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Marked by a monthlong celebration of the Free Speech Movement and the unveiling of plans for an ambitious new Berkeley Global Campus, 2014 at UC Berkeley was both a year to remember and a time to reimagine the future.
Education archive
Seven UC campuses make ‘Best Value’ public colleges list
December 18, 2014: UC Berkeley is the top among seven UC campuses that made Kiplinger Personal Finance’s top 100 Best Values in Public Colleges for 2015, which are based on criteria that include academic quality and affordability.
Dirks, Richmonders get down to business on global campus
December 15, 2014: The chancellor met Thursday with Richmond civic leaders and city residents to hear their perspectives, and to reiterate — and reinforce — his commitment to the community as the new Berkeley Global Campus moves ahead.
UC’s first crop of ‘global food’ fellows includes three Berkeley students
December 10, 2014: Three UC Berkeley students are among 54 fellows announced Dec. 9 by the University of California’s Global Food Initiative, launched earlier this year to address food security, health and sustainability issues.
I School hackathon develops technological aids for Heifer International
December 3, 2014: Students from across the Bay Area came to the assistance of Heifer International, which fights world hunger and poverty by linking communities and helps bring sustainable agriculture and commerce to areas with a history of poverty.
Mellon grant advances Berkeley’s Digital Humanities
December 2, 2014: A $2 million Mellon Foundation grant will expand UC Berkeley offerings for faculty and students that will introduce them to a range of digital tools and methods.
For student regent, sitting on UC board means taking a stand
November 25, 2014: Though she’s missed classes, lost sleep and put her social life on hold since becoming UC student regent in July, Berkeley social-welfare major Sadia Saifuddin is upbeat about the role, calling it a “blessing” and a job “I was meant to do.”
Carol Christ named director of Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE)
November 24, 2014: Carol T. Christ, longtime UC Berkeley administrator and professor as well as a recent president of Smith College, will be the new director of the Center for Studies in Higher Education at Berkeley, Chancellor Dirks and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Steele announced today (Monday, Nov. 24).
Regents approve five-year tuition-hike plan for UC students
November 20, 2014: Chancellor Dirks voiced his full support for the new plan, “a necessary response to the massive state disinvestment in the University of California.”
All in the family: Parents, undergrads study at Berkeley at the same time
November 18, 2014: Jayanthi (Jay) Srinivasan, a software manager in Cupertino, and Sandeep Garg, a cardiologist in Lake Oswego, Ore., have two things in common: Both are students in the Berkeley Haas School’s MBA for Executives Program, and both have daughters who are sophomores at Berkeley. What’s it like for the two generations to experience Berkeley at the same time?
Education professor Barbara White dies at age 64
November 18, 2014: Professor Barbara White, a faculty member at UC Berkeley for 25 years whose broad ranging academic background encompassed education, computer science, psychology, and mathematics, has died after a battle with cancer. She was 64.
Three free days of all-things-piano
November 13, 2014: Free lectures, performances, workshops and recitals are all part of the 2014 Piano Institute, taking place Friday through Sunday (Nov. 14-16). The Music Department program is open to the public.
Study says California solar boom makes the state a national leader, prepares new generation of workers
November 10, 2014: A new report from UC Berkeley’s Don Vial Center for Green Jobs notes California’s leading role in the solar energy field, and recommends steps to secure the state’s solar energy future in terms of energy supplies and for workers, too.
Julia Morgan Hall’s new UC Botanical Garden party place
October 30, 2014: Julia Morgan Hall, now relocated to the UC Botanical Garden in Strawberry Canyon, is open for business meetings, weddings, parties and other events following an extensive restoration. The building was designed by the famed Berkeley architect and alumna in 1911.
Berkeley Global Campus: a new, bolder vision for Richmond Bay
October 30, 2014: Chancellor Dirks laid out an “unabashedly bold” new vision for UC Berkeley’s Richmond Field Station on Wednesday, telling faculty members of plans to remake the site as a global campus and “living laboratory” in partnership with public universities from around the world, as well as with private industry.
Berkeley ranks 3rd among US News’ 2015 ‘Best Global Universities’
October 28, 2014: UC Berkeley was rated the No. 3 global university in the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings, released this week. Topping the annual list were Harvard and MIT, while Stanford and the University of Oxford rounded out the top five.
Popular new ‘OnRamp’ course for social innovators
October 22, 2014: In response to student desire for academic learning that connects with real-world issues and problem solving, Blum Center innovation director Lina Nilsson has launched a new course called “Social Innovation OnRamp,” which provides a space to accelerate projects born in the Big Ideas@Berkeley contest and also grounds students in the basics of creating projects that serve the public good.
Panel explores impact of teacher tenure ruling by California Supreme Court
October 22, 2014: If upheld on appeal, changes mandated by the state Supreme Court ruling in Vergara vs. California would eliminate some employment protections for teachers, extending the time to “tenure” and limiting the role of seniority in decisions about employment and assignment. An Oct. 29 forum will explore whether and how these changes matter as the state seeks to provide high-quality teachers for students in California schools.
New post-bac at Berkeley may be hottest ticket to grad school 
October 21, 2014: Aaron Fisher was a nanny for a successful actor in Manhattan when he applied for a post-baccalaureate in psychology. Emily Becklund was working in L.A., as a personal assistant for the reality-TV Kardashian family, when she did the same. Today their academic dreams have converged at UC Berkeley, where Fisher just launched a post-bac, inspired by his own success.
Senior who wants to save the world says #GlobalPOV set her straight on how
October 13, 2014: Senior Alex Berryhill arrived at Berkeley brimming with idealism, imagining a life of “good intentions, poverty action, and public service.” A minor in Global Poverty and Practice and involvement with the Blum Center’s #GlobalPOV project made her question conventional approaches and seek deeper, more effective answers to poverty. She explains in a new blog post.
Dirks, Udacity CEO square off in online-learning debate
October 6, 2014: UC Berkeley’s chancellor joined Sebastian Thrun, founder and CEO of Udacity, on the World Affairs Council’s stage to discuss the growth of online learning and how it will affect 21st-century models of education.
After financial storm, Berkeley is stronger than ever, Dirks says
October 2, 2014: UC Berkeley has emerged from the financial crisis stronger than ever, argues Chancellor Dirks in an article in the latest edition of the “Times Higher Education.”
‘Bonfire of the publics?’ Clark Kerr and California’s Master Plan
September 30, 2014: Simon Marginson, a professor of international higher education at the Institute of Education in London, arrives in Berkeley this week to deliver a series of lectures on the state of Kerr’s legacy — and, he hopes, to find some answers.
FSM veterans, author featured on KQED’s ‘Forum’ 
September 23, 2014: Four Free Speech Movement veterans, along with the author of two books on the FSM, reflect on the movement’s history and legacy on KQED radio’s “Forum.” Separately, the San Francisco Chronicle discusses “FSM! The Play” and the “seismic shift in American culture” that the FSM sparked.
2014 Berkeley-Rupp Prize for boosting women in architecture, sustainability announced
September 15, 2014: Sheila Kennedy, an internationally recognized architect, innovator and educator, is the 2014 recipient of the Berkeley-Rupp Prize. The award is given by UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design to a design practitioner or academic who has made a significant contribution to advance gender equity in the field of architecture, and whose work emphasizes a commitment to sustainability and community.
Berkeley again a Teach for America star
September 12, 2014: For the seventh straight year, UC Berkeley is one of the top schools in the country for sending alumni into Teach for America’s teaching corps. Teach for America recruits and sends recent graduates into needy schools for two years.
Berkeley’s Eco Ensemble to perform at Venice Music Biennale
September 11, 2014: The campus’s new-music “dream team” is headed to Italy for two concerts featuring works by Berkeley music-composition faculty and alumni at what the ensemble”s founder, Edmund Campion, calls “one of the most visible and important sites for new music today.”
Graduate School of Education Dean Judith Warren Little to retire
September 10, 2014: Judith Warren Little will retire in June 2015 after serving for 28 years on the UC Berkeley faculty and five years as the first permanent woman dean in the history of the Graduate School of Education, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Claude Steele announced today.
Berkeley engineering professor leads Armenian university
September 10, 2014: The new president of a university in Armenia is Armen Der Kiureghian, a UC Berkeley civil engineering professor who has taken a leave from campus to pitch in with the collective University of California effort to help build up the American University of Armenia.
Berkeley ranked No. 1 public university by US News
September 9, 2014: UC Berkeley is Number 1 in the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings of public national universities, claiming the top position for the 17th straight year. The rankings were released today.
