneered the Slow Food movement that has now prompted Americans to desire seasonal, local, organic, whole foods. The “mother” of Chez Panisse, Alice Waters, credits her student experiences at UC Berkeley as inspiration. She was among Read More…
Who is giving back to the university? Now that the economy seems headed toward a double dip, with future budgets for the UC system possibly headed toward a similar dip, we have to ask ourselves how we can create more quality for less money. And while this has been the Read More…
Economic decline. Mounting deficits. Political deadlock. Two wars. With all these problems and more (read: an upcoming presidential election), you would think Washington would allow our exhausted military to return home after nearly a decade of war and focus on fixing the economy. Instead, it seems that we have decided Read More…
At 9 a.m. on Monday, officials from the Berkeley Student Cooperative and the campus will take a walk-through of Sherman Hall. Sherman, a 40-resident all-women’s co-op on South Side, is right next to California Memorial Stadium, and the Shermanites within have been impacted heavily by this past year’s construction. Noise Read More…
Once one of the framers of the U.S. constitution was asked, “What are the three principles upon which this new government is founded?” Legend has it that he wryly quipped, “Well, the first is compromise, the second is compromise and the third is compromise.” Although you would not know it Read More…