Throughout 2018, the University of California — and Berkeley, as its sole campus for many decades — is celebrating its 150th birthday.
150 years ago, Governor Henry Haight signed an act envisioning a great public university for the state of California, one that would provide the children of farmers and factory workers with the kind of education they had previously only dreamed about. With the stroke of a pen, Haight brought into being one of the most extraordinary universities that the world has ever known — a place where we would discover new chemical elements, where we would develop cures for disease, where social movements would begin, and where students and professors would ask and answer questions fundamental to our understanding of the world.
Since 1868, UC has grown from 40 students on a temporary campus in Oakland to 10 university campuses educating nearly 300,000 students a year — not to mention five medical centers, three national labs, and a network of educational, health, and agricultural resource centers serving Californians across the state. And at the heart of today’s system, of course, is Berkeley — UC’s flagship and the shining jewel of public higher education.
A milestone as monumental as our sesquicentennial marks a natural time to look back at where we’ve been — explored in the following pages — as well as to contemplate where we wish to go. On this latter front, I recently inaugurated a strategic planning process to help us address the budgetary and structural challenges we currently face, as well as consider what Berkeley should look like 10 years from now. Guided by our values of diversity, excellence, innovation, public mission, and accountability and transparency, small groups of student, staff, and faculty leaders are discussing the following questions:
- What are the grand challenges facing our state, nation, and world? Where is Berkeley best positioned to be a global leader, and what investments should we make to become so?
- What investments and changes in our instructional and co-curricular programs and our housing and dining options would optimize the student experience?
- With a campus population today of 40,000 students, what is our preferred enrollment level, and how should it be distributed to all of our students? Should our schools and colleges stay roughly proportional in size or should we grow selectively? How can alternative education models accommodate increased demand and reach new populations?
- How can Berkeley foster a sustainable financial model when it does not control state funding or tuition levels and must develop diverse revenue sources? How do we preserve our mission and identity as a public institution?
Thoughtfully examining and answering these questions is necessary to ensuring that our future is as bright as our past. I ask you to join me on this journey, which is not for the fainthearted. As Benjamin Ide Wheeler, UC president from 1899 to 1919, said, “And so I say cheer for her; it will do your lungs good. Love her; it will do your heart and life good.”
Fiat Lux — and here is to the next 150 years.
