UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ took questions from college students, employees and school at this week’s finish of the yr Campus Dialog. (UC Berkeley video)
UC Berkeley has quite a bit to rejoice and quite a bit to work on shifting into the brand new yr, Chancellor Carol Christ stated throughout a digital, end-of-semester Campus Conversations occasion on Tuesday. However by means of one other tumultuous semester — which has seen a UC-wide labor strike and a unbroken pandemic — Berkeley’s campus neighborhood has once more come collectively.
Christ acknowledged the campus neighborhood Tuesday for all it has achieved and for its continued resilience this previous yr as spring semester approaches.
“I hope all of us take the time over the break to chill out and recharge to be with household and associates, and have an exquisite vacation season,” she stated. “And thanks for all the pieces you do for Berkeley.”
Tuesday’s wide-ranging dialogue additionally touched on progress and challenges in Berkeley’s infrastructure, fundraising objectives and scholar housing initiatives. Christ additionally famous how shifts within the Pac-12 can impression funds the campus receives by means of its athletic groups, and the way school rankings can misrepresent universities.
‘We’re not doing a victory lap’
A serious spotlight of this yr, Christ stated, was hitting the $6 billion fundraising objective for Berkeley’s “Gentle the Method” marketing campaign, the most important fundraising marketing campaign within the campus’s historical past.
The campus neighborhood met the objective 14 months sooner than anticipated, which shocked Christ, provided that the marketing campaign was launched in the course of the starting of the pandemic.
“However the pandemic appeared to extend individuals’s philanthropy,” stated Christ.
She attributed that enhance in giving to wealth that was created for some very wealthy segments of society, and to how the pandemic made individuals extra aware of their mortality and the struggling of others. The essential function that universities had in COVID-19 medical analysis, vaccines and epidemiological work additionally helped contribute to that philanthropy, she stated.
Christ stated nearly no presents had been for basic discretionary functions, however given as a substitute to fund particular wants throughout campus.
Presents for undergraduate scholarships reached Berkeley’s $400 million objective, and funds to help the Primary Wants Middle and variety, fairness and inclusion initiatives on campus had been additionally gifted greater than earlier than.
Whereas the marketing campaign’s whole fundraising objective has been reached, the campus continues to be hoping to lift extra money for graduate scholar fellowships and for college positions that haven’t but been funded.
“[So], we’re not doing a victory lap,” stated Christ. “We’re doubling down in areas the place we nonetheless have a approach to go.”
A scarcity of infrastructure funds
Whereas the success of the $6 billion marketing campaign could make it appear to be Berkeley is swimming within the dough, Christ reminded viewers Tuesday that Berkeley nonetheless has an $8.6 billion have to fund seismic retrofitting and deferred upkeep wants throughout campus.
Departmental evaluate committees all have reported a necessity for constructing upkeep initiatives, stated Christ. Whereas it’s evident that state funding for these constructing initiatives has been on the decline since 2006, Christ stated she goals to search out earnings streams that the campus can management and create devoted funds from them for this deferred upkeep.
“It’s not going to be equal to the necessity, which is big,” Christ stated. “However at the very least we are able to begin chipping away on the drawback.
A present constructing challenge that has been some extent of competition this yr is the Individuals’s Park Housing Challenge, which is at present halted by an injunction from a California Court docket of Attraction.
Christ stated she is “deeply dedicated to the challenge,” which goals to offer a residence corridor with 1,000 scholar housing residences and an extra 125 residences and 185 beds for everlasting supportive housing for low-income and/or previously unhoused tenants. Moreover, nearly half the location will memorialize the historical past of the park.
Different initiatives are shifting ahead within the new yr to fight scholar housing points, Christ stated, just like the Anchor Home residence corridor that can present housing for over 770 switch college students. Within the spring, Berkeley can even break floor on 770 graduate scholar residences in College Village in Albany, and a separate housing unit will likely be inbuilt Emeryville for graduate college students.
“What we’re making an attempt to do is enhance the quantity of campus-built and -managed housing for each component of our campus neighborhood,” stated Christ. “We are able to’t have a lot of an impression on the housing market, however what we are able to do is construct extra housing, which is what I’m making an attempt to do.”
The strike
Christ additionally took questions and shared reflections in regards to the UC-wide labor strike’s impression on the semester.
Tentative agreements have been made with post-doctoral students and tutorial researchers, and Christ stated negotiations with graduate college students are at present underway.
Whereas college and college students have tailored to the absence of graduate college students of their programs, Christ stated “it’s nonetheless not the identical” with out them.
“Graduate college students are important companions within the pedagogical enterprise for our undergraduate college students,” she stated. “So, their schooling has been more durable within the final a part of this semester. However we’re making an attempt the most effective we are able to.”
Christ stated she witnessed unbelievable pleasure seeing the campus neighborhood come again collectively, in particular person, this previous semester. She added that the pandemic has led the campus to undertake new and productive methods of using digital communication instruments and that, in some aspects of educational life, Berkeley is sort of again to regular.
However she careworn that COVID-19 is an endemic illness that we should study to stay with, shifting ahead.
“I don’t assume the pandemic will ever be within the rearview mirror,” she stated. “We nonetheless haven’t come to phrases with the psychological impression of the pandemic. … All of {our relationships} have been modified by this expertise, and we now have a lot restore work to do and constructing neighborhood to do.”
