News

Each member of the UC Berkeley community has a role to play in the ongoing effort to end sexual violence and sexual harassment on our campus. As the semester gets underway, we encourage you to spend some time on Berkeley’s survivor support website learning about what constitutes sexual violence and sexual harassment, our prevention and safety programs, how to respond, and how to get help in an emergency. We also hope that you will familiarize yourselves with new University of California systemwide policies on these critical issues, and especially what the new policies mean for the reporting of sexual assault, harassment, and discrimination.

I am pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Tsu-Jae King Liu as Vice Provost for Academic and Space Planning, for an initial two-year period with the possibility of extension at the discretion of the next Chancellor and my successor. Her appointment as Vice Provost will begin on October 1, 2016.

Update pursuant to my announcement last week that I will be stepping down as Chancellor as soon as a successor is selected and in place.

I am writing today to say that I have informed President Napolitano of my intention to step down as Chancellor once a successor is selected and in place. It has been a great honor to serve as the 10th Chancellor of Berkeley, and I am proud of all we have accomplished. Over the summer I have come to the personal decision that the time is right for me to step aside and allow someone else to take up the financial and institutional challenges ahead of us.

After 35 years of service to UC Berkeley, Harry Le Grande has informed me he will retire from his position as Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs on December 31.

As follow-up to the announcement I made on April 26, I am pleased to tell you that Carol Christ has agreed to continue serving as interim Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost through June 30, 2017.

As we continue our work on the long-term strategic planning and review process that we announced in February, we write to provide an update on the specific near-term steps we are taking to address the campus’s structural deficit. Our ultimate goal is to achieve a balanced budget by 2019-20. As of today, we estimate that the cumulative effect of our present efforts, along with the assistance we are receiving from the Office of the President on restructuring our debt, will reduce our deficit by approximately $85 million by June 2017, the end of the next fiscal year.

Effective July 1, units will no longer pay a 2% assessment for the services CSS provides. This assessment has produced unintended consequences for our departments and schools. As such, we will redesign the CSS funding model.

This is the first in what we expect will be a series of regular updates about the campus strategic planning process Chancellor Dirks announced (link is external) last month. The goal of these updates is to keep you informed of our progress, our timeline, as well as opportunities to get involved.

Carla Hesse will be the interim lead for the our efforts to improve and enhance the university’s response to sexual harassment and assault.

We write to you today to follow up on last week’s message about our collective work to prevent and address sexual harassment, assault, and violence on the UC Berkeley campus.

Melissa Murray has been named interim dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law.

Professor Benjamin Hermalin has agreed to serve as the next Vice Provost for the Faculty.

Today, we announce a strategic planning process designed to ensure our excellence in the face of continuing financial challenges. This process is comprehensive, encompassing academic and administrative realignment, investment in our fundraising and revenue-generating activities, and the reexamination of all our discretionary expenditures, including athletics and capital costs.

Appointment of Professor Paul Alivisatos as Berkeley’s next Vice Chancellor, Research, effective March 1, 2016.

Supporting the success of our students is fundamental to fulfilling the educational mission of UC Berkeley. Our campus has engaged in a number of efforts to improve undergraduate student outcomes, including graduation rates and time-to-degree. These efforts have shown promising results — the percentage of undergraduates who enter Berkeley as freshmen who complete their studies within four years and transfer students who complete their degree within two years has steadily improved over the last decade. However, more work can and should be done to improve graduation rates overall and close achievement gaps for our students.