Chancellor Birgeneau honored with 2008 Academic Leadership Award from the Carnegie Corporation
Honoring what it called two higher education "visionaries" and "champions of excellence and equity in education," the Carnegie Corporation announced it has awarded UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau and Syracuse University Chancellor and President Nancy Cantor its 2008 Academic Leadership Award.
(17 June)

Breath of Life for California's native languages
At a time when only about half of California's 90-plus indigenous languages have living speakers, a language conference being held this month at the University of California, Berkeley, may help tribal members become the first to speak their endangered tribal languages in 50 years.
(06 June)

Distinguished Teaching Award 2008 winners
Four professors in the arts and humanities, social sciences and environmental design are recipients of this year's Distinguished Teaching Award at UC Berkeley.
(16 April)

UC to offer admission to all eligible undergraduates for 2008-09
The University of California will continue to offer admission in fall 2008 to all undergraduate applicants who meet its eligibility requirements, despite the fact that the governor’s budget proposes to cut state funding for the university in 2008-09, UC officials announced last week.
(05 March)

Keeping the fruits of knowledge within reach
With subscription costs for traditional academic journals on the rise, the newly launched Berkeley Research Impact Initiative offers subsidies to campus scholars wishing to take the open-access publishing route, and hope for a new model of sustainability.
(27 February)

PACE reports says state's schools holding steady or improving
A new report from Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) says California's public school students lag behind much of the nation in most areas, but have managed to hold steady or improve across subjects and grade levels, with graduation rates also eking upward in era of lagging resources, a growing population and increasing diversity.
(27 February)

New digital projects teach English in India, monitor air pollution
An online mystery game in which student sleuths will monitor air pollution in South Central Los Angeles and in Cairo, Egypt, and a project using cell phones to teach English to children in India have won funding for two University of California, Berkeley, professors.
(25 February)

Chancellor Birgeneau on keeping public universities affordable: ‘We have to start now’
Even before Harvard announced plans to extend financial aid to students from families with incomes up to $180,000, Chancellor Birgeneau was addressing the challenge of ensuring that qualified low- and middle-income students could afford to attend UC Berkeley. In this interview with the Berkeleyan, he talks about what he's learned — and what needs to be done.
(30 January)

Albert Bowker, innovative chancellor, dies at age 88
Albert Bowker, a former chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, an expert is statistics and an innovative administrator during his decades-long career in higher education across the country, died Sunday in a retirement home in Portola Valley, Calif. He was 88 and had been suffering from pancreatic cancer.
(22 January)

UC Berkeley: Craigslist to establish first endowed faculty chair in new media
UC Berkeley announced plans on Jan. 17 to establish the first endowed faculty chair at the Berkeley Center for New Media with a donation of $1.6 million from craigslist, one of the most popular Web sites in the world. The donation, which will support research, symposia and lectures, will be matched with $1.5 million from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for a total of $3.1 million.
(17 January)

Cal Teach celebrates $2.4 million grant to foster science and math teaching
Officials and students gathered at UC Berkeley Dec. 11 to celebrate a $2.4 million grant from the National Science & Math Initiative to the Cal Teach program, which promotes science and math teaching among Berkeley's science, math and engineering undergraduates.
(14 December)

Students pursue program promoting science, math teaching
Science and math education in the United States may be viewed as flawed experiments lately, but some 200 University of California, Berkeley, students majoring in math, science and engineering may help fix that through a new program promoting teaching of these crucial subjects.
(25 October)

On track and going strong

"This is the greatest investment I've ever made," says George A. Miller about the program he founded to help low-income, first-generation community-college transfer students make the adjustment to life at Berkeley. "And I was in investment banking for 35 years."
(17 October)

A town hall meeting with UC's president
The ‘power of 10’ keeps the University resilient in the face of ‘dark forces,’ Dynes tells faculty
(05 October)

L’affaire Chemerinsky: One to remember?
The shortest-lived controversy in recent UC history is over - isn't it? Two Boalt Hall professors share their opinions on the Drake/Chemerinsky brouhaha at UC Irvine.
(19 September)

Hewlett Foundation gift of $113 million is largest private gift in campus history
UC Berkeley today received the largest private gift in its history, $113 million from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. This gift represents a turning point in the financing of public higher education, providing endowment support that will help to close the funding gap between the nation's preeminent public university and its elite private peers, according to UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau.
(10 September)

New interdisciplinary 'Global Poverty & Practice' minor is launched
UC Berkeley's Blum Center for Developing Economies has announced the creation of a new undergraduate program that, beginning this fall, will seek to motivate and prepare students to become active in alleviating poverty worldwide. The "Global Poverty & Practice" minor will be housed in the International and Area Studies Teaching Program.
(27 August)

Study finds early difficulty for community college students
A new report by Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) finds that six in 10 students who enter the California community college system as freshmen with high school diplomas and aspirations to transfer to four-year institutions drop out or lower their academic sights after just one semester. The report recommends increasing support for these students.
(20 August)

Chancellor leads effort to back federal math education bill
University of California, Berkeley, Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau, who has led an effort by leaders of some of the nation's premiere colleges and universities to back a federal bill that would strengthen K-12 math and science education, applauded today the recent passage of the bill and expressed his optimism that it will be signed into law.
(03 August)

Experts on Supreme Court rulings
U.S. Supreme Court decisions regarding school integration and the death penalty.
(28 June)

Faculty's NRC input is ready for grading
An update of the massive and influential report, "Research Doctoral Programs in the United States," is scheduled to be released by the National Research Council in December 2007.
(02 May)

Chancellor announces program to assist needy students with financial aid
A new program initiated by University of California, Berkeley, Chancellor Robert Birgeneau will double the impact of personal gifts made by members of the campus community to UC Berkeley endowment funds that provide needy undergraduate and graduate students with financial aid.
(10 April)

Changing the culture of the academy
In keynote address to UC conference on diversity and inclusion, Troy Duster casts a sociologist’s eye on the dynamics of challenging, and defending, the traditional curriculum
(26 March)

Center for Studies in Higher Education marks its half-century milestone
Established 50 years ago to look at higher-ed policy issues, it thrives today as an interdisciplinary center where 'the future is always arriving.'
(21 March)

Martin Trow, leading scholar in higher education studies, dies at 80
Martin Trow, UC Berkeley professor emeritus of public policy and an internationally recognized leader in higher education studies, died at age 80 on Feb. 24 of an inoperable brain tumor. Trow is credited with being the first scholar to describe the transition in higher education from elite to mass to universal student access.
(02 March)

The NRC's 10-year report card
The NRC is now crafting the third version of its influential report, "Research-Doctoral Programs in the United States," and Berkeley is mounting a major effort to put its best foot forward while conforming to the rigorous and complex rules guiding the process.
(17 January)