The chancellor’s farewell party, held at the Lisa and Douglas Goldman Plaza outside Memorial Stadium, featured a barbecue lunch with the chancellor and various campus speakers who spoke of the dedication to service the chancellor and his wife have shown over their tenure.

“He’s done a fantastic job,” said Haas School of Business professor David Vogel. “He’s steered the university through some tough times, and I’m sad to see him leave.”

Speakers included Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost George Breslauer, ASUC President Connor Landgraf and Graduate Assembly President Bahar Navab. In addition, both Birgeneau and his wife gave speeches recounting their experiences on campus, also thanking the students and staff members.

“In academia, there’s no other organization more important than UC Berkeley,” Birgeneau said in his speech. “It has been my privilege to serve.”

Several speakers and attendees commended Birgeneau’s efforts to build an inclusive campus community.

“I will always see him as a champion of diversity,” said A. Ruben Rodriguez, the campus’s associate development director in the Division of Equity and Inclusion. “He led the fight with undocumented students, and I’ve witnessed him speaking with a passion.”

However, some campus staff members who attended the event criticized Birgeneau’s leadership, claiming that the chancellor, in focusing on improving the school’s public image, has not prioritized workers’ needs.

“Honestly, the chancellor hasn’t done much for staff,” said Theresa Hirashima, an employee at International House. “I have had four salary increases in my 13 years here … yet we’re being asked to do more and more. They say we’re all in this together, but we’re really not.”

About five members of the bp Off Campus Coalition, a subgroup of Occupy Cal, also voiced complaints about Birgeneau, protesting outside the entrance to Memorial Stadium. According to the coalition, the chancellor has played a large role in the privatization of UC Berkeley and allowed the police to use violent means to subdue nonviolent protests.

The protesters also rushed into the event toward the end, reenacting a scene of alleged police brutality from the Nov. 9 Occupy Cal Day of Action.

“It is extremely important to have a chancellor who genuinely supports free speech, sustainability, accessibility and integrity,” said UC Berkeley graduate student Ian Saxton, one of the protesters. “We’re here to remind people that Birgeneau has failed in all these aspects.”

Birgeneau has served as UC Berkeley’s chancellor since September 2004 and has also been involved in the campus department of physics. He has received several awards since the beginning of his tenure for his leadership and his work in physics.

Though Birgeneau will be replaced by Chancellor-designate Nicholas Dirks on June 1, he will be staying on campus as a physics faculty member.

“He was resolute in his belief of the right thing to do,” said Tim Ravey, a UC Berkeley alumnus and a current admissions officer for the school. “Despite shortfalls … he was able to put the campus in a more stable position for the future.”

Contact Alison Fu at afu@dailycal.org.

The post Campus honors Birgeneau with farewell celebration appeared first on The Daily Californian.

In an interview with The Daily Californian’s Senior Editorial Board last week, Birgeneau recalled an instance when officials at another university referred to “the Berkeley miracle” — essentially, the fact that the campus has been able to avoid deteriorating as state funds diminish. A less skilled chancellor might have succumbed to talk that, in the face of such a steep challenge, the campus needed to sacrifice access in the name of excellence or comprehensive academic rigor for targeted success. Birgeneau held steadfast to the belief that UC Berkeley could remain prominent in all areas, and he was largely successful in that mission. “Now, the state … doesn’t even provide enough money to pay the salary of our teachers,” Birgeneau said in the interview. “In spite of that, Berkeley continues to be one of the top-tier universities in the world.”

A student who arrived at UC Berkeley this year sees a tuition bill exponentially higher than those who entered campus when Birgeneau began his chancellorship in 2004. With state funds now accounting for only about 11 percent of the campus budget, students should hardly be surprised. And though UC systemwide tuition hikes over the years have been deplorable, Birgeneau has done all he can to keep UC Berkeley affordable. He started by getting ahead of the curve. About six years ago, Birgeneau said, he and other administrators realized that state funding was going to be a problem, and they “understood that if we did nothing … Berkeley would not be the institution it is today.”

To fight the threat of rising tuition prices posed to middle-class families, Birgeneau pioneered the creation of the campus’s Middle Class Access Plan in 2011. Touted as the first of its kind for any public university in the country, the innovative financial aid system caps parent contribution at 15 percent of total income for students whose families make between $80,000 and $140,000.  But he was also cognizant of the reality that “there was no silver bullet” to the funding crisis. Accordingly, he oversaw a diverse transformation in the campus’s fundraising model. During his time as chancellor, for example, the Campaign for Berkeley has raised nearly $2.6 billion as of last summer to support faculty chairs, research and scholarships, among other items.

As such efforts progress, Birgeneau has in effect instigated a culture change for UC Berkeley. Despite dwindling public funds, Birgeneau’s leadership has emphasized holding onto the campus’s “public character.” That means the campus continues to strive for economic diversity — which one can find evidence of by noting that 38 percent of UC Berkeley undergraduate students received Pell Grants in the 2010-11 school year, according to U.S. News and World Report. It also means that the faculty and student body on campus are deeply committed to public service, Birgeneau said.

In the spirit of serving the public, Birgeneau has been a tireless advocate for some of the most disadvantaged students. Aside from his trailblazing middle-class financial aid plan, Birgeneau displayed a deep devotion to making UC Berkeley accessible for undocumented students. Not only did he personally pressure the governor to support the California DREAM Act, which allows undocumented students to receive financial aid, but he also presided over the creation of a campus scholarship for undocumented students. And he understands that support for undocumented students is incomplete without immigration reform at the federal level, a cause he will no doubt continue to advance when he ends his chancellorship this summer.

Yet when it comes to general campus climate, while Birgeneau recognizes the friction among some student communities, his mindset is problematic. He accurately pointed out that productive dialogue between students is key to bridging the gap, but he incorrectly framed campus climate as “a student problem, not an administration problem.” He is correct that “climate is about how students interact with each other,” but more proactive administrative support would go a long way. The administration, which does not turn over every year like much of the student leadership, needs to take a more active role in improving campus climate.

Birgeneau has also not been accessible enough to students. Although he did a decent job connecting with specific student leaders, he certainly could have been more accountable to the student body at large. When asked about his relationship with the student government, Birgeneau pointed out that he has fostered close ties with ASUC presidents, but he has not been nearly visible enough in the ASUC Senate in recent years. Incoming chancellor Nicholas Dirks, who arrives at UC Berkeley after serving as an administrator at Columbia University, must be more present in public student spaces on campus.

|Dirks can also learn from Birgeneau’s mismanagement of major campus protests. During two of the most significant demonstrations in recent years — at Wheeler Hall in 2009 and during Occupy Cal in 2011 — Birgeneau came under fire for failing to prevent police use of force against protesters. If Dirks internalizes lessons learned from the uproarious aftermath of those protests, he should be able to avoid similar pitfalls.

However, Dirks’ biggest test, as Birgeneau indicated, will be whether he can continue to protect the public character of UC Berkeley. The campus has done great work under Birgeneau, but threats to balancing access and excellence remain. “We don’t need more great private universities — we need great public universities,” Birgeneau said. “That’s Berkeley’s responsibility … we need to be vigilant to maintain our public character for the indefinite future.” Dirks has big shoes to fill on that front.

The post Chancellor Robert Birgeneau appeared first on The Daily Californian.

About 80 students and faculty members attended the forum at Anna Head Alumnae Hall. Students asked questions that spanned student athletics, Dirks’ time as dean of the faculty of arts and sciences at Columbia University and his relationship with the UC Board of Regents.

At the event, Dirks said he supported UC Berkeley’s public mission and that he hopes to have a positive influence on the university.

“I believe that UC Berkeley is not just the greatest public university, but it is the best university because it is public,” Dirks said. “I want this university to be a place that educates both undergraduate and graduate students and makes them future leaders.”

Dirks also said he hopes to work closely with student groups and the ASUC, noting that at Columbia — where he previously worked — there was no student group like the ASUC that directly represents the interests of students.

“Berkeley has a long tradition of making students’ voices heard, and I am willing to listen to those issues and address them,” Dirks said.  “I want to set up regular evening sessions in the University House with multiple student groups and have open discussions to bring attention to not only problems in the student community but to solutions as well. Together, we can resolve any issue.”

ASUC President Connor Landgraf said it was valuable that students met Dirks at the forum so they could see he was willing to take on the challenges facing UC Berkeley.

“I think it’s really important for him to meet with students,” Landgraf said. “This shows that he wants engage with students and know them personally.”

On Wednesday, Dirks met with the ASUC Senate at its weekly meeting. Dirks aimed to address senators’ concerns and answer their questions, Landgraf said.

“The meeting last night went very well,” Landgraf said. “He is very respectful to students and their concerns, and he spent a lot of time answering questions. I think he will be a fantastic chancellor because he understands the students’ needs and concerns. I’m excited to see what he does.”

After the forum, campus freshman Riley Murray said he believes that Dirks’ background makes him well-suited to address the problems facing the university. Murray was impressed by Dirks at the meeting and thinks the chancellor-designate will have a calming influence on the university.

“He’s not what I expected,” Murray said. “He made it very clear that he hasn’t yet gone into the intricacies of all of (UC) Berkeley’s issues, but he displayed a curiosity and a willingness to solve these problems rather than just being obliged to solve them.”

Contact Seif Abdelghaffar at sabdelghaffar@dailycal.org.

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1) Just to get this out of the way: The unibrow is gone! Yes, it no longer adorns the spot between his gorgeous eyes. The debate over how exactly it was removed remains unresolved. The top possibilities are duct tape and waxing, since plucking would have taken too long.

2) Despite its untimely death, the unibrow has a Twitter account. Read that sentence again to make sure you understand that. The tone and grammar of the tweets makes it unlikely that Dirks is behind it, but it’s still hilarious. And it’s just getting off the ground! Help out the ‘brow by adding to its two-follower count.

3) He has an acute sense of fashion. The tie he was wearing at his acceptance speech was customized. His wife got it for him in from of his favorite stores on Madison Avenue.

4) He believes in the power of public schools to make a university great, despite the fact that he’s spent extensive time at notable private universities such as Caltech and Columbia.

5) He wrote the books “The Hollow Crown,” ”Castes of Mind,” and “The Scandal of Empire.” (We think these would’ve been better names for the books in the Hunger Games series.) They focus on India and the role that the caste system, colonialism and imperialism had on the formation of the country.

6) His interest in South Asian anthropology was piqued by his Fulbright Scholar trip to India as a young boy, where he learned to speak Tamil, a regional language, and how to play the South Indian drum.

7) His relationship with his wife, Janaki Bakhle, began when Bakhle, an editor at the time, chased Dirks to review a manuscript for a piece in the University of Minnesota Press.

8) His spectacles do only serve as a function for reading, as he tends to peer at you above them ominously when engaging you in conversation. Perhaps the piercing spirit of the ‘brow lives on.

9) He and Jerry Brown have had a bit of an indirect spat, with Brown criticizing the pay raise Dirks is getting over Birgeneau: a margin of $50,000. Brown pointed out that this was not in the spirit of “servant leadership” and voted against it, although it eventually did pass.

10)  Though he now embodies the “stereotypical professor” look with the crazed hair and thick mustache, he did have long hair during his time at Wesleyan as an undergraduate. He also managed to rock a red bandanna.

If this isn’t enough for you, there’s a half-hour-long interview following his appointment as chancellor-designate that you can check out. And if you have any questions for the man, you have a chance to air them! The student forum takes place on May 2 at Anna Head Alumnae Hall.

Image source: Public Affairs, UC Berkeley

Contact Uday Mehta at umehta@dailycal.org or follow him on Twitter at @mehtakid.

The post Ten random facts about Chancellor-designate Nicholas Dirks appeared first on The Daily Californian.

1. His increasingly croaky voice has made it hard to give speeches. Though he is certainly eloquent in his words and impeccable in his demeanor, it would be undoubtedly difficult for anyone to command the attention and respect of thousands of 20-year-olds — unless that someone has the light-tempered voice of Morgan Freeman.

2. He’d like to move to a house that isn’t prone to being attacked. Back in 2009, a number of protesters made the upward trek to the University House and attempted to reenact a scene from Game of Thrones, laying siege to the house — albeit, for a matter of minutes — by attempting to torch it and break windows and lights. For whatever reason, the aggressors included students from UC Davis, and we’re sure that the Chancellor is excited to spend more time in his physics office — where he might have some particle accelerator beams to protect himself.

3. He is no longer rolling in green. No, not the usual type of green that’s associated with the Cal campus. Think state funding, of which he has lost over 58% over his tenure. Birgeneau referred to this massive drop as a “disinvestment by the state” in the UC system.

4. He’d like to enjoy his time at Berkeley without being questioned or interrupted. At the end of 2011, his speech to the ASUC senate was cut off by protesters in the crowd, to which Birgeneau responded with folded arms and a sarcastic smile. Following his handling of a series of protests, a petition that had garnered thousands of signatures was brought to the ASUC, calling for Birgeneau’s resignation. Thick skin and a favorable vote from Student Action kept him in power Why Chancellor Birgeneau is ready to step down — for a while, at least.

5. He was supposed to be liberated from his job five freaking months ago! The original plan was for him to step down at the end of the 2012 calendar year, something he announced close to his birthday. Instead of going through with his plan as a 70^th birthday present to himself, he extended his stay even further — a stay that was originally supposed to be seven years will now end at nine and a half.

It’s probably true that the tumult of Birgeneau’s life will decrease dramatically once he’s officially replaced as Cal’s Chancellor. But it won’t be gone completely — he may be a retired Chancellor, but he’ll still be a member of three departments on campus, a far cry from the lives of old men retiring from pristine positions like the papacy. But don’t expect him to stop making headlines: he claims he still has “one more truly significant… experiment to come” in his academic career.

Image source: The Daily Californian (left and right) & Andrew Ratto (center) under Creative Commons

Contact Uday at umehta@dailycal.org or follow him on Twitter at @mehtakid.

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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.

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.

The post Relationship of Dirks and Brown could define future of state’s public higher education appeared first on The Daily Californian.

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.

The post Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost George Breslauer announces retirement appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The candidates addressed a number of contentious topics, including the shrinking affordability of higher education and the need to increase diversity of the student body and find new ways to finance student groups and the student government as a whole.

One area of dissention among the presidential candidates was the validity of current ASUC President Connor Landgraf’s recent executive orders to place the Class Pass and Health and Wellness referendums on the ballot.

Without the passage of the Class Pass referendum, students will lose unlimited access to AC Transit buses and campus shuttles.

Student Action presidential candidate Rafi Lurie said that Landgraf’s executive order to place the Class Pass referendum on the ballot was warranted because of an administrative error made by the UC Office of the President.

“(Executive orders) should not be issued unless there is no other way to fix a problem,” Lurie said. He said that Landgraf — who is also a member of Student Action — issued the executive order because access to AC Transit buses is critical to student life on campus.

DeeJay Pepito, the CalSERVE candidate for president, responded in a pointed rebuttal, saying that Landgraf admitted during a senate meeting that he had gotten approval from UCOP weeks before and that the Class Pass delay was not due to UCOP but rather to an error in his office.

SQUELCH! presidential candidate Jason Bellet echoed Pepito, saying that executive orders should only be used in very limited special circumstances.

“I won’t be issuing (an executive order) without reaching out to the students that this will be affecting,” Bellet said. “Vetoes are an extreme situation — not something I take lightly. I would make sure we have student voice and input.”

Defend Affirmative Action Party presidential candidate David Ramirez Douglass said that he would use executive orders to disband UCPD because of alleged discrimination against students of color.

According to the ASUC Constitution, executive orders can only be issued for such actions “urgent and necessary to maintain the functioning of the ASUC until the Senate can again meet.”

The presidential candidates and many audience members visibly reacted when contenders were asked whether UC Berkeley has a campus climate problem. All candidates responded affirmatively that there is a problem with inclusion and equitability, although each described different visions for what should be done to alleviate tensions.

Pepito spoke strongly about the need to improve UC Berkeley’s social, cultural and academic environment, highlighting student safety, mental health and a lack of campus resources as key areas in need of improvement.

Pepito directly attacked Landgraf’s work toward improving the mental health of UC Berkeley students while in office, saying that while an event hosted last night by his office to bring awareness to mental health issues was laudable, it wasn’t enough to make a real impact on the campus community.

“Drawing attention (to mental health) is not the same as doing something about it,” Pepito said.

In a moment that received widespread snaps of approval from audience members, Bellet said that though he was “privileged” as a “white cisgendered male,” his time in the senate has educated him on the diverse cultures that have been affected by problems with campus climate.

“As president, I would look out for the interest of all students regardless of what party I’m part of and what groups I’m part of,” Bellet said. “My door is open.”

Bellet is running partly on a platform of increasing the engagement of the campus by organizing events to bring communities together around common passions.

Candidates further addressed the need to improve equitability and inclusion on campus when asked about the recent passage of SB 130, which states that the ASUC Senate has “no confidence” in the campus’s handling of sexual assault cases.

Pepito, who was an author of the bill, and Bellet, who voted in favor of it, both spoke passionately about the problem of sexual assault on the UC Berkeley campus and the need to reform the current campus policies toward such crimes.

Lurie, however, acknowledged that while he had voted against the bill, the reason for his vote was not that he does not think sexual assault is a problem but rather that he heard from sexual assault victims who said the bill did not adequately represent them.

“It should be something we’re engaging in every year on this campus, and we’re constantly doing everything we can to make sure sexual assault is not prevalent on this campus,” Lurie said.

Other issues facing candidates include the new executive vice president’s management of the Cal Lodge, a Lake Tahoe property owned by the ASUC that has been plagued with financial problems. Last year, the the lodge faced a $27,000 deficit due to these difficulties.

CalSERVE EVP candidate Nolan Pack cited his experience on the SURGE committee, which is overseeing the redevelopment of Lower Sproul, as well as his background in fundraising for students as reasons he would be most competent to manage the ASUC asset.

Pack said that he would look at all viable options but would renovate and restore the Cal Lodge so that it would stop operating at a deficit. Pack said that he would like to make the lodge viable for use in the summer as well.

Chen-Chen Huo, the Student Action EVP candidate, said he also plans to restore the Cal Lodge but would do so by temporarily closing and renovating it. After reopening the lodge, he said, he hopes that the property would be used by both UC Berkeley students and residents of the city of Berkeley.

Candidates for academic affairs vice president had a range of ideas on how to manage funding for student grants. Student Action AAVP candidate Ryan Kang said he wants to implement an entrepreneurial grant for students interested in opening their own businesses, and DAAP AAVP candidate Christina Hamilton said that grants were tangential to the real issue of tuition and fee hikes.

“We need to increase funding overall,” she said. “(We need to say), ‘Hey, public, we’re your people, fund us.’”

The candidates for external affairs vice president spoke to the need of gaining greater student representation on Berkeley City Council as well as increasing the student voice at the state and national level.

“What we need to do is register every single student on this campus who is eligible to vote,” said Student Action EAVP candidate Safeena Mecklai. “There are 37,000 of us, and D.C. will have no choice but to listen to us.”

The candidates also spoke about the importance of placing a student representative on Berkeley City Council to provide a voice for student interests citywide.

Spencer Pritchard, the EAVP candidate for CalSERVE, said he would like to place students on other councils in addition to the City Council — such as the rent board.

“(I want to) create a comprehensive plan to appoint students to commissions and address the concerns of students in this campus and city, such as the revitalization of Telegraph and promoting safety on Southside,” Pritchard said.

Pedro Hernandez, the DAAP EAVP candidate, raised issue with Berkeley lobbying Sacramento alone.

“We should be lobbying with community colleges and other schools,” Hernandez said. “(We should be) sending students to Sacramento to show that our education is the future and the key to a self-sustaining economy. We need to be the ones who are mobilizing.”

Other issues discussed at the forum included a referendum to encourage the university to divest from fossil fuels, a referendum asking students if they support overturning the controversial Citizens United Supreme Court decision and a referendum that would amend the ASUC Constitution.

Contact Ally Rondoni and Sara Grossman at newsdesk@dailycal.org.

Correction(s):
“A previous version of this article stated that the ASUC SURGE committee is overseeing the redevelopment of Lower Sproul. In fact, this committee only met for one month and was used to help the office of the Executive Vice President understand groups who moved to Hearst Gymnasium and Hearst Field Annex during the Lower Sproul redevelopment process.”

A previous version of this article also misspelled ASUC president Connor Landgraf’s name.

The post ASUC executive slate candidates talk vision, goals at Daily Cal forum appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Last month, business students were asked to hand-write thank-you notes to show their appreciation for the more than 4,400 generous donors who were able to keep their school open through millions of dollars in donations. Donations fund about one-sixth of the school’s operating costs, according to a statement from the school.

In the face of declining state appropriations, the campus has looked to rely more heavily on philanthropy, according to Associate Vice Chancellor for University Relations David Blinder. In 1987, the state funded 54 percent of the university’s budget. In 2012, the state only supplied 12 percent.

UC Berkeley still lags behind its private peers with an endowment of a little under $4 billion. Harvard, Stanford and the University of Texas at Austin all have endowments significantly larger than UC Berkeley’s. In the past year alone, Stanford raised $1 billion.

While the average UC Berkeley alumnus has a midcareer salary of $103,000 — just $2,000 less than his or her counterparts from Columbia University — far fewer tend to donate to his or her alma mater. Over the last decade, an average of only 9 percent of UC Berkeley alumni have donated to the school, compared to 21 percent of alumni across all private institutions that are members of the Association of American Universities.

According to Blinder, it’s a cultural problem.

The question isn’t whether UC Berkeley alumni are as successful or as proud of their alma mater. Rather, Berkeley alumni are not accustomed to donating to their alma mater, according to Blinder.

For alumni who graduated when tuition was only about $700, it can be difficult to connect finances to education.

“It’s taken us a while to get across how little of state funding we now get,” Blinder said. “We have smart alum, but it’s hard to get that message across.”

Haas’ development efforts, such as the thank-you letters, are one of the many programmatic efforts toward closing this gap through a cultural push toward philanthropy, Blinder said.

UC Berkeley donor Lee Goldstein said the university is attempting to approach fundraising more similarly to how private universities do.

“I think it’s all done more professionally than it was before,” he said.

However, with proportionally fewer resources to meet the needs of UC Berkeley’s massive alumni base, campus administrators in charge of fundraising find themselves less versatile than their private peers, according to Blinder.

For example, Princeton University holds multiple alumni reunions on the weekends preceding commencement.

“They take over the campus,” Blinder said. “But you just can’t do that sort of thing on Berkeley’s scale. Every weekend, there would be an enormous flow of people.”

Vice President for University Development at Columbia University Kathy Okun said the appointment of Nicholas Dirks, Columbia’s former executive vice president for arts and sciences, as UC Berkeley’s next chancellor bodes well for the campus’s efforts at bringing in more donations.

“We already feel his departure,” Okun said. “He is a very gifted fundraiser and always articulated the role of faculty well.”

Blinder said the university hopes to get faculty more involved with the fundraising process.

“It’s hard to say you need to come to a training session,” he said. “But I think it should be done in the future because there is going to be greater and greater need for deans to be fundraisers.”

At Columbia, the conversation about donations starts very early with its students.

“It’s about believing that you’re a real partner in your school — it should be a lifelong relationship,” Okun said.

Haas’ development office has looked to emulate that strategy. The office plans to not only increase the size of its donor population but also to focus heavily on young alumni, according to Haas Director of Annual Giving Laurent de Janvry.

“We want our donors to look at the changing culture of giving at Cal, but you have to do that while they’re here,” de Janvry said. “It’s important to keep them thinking about Haas and Cal, or else you will fall to the bottom of how people prioritize their philanthropies.”

Haas senior Sukhpreet Sembhi, one of the students who participated in Haas’ letter-writing campaign, said she hopes to one day give back to her university.

“UC Berkeley has provided me with the resources I need to be prepared for life after graduation,” she said. “I want to thank the school and more importantly provide other students with the support and network I was given during my time at the university.”

Alex Berryhill covers higher education. Contact her at aberryhill@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @berryhill93.

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