Fernando Botero exhibit exploring Abu Ghraib abuses opens at Berkeley Art Museum
An exhibition of 56 powerful paintings and drawings by Colombian artist Fernando Botero about abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq opens Wednesday, Sept. 23, at the University of California, Berkeley's Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA).
(17 September)
Honorary degrees for students affected by World War II internment order
Approximately 500 Japanese Americans, whose education at UC Berkeley was interrupted by a 1942 executive order that confined about 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry to internment camps, are eligible to receive honorary degrees at a special campus ceremony on Sunday, Dec. 13.
(08 September)
Coming attractions: A shortlist of this fall's heady happenings
Many riches are in store on campus this semester for the culturally voracious and intellectually curious.
(26 August)
A sunny day for graduates — and the many who helped them
Under sunny skies at the Greek Theatre, graduates from the class of 2009 take a clear-eyed look at an uncertain future.
(26 May)
Sights and speeches from Commencement Convocation 2009
A sunny afternoon and inspiring speakers drew thousands of graduates and their families to the Greek Theatre to celebrate the accomplishments of the Class of 2009.
(22 May)
Graduation ceremony season starts tomorrow (Thursday)
Pixar Animation co-founder Alvy Ray Smith; Sir Andrew Duncan Crockett, president of JP Morgan International; State Treasurer Bill Lockyer and world-renowned sleep researcher Matt Walker will be among the speakers passing on acumen and inspiration to graduating students at UC Berkeley, at ceremonies starting tomorrow (Thursday, May 14).
(13 May)
Roll models and spokespeople
A two-day symposium organized by the campus Human Rights Center plumbed the connections between technology, media, and human-rights advocacy.
(07 May)
'Soul of the New Machine' confab geared to human rights
A two-day symposium organized by the campus Human Rights Center plumbed the connections between technology, media, and human-rights advocacy.
(07 May)
UC Berkeley welcomes visitors April 18 for Cal Day 2009
The Year of Science, Charles Darwin's birthday, the Obama administration, and the economic crisis will be highlighted at this year's Cal Day, the annual open house at the University of California, Berkeley. On Saturday, April 18, at least 35,000 people again are expected to descend upon one of the world's most prestigious research universities, accessing museums, buildings and labs, many of which are typically closed to the public.
(09 April)
Veteran journalist says schools and hospitals, not missile attacks, can defeat al Qaeda
Only a handful of journalists operate in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan. One of them told a campus audience last week how the U.S. might better conduct its campaign against Islamic extremists there.
(09 April)
Japanese architect Toyo Ito to visit campus
Acclaimed Japanese architect Toyo Ito will visit the UC Berkeley campus this month to discuss contemporary Japanese architecture and to attend an open house about the new Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, which he designed.
(02 April)
Two lecturers, three lectures, and a focus on genes
Berkeley’s Michael Levine considers “The Invisible Genome,” while Stanford’s Lucy Shapiro speaks about global health from a microbiologist’s perspective.
(19 March)
Speaker series to address California's climate-change challenges
Starting March 17, a new speaker series will explore the state's landmark climate-control legislation and its critical connections to sustainable development and land-use planning.
(04 March)
Dedication of new CITRIS headquarters marks new stage of innovation to help fuel economic growth
The newest research facility on the UC Berkeley campus, to be dedicated today (Friday, Feb. 27), embodies the innovation and entrepreneurship needed to fuel economic growth and arrives at a time when the state and nation seek relief from the recession. At a ceremony this afternoon, Sutardja Dai Hall will become the new home of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) and the Banatao Institute@CITRIS Berkeley.
(27 February)
Speaker series on California climate change challenges
A new UC Berkeley speaker series will explore the state's landmark climate control legislation's critical connections to sustainable development and land-use planning. The series, "Growing Sustainability in a Low-Carbon World," is sponsored by UC Berkeley's Institute for Urban and Regional Development (IURD) and starts on March 17. It will bring together local, regional and state decision-makers, scholars, researchers, environmentalists, non-governmental organizations and other public sector stakeholders.
(26 February)
Hunting for snark
David Letterman is, but Jay Leno isn't. Some might offer 'funny' as the missing word — but for a leading critic, the issue is sophistication and subtlety, not humor.
(05 February)
Coming attractions for spring 2009: Your intellectual stimulus package
In the spirit of the season's renewed sense of optimism and purpose, this semester's lineup of of events will enlighten and inspire.
(23 January)
Glued to the ObamaTron
Thousands crowded Sproul Plaza on Jan. 20 to watch the historic inauguration of President Barack Obama on TV.
(22 January)
Japanese Studies Center honors Eastwood for "Letters from Iwo Jima"
Actor and director Clint Eastwood will receive the first-ever Berkeley Japan New Vision Award from the University of California, Berkeley's Center for Japanese Studies on Friday, Jan. 23, for his role in creating a new vision of Japan - particularly during World War II - through his award-winning film, "Letters from Iwo Jima."
(21 January)
Throngs at Berkeley witness dawn of the Obama era
The mood was one of elation on UC Berkeley's Sproul Plaza as one of the site's largest crowds to date witnessed the inauguration of U.S. President Barack Obama on big-screen TV.
(20 January)
Campus to host Inauguration Day event
It might not rival Washington, D.C.’s Inauguration Day extravaganza, but there will be a star-spangled public viewing of the historic swearing-in of Barack Obama as the 44th U.S. president via a big-screen Jumbotron TV in UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza.
(08 January)
Jan. 11 is local kickoff of 'Year of Science 2009'
UC Berkeley and more than 500 other institutions and organizations around the country have joined together to make this the "Year of Science 2009," replete with science cafes, festivals, talks and lectures, and an emphasis on what science means to us all.
(07 January)
December graduates to attend convocation ceremony this Sunday
Nearly 3,000 students at UC Berkeley are graduating this fall, and several hundred of them will walk across the Zellerbach Auditorium stage in caps and gowns this Sunday, Dec. 7, at the 2008 December Graduates Convocation.
(02 December)
Vice presidential debate watch to take place Thursday
UC Berkeley students will gather at the Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) on Thursday, (Oct. 2) to watch the vice presidential candidates' debate. The IGS event is co-sponsored by two student groups: the Berkeley College Republicans and Cal Berkeley Democrats. It will take place 6 to 7:30 p.m. in the institute’s library, Room 109, Moses Hall. In addition, an experts panel discussion will occur 5 to 6 p.m.
(29 September)
Events mark countdown to campaign kickoff
The largest-ever campus fundraising drive will be launched next week.
(12 September)
A week of Constitutional conversation
Journalists, judges, politicos, and scholars share the spotlight as the campus observes Constitution Day.
(11 September)
EBI launches fall biofuels seminar series
The Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) has begun a new, biweekly seminar series this semester focusing on areas of importance within the biofuel field.
(03 September)
Coming attractions at UC Berkeley for fall 2008: Power and politics at home and abroad
On the UC Berkeley campus, several events this fall will confront the constitutional questions raised by the current administration's expansion of presidential power in the name of the "war on terror," while others focus on the political, economic, and environmental challenges the next president will face.
(02 September)
A preview of poetry and prose readings
For literature lovers, Lunch Poems and Story Hour deliver the goods.
(27 August)
Journalism school hosts "American President" photo exhibit
While political conventioneers work themselves into a frenzy over who will occupy the White House for the next four years, a new photo exhibit at the University of California, Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism is taking a different tack by looking at the presidencies of the past. "The American President" shows off more than two dozen 16-by-20-inch images taken by Associated Press photographers of the men in the Oval Office, primarily since World War II. The exhibit at North Gate Hall on campus is open to the public through Inauguration Day (Jan. 20, 2009).
(27 August)
To preserve, protect, defend, and hang out
Like the art of photography itself, presidential image-making has come a long way since the days of the first formal, daguerreotype portraits of William Henry Harrison. Nowhere is the form on better display than in “The American President,” a collection of black-and-white and color images of U.S. presidents, future presidents, and former presidents — along with the odd would-be president — taken by Associated Press photographers over the past century and a half.
(27 August)
Odora in odiferous bloom at Botanical Garden
The UC Botanical Garden is celebrating a noxious smell permeating its Tropical House, thanks to the blooming of Odora the Titan arum, also known not so fondly as the corpse flower.
(30 June)
‘An inch of time should be highly prized’
Good graduation pictures, in capturing joy and a sense of accomplishment, resemble one another closely. Good graduation speeches, if carefully written and skillfully delivered, strike their own singular chords. Herewith examples of both, from the Berkeley commencement season just concluded.
(04 June)
Grads urged to take a global view, make global change
The Class of 2008, gathered under sunny skies to celebrate the end of their beginning and the beginning of their new lives, left commencement ceremonies at the Greek Theatre on Tuesday with a clear message ringing in their ears: "Go out and change the world."
(14 May)
Games aside, the real Olympic challenge is engaging with China
As activists excoriate the nation's rulers over human-rights issues, a campus symposium makes the case for a less confrontational attitude toward Beijing.
(08 May)
Craigslist founder to give commencement speech
Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist, the hip and ubiquitous classified advertising Web site, says he'll be winging his keynote speech to graduating seniors at UC Berkeley's Commencement Convocation next Tuesday, May 13. But overall, Newmark says he will urge students to change the world using the tools of the Internet, and to follow these simple business do's and don'ts: "Never read a prepared speech unless you're really good at it; for a genuine perspective on corporate life, read Dilbert; and brevity is the soul of wit."
(08 May)
Panel to explore U.S. universities' role in global development
The role that U.S. universities play in global development will be addressed in a panel discussion on Thursday, April 17, as part of the official launch of UC Berkeley's new Center for Evaluation for Global Action (CEGA).
(16 April)
This year’s Sustainability Summit definitely has an agenda
Reflecting the growing importance of sustainability on campus, Berkeley’s fifth annual summit on the issue is expanding to a half-day, with workshops on everything from greening your own life to the energy frontier far beyond fossil fuels.
(16 April)
Bush under fire, friendly and otherwise
A Pulitzer-winning historian, a Washington bureau chief, a neoconservative pundit, and the chief strategist for the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign gathered on campus last week to assess the Bush presidency. History, it seems, hath no fury like a brain-truster scorned.
(16 April)
Sights, sounds, and stories from around the world
Springtime signals the arrival of the San Francisco International Film Festival, which has served up a banquet of global film for 51 years. Among the festival’s venues is the campus’s Pacific Film Archive, whose senior film curator, Susan Oxtoby, personally chooses the works that will screen there — 36 of the festival’s 100-plus invited films this year.
(16 April)
A snapshot of diversity, Berkeley-style
In a two-day photo session, hundreds of staff, faculty, and students line up to say ‘cheese’ . . . . and ‘thank you.’
(09 April)
Scandinavian language smorgasbord
Want to learn how to say "I love Cal Day" in Swedish? How about in Norwegian, Danish or Finnish? On Cal Day in Room 33 of Dwinelle Hall, the Scandinavian Department will offer free, 30-minute lessons starting at 11 a.m. that essentially offer highlights of the first day of UC Berkeley classes in beginning Finnish, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian.
(03 April)
"Math girl" makes music
A wide variety of music will echo across campus on Cal Day, but Nicole Campbell's got a niche all her own. The long-haired, acoustic guitar-strumming, third-year UC Berkeley student will be in Room 1015 of Evans Hall performing songs she wrote about math and science.
(03 April)
Meet the (flesh-eating) beetles — performing one day only
That would be Cal Day, naturally, a multi-species extravaganza of science, art, awesomeness, and just plain fun for the whole Cal family.
(02 April)
All keyed up: 25 students vie for an 80-year-old Steinway
Generosity and serendipity both play a part in the first Berkeley Piano Competition.
(02 April)
Literary scholar Annabel Patterson to deliver Tanner Lectures
Annabel Patterson, Sterling Professor Emerita of English at Yale and a distinguished literary scholar, will present the Tanner Lectures on Human Values on April 8 and 9. On April 10 she will take part in a seminar discussion with commentators from three academic disciplines.
(02 April)
Understanding the Middle East, or not
On the eve of the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, a retired commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East shared this year's Nimitz lectures with the former head of the CIA's bin Laden desk. But where Gen. John Abizaid said we're on the right track in the "war on terror," Michael Scheuer said we've got it all wrong.
(19 March)
Anniversary of a rebellion
An exhibit of photos by Serge Hambourg at the Berkeley Art Museum captures the spirit of the 1968 Paris student revolt that nearly brought down the government of Charles De Gaulle. It's complemented at the Pacific Film Archive by "The Clash of '68," a series of films based on the theme of rebellion that infused the '60s generally.
(19 March)
Fun and enlightenment for 35,000 will be the order of the day
Cal Day, the campus’s annual open house, is April 12.
(19 March)
Daniel Boyarin will deliver Faculty Research Lecture
His April 1 talk on Plato and the Talmud is the second of two lectures in the 2008 series.
(19 March)
Human trafficking steps from the shadows
Forum on modern-day slavery focuses on its victims, and on the belief of many in the United States — and in California — that it can't happen here.
(12 March)
Chemist to deliver year’s first Faculty Research Lecture
Each year, two Berkeley faculty distinguished for their scholarly research are nominated by their peers
in the Academic Senate to deliver a Faculty Research Lecture during the spring. The 95th annual Faculty Research Lectures will be delivered this year by Jean M. J. Fréchet, the Henry Rapoport Professor of Organic Chemistry and a faculty member in chemical engineering, and Daniel Boyarin, the Hermann P. and Sophia Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture in the departments of Near Eastern Studies and Rhetoric.
(12 March)
Prime-time torture gets a reality check
Among the many fans of Fox TV's 24 are U.S. Supreme Court justices and the head of Homeland Security. But the program Newsweek called "a neocon sex fantasy" also has its devotees in the U.S. military, where, according to some critics, it's viewed less as fantasy than as a training manual.
(05 March)
A century of Cal student fashion to be displayed
Battered hats and dirt-encrusted brown corduroy pants might scream 1990s grunge. But these shabby fashion statements were all the rage at UC Berkeley in the late 1890s and early 1900s. "The more disgusting they were, the higher status they held," said William Benemann, curator of a new campus exhibit "From Plugs to Bling: A Century of Cal Student Fashion."
(03 March)
Bigfoot casts a philosophical shadow
To some eyewitness observers, giant Sasquatch footprints at the Hearst Museum of Anthropology — alleged to be those of a creature named Cripplefoot — represent a small step out of the dense woods of ridicule and into the bright light of philosophy, romance, and "vigilante science."
(27 February)
The commander-in-chief and the courts
The winner of the 2008 presidential election will potentially shape the future composition of the U.S. Supreme Court. This aspect of the presidential contest, infrequently discussed in media coverage of the primaries, took center stage Feb. 21 at the UC Berkeley School of Law, where a group of legal experts discussed "The Next President and the Courts."
(25 February)
State Ballet of Georgia launches first-ever U.S. tour at UC Berkeley
The State Ballet of Georgia launches its first-ever U.S. tour at UC Berkeley Feb. 14, presented by Cal Performances at Zellerbach Hall in shows that run through Sunday. The ballet's American visit highlights the once-struggling troupe’s resurgence after an era of political repression and economic deprivation
(14 February)
What do we mean when we talk of love?
Psychology prof Dacher Keltner investigates the many facets of everyone's favorite heartfelt emotion — from the passionate urges of early romance to the connections some people are able to feel for humanity at large.
(13 February)
General says Abu Ghraib scandal will resonate ‘for years to come’
In a rare public appearance last week at International House, Antonio Taguba said revelations about abuse at the now-notorious Baghdad prison “affected the moral and ethical conscience of our nation,” and blamed U.S. leaders for what he called "the ambiguity of rules of war."
(13 February)
Web conference takes on "silver tsunami"
As America scrambles to meet the retirement needs of 78 million aging Baby Boomers, UC Berkeley is cyber-surfing ahead of the so-called "silver tsunami" by launching its first-ever online conference to help create aging-friendly communities.
(12 February)
Rewriting history and poking fun at the powers that be
“Enrique Chagoya: Borderlandia,” a 25-year survey of the artist’s work that showcases his wide-ranging palette, will open at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive on February 13.
(06 February)
Berkeley, and the nation, turn the spotlight on climate change
In an all-day series of symposiums Jan. 31 at International House, the UC Berkeley campus joined with other colleges and universities across America to 'Focus the Nation' on global warming.
(01 February)
Faculty, students available for presidential campaign interviews
As the California primary approaches, University of California, Berkeley, students, faculty and staff are available to provide news outlets with interviews and analysis of major campaign issues such as the economy and immigration. In addition, several election-related forums and events will be held on campus during the campaign season.
(30 January)
Coming attractions for spring 2008: Global warming, rebellion, and redemption
A lineup of events that will challenge the mind, entertain the senses, and depart from the conventional fills the spring semester's calendar at Berkeley.
(25 January)
Frances Allen: A pioneer in high-performance computing
The explorer, adventurer, and renowned computer scientist will be on campus to deliver a Regents’ Lecture, “The Challenge of the Multi-Cores: Think Sequential, Run Parallel,” at 4 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 31, in Sibley Auditorium, Bechtel Engineering Center. The Berkeleyan caught up with her last week for a conversation.
(23 January)
Fiction readers get their moment in the campus spotlight
The campus’s popular Lunch Poems series will gain a prose companion when Story Hour in the Library debuts next Thursday, Jan. 24, at 5 p.m. in Doe Library’s Morrison Library.
(16 January)
