UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ took the helm seven years ago, amid turbulent discontent over free speech conflicts, financial problems, sexual assault scandals and a leadership crisis under her predecessor.
During his tenure, the crises never seemed to abate. The pandemic arrived. Another budget deficit opened. Opposition exploded over his People's Park housing plan. Increasing enrollment strained the campus. Pro-Palestinian protests tore the community apart.
But there were high points, too. A record-breaking $7.4 billion fundraising campaign. Visionary academic ventures, including the first new university in more than 50 years dedicated to computer science and data science. A groundswell of research and a Nobel Prize for a Berkeley professor for his advances in gene-editing methods.
Christ will step down from his position on Friday, more than 50 years after first arriving at Berkeley as an assistant professor in the Department of English and serving in various leadership roles before assuming the top job. In a recent interview, Christ shared candid, even self-described “heretical” thoughts about the ups and downs of his tenure and the hot-button issues he has faced.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” said Christ, 80, a specialist in Victorian literature, quoting Charles Dickens. “Right now there is a very difficult political crisis, but at the same time extraordinary things are happening at the university that are changing our lives.”
Protests: Call for negotiations, not the police
She leaves in the most agonizing chapter of her tenure on campus.
“This conflict over Israel and Palestine is just tearing the community apart,” Christ said. “It's student against student, faculty member against faculty member. It creates the highest level of anxiety, fear and protest that I have certainly seen in my life.”
Christ revealed that he resisted pressure from University of California regents and others to take down a pro-Palestinian encampment (using police forces if necessary) in historic Sproul Plaza, where Berkeley's famous free speech movement was born in 1964.
Students set up tents in April to protest Israel's military bombing of Gaza following the October 7 Hamas attack. They voluntarily dismantled the camp on May 14 after Christ expressed his support for a review to determine whether university investments align with UC Berkeley values upholding human rights, equality and abhorring war. Christ also said the university would review all complaints about global exchange and internship programs to ensure they did not discriminate against Palestinians and others.
“I have a long history in Berkeley,” Christ said. “In my experience, protests don’t end with police action. They end with negotiations. Any time there has been police intervention in a protest, the protest tends to escalate.”
His approach was strongly supported by the Berkeley Academic Senate, which issued a statement supporting Christ's use of dialogue to peacefully end the encampment. In contrast, the chancellors at UCLA and UC San Diego faced votes from faculty to censure and express distrust after their decisions to call the police to clear the encampments, although the motions failed on both campuses.
Berkeley’s agreement with the protesters, however, sparked anger and dismay among some Jewish faculty and community members. In a letter this week, Christ reaffirmed his opposition to actions that explicitly target Israel and announced a significant expansion of anti-Semitism education for all incoming students, a new minor in Israel Studies and more support for the Center for Jewish Studies.
Inscription: incessant demand stimulates atypical ideas
Cristo has a provocative idea to satisfy the incessant demands for greater access to coveted positions at the University of California: incorporate some California State University campuses into the UC system.
He also believes community colleges should have full authority to offer bachelor's degrees, noting that one study found that California ranks 49th among states in the number of four-year institutions relative to its population.
Given the turf battles in higher education, Christ said “people will get mad at me” for expressing such ideas. But he said the state plan for higher education does not meet his design of distributing the top 12.5% of high school graduates to UC and the top third to CSU. Community colleges are open to all; Although some offer limited bachelor's degree programs, most offer two-year degrees and certificates.
“I think there really is a need to expand the number of coveted spots at four-year institutions,” he said. “People are very frustrated by the very low chances of admission they have at the competitive UCs.”
He added that he does not support fully online undergraduate programs for his campus because students grow and thrive from academic study, in-person relationships and extracurricular activities. But more online courses, along with satellite campuses and faster completion of degrees, could help open up more spots at UC, she said.
Christ also said UC campuses, each with their own character and culture, should have more independence from system-wide oversight — to set their own nonresident tuition rates, for example, or create new tuition programs. graduate without the “rigmarole” of central control.
Housing: a 'human right'
Christ is proud of her tireless efforts to build housing in Berkeley's iconic People's Park, which ultimately prevailed over years of lawsuits and protests. She said the park had become a danger to public safety and that shelter is a human right. Six years after she addressed the controversial issue that previous chancellors had long avoided, the state Supreme Court gave the green light this month to begin construction of housing for 1,113 students and a separate building with permanent supportive housing for 125 low-income community members.
“I am relieved and excited that we can now take an extremely significant step to address both our student housing crisis and the needs of people experiencing homelessness in Berkeley,” Christ said. “This is wonderful and beneficial for the campus and the city.”
Berkeley has developed seven housing projects under Christ: two completed, two opening this fall and three more on the track, including People's Park. The projects will provide more than 6,200 additional beds and help Berkeley, which currently has the most acute housing shortage among UC's 10 campuses, reach its goal of a two-year housing guarantee for freshmen and one year for transfer and graduate students. Berkeley will open about 1,535 new beds this fall.
Mary Ann Smart, former Academic Senate president and music professor, said Christ's handling of People's Park highlighted the chancellor's unwavering sense of purpose, her strong will behind her kind manner and her ability to work collaboratively. with others, including the mayor of Berkeley and members of the City Council. who have sometimes been at odds with the campus in the past.
Christ's “moral compass” and respect for shared decision-making with faculty — a core UC value that many fear is eroding — are also widely admired, said Maximilian Auffhammer, an environmental economist and president of the Academic Senate. .
McKalee Steen, president of the Berkeley Graduate Assembly and a doctoral candidate in environmental science, policy and management, said Christ's willingness to listen and engage with students stood out, especially in his handling of the pro-Palestinian camp. Although Steen disagreed with the decisions surrounding People's Park, especially the deployment of hundreds of police officers to remove protesters, she gave Christ high marks.
“Being president of any university, especially Berkeley, is an impossible job,” he said.
Money: State bailout is “unrealistic”
In other matters, Christ said returning to full state funding for public higher education is “unrealistic” without changes to tax policies to ensure more revenue. Private fundraising, entrepreneurial ventures, new degree programs and other ways to raise money are now essential, she said.
Berkeley's $7.4 billion capital campaign, launched in 2020 just as the pandemic hit, was the largest fundraiser ever for a public university. Christ said the most exciting donations funded an amenity-rich residential building for transfer students that will open this fall, along with faculty positions, scholarships and research programs.
But James Vernon, co-president of the Berkeley Faculty Association, criticized Christ's approach, saying campus buildings are crumbling, faculty and staff workloads are increasing and the quality of education is at risk because of a lack of state funding and rising tuition.
“The model that Christ has to save the university by making it grow is unsustainable for everyone: teachers, students and the surrounding city,” he said.
Christ said he wished he had made more progress supporting Native American and Black students, building campus housing more quickly and rebuilding the fractured community after the pandemic.
He is concerned about the “huge gap” among incoming students in their college readiness, reflecting differences in pandemic-related learning setbacks and the increased difficulty in assessing math skills after UC eliminated standardized testing as a college requirement. admission in 2020, a decision he still supports. . Berkeley will need to provide additional assessment tools, remedial classes and perhaps even calculus courses co-taught with high school teachers, she said.
But as Cristo moves into her post-chancellor life, with plans to read, write, travel, and play her beloved viola and piano, she's ready for a new captain to direct Berkeley's course. Rich Lyons, dean of UC Berkeley's business school and a leader in innovation and entrepreneurship, will succeed her.
“We have come a long way,” he said, “but there is still a long way to go.”
