Access and Excellence

The Chancellor's vision for our campus

Each August I convene my senior leadership team in a retreat to review our goals and discuss priorities for the coming year. This year, my fifth as Chancellor at UC Berkeley, I was urged by my colleagues to reflect on what has been achieved during the first four years of my administration and to set out my vision for what we need to accomplish over the next several years. After much discussion, input, and refinement from the campus's senior leaders, the result is this paper, "Access and Excellence."

This is an aspirational document and is not meant to be a comprehensive strategic plan. It is my personal vision as Chancellor, reinforced by the views of my senior leadership team, of how we must move forward to ensure that we sustain Berkeley's academic preeminence and continue to serve our public mission for the state of California.

In the current economic climate we face serious budgetary challenges that will require us to make hard choices, but we must make those choices guided by our commitment to preserving the unique character of Berkeley and its role as a leader in public higher education.

In making this paper widely available to our university community, I look forward to your comments, your ideas, and your engagement in the work we will do together to realize these aspirations for Berkeley.

Robert J. Birgeneau
Chancellor