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Fall of surprises
Plenty of housing, a teachers’ strike, a September 11 controversy...
New students arriving on campus this fall missed out on a time-honored Berkeley tradition--but no one complained. At the start of the new semester there was no waiting list for campus housing and, even in September, "For Rent" signs could be spotted around the city. The University had opened its first new student housing complex in 10 years--College-Durant Apartments, which houses 120 upper-division and graduate students--and the economic downturn meant that landlords were fighting over tenants.
Once they had settled in, students had another surprise: many had their classes canceled as University lecturers joined campus clerical workers on August 28 for the final day of their strike. University employees were demanding higher wages and protesting "unfair labor practices."
Even after the strike was over, not a single one of the students enrolled in "Gems and Gem Materials" turned up for class. But geology professor Jill Banfield wasn't alarmed as this is Berkeley's first entirely online course. All class materials, including video demonstrations, are online, and Banfield communicates with students via e-mail. Everyone is watching the class with interest. "I see this course as an experiment," says Philip Stark of the Office of Undergraduate Affairs. "It's research into teaching, to see how well the approach works." But he adds that "neither administration nor faculty think that a Berkeley education should consist of sitting in front of a computer in lieu of face-to-face contact with an instructor."
Cal's 32,000 students are themselves a noteworthy bunch. According to an "undergraduate experience survey" conducted last spring, 60 percent of undergraduates have at least one foreign-born parent, far in excess of the norm for either the country or the Bay Area. (This is in part explained by the large proportion of Asian students--46 percent of the freshman class--who are much more likely than others to have parents who were born outside the United States.)
There are 3,652 freshmen, 190 fewer than in 2001; and 2,800 new graduate students, the largest graduate class since 1989. Competition to get into the graduate school was the toughest ever--there were 33,569 applications, up 23 percent from last year. Applications for the MBA program at Haas School of Business were up 37 percent. (It is expected that the poor economy was responsible for this, too.)
Students have been adapting to the changes this past year has brought. There were a number of new courses examining terrorism and violence, all oversubscribed, catering to students' desire to make sense of the world since September 11, 2001.
Preparations for marking the first anniversary of that day sparked controversy. An online article in the conservative student magazine the California Patriot claimed that the ASUC decision to distribute only white ribbons on Sproul Plaza was unpatriotic. The article was picked up by publications across the country and used to suggest that the Berkeley campus is un-American. Chancellor Robert Berdahl vehemently denied that charge, and called the article "a thoroughly irresponsible piece of reporting." He said that the ASUC's decision had been a purely financial one but, in response to the outcry, Berdahl said he would make sure that red, white, and blue ribbons were available.
The day itself passed peacefully--Sproul Plaza was filled at noon and stars and stripes were on full display. A small group of students dressed in black handed out white ribbons and white flowers--in order, they said, to remember those innocent victims of September 11 who were not American. A dozen student speakers offered widely differing perspectives on September 11 and, later that day, an open-mic session was held on the steps of Sproul.
 Photo by Ramin Rahimian
Many other groups across campus marked the day in their own way. Residents of International House released a flight of doves as part of their remembrance of September 11.
Pathway to success
 | Randy Schekman |
Randy Schekman says he was caught off guard when he got the call that he had won this year's Lasker Award, the country's most prestigious prize for medical research. The professor of molecular and cell biology thought the award had already been given out. In any case, Schekman considered it "a long shot."
"It's a step beyond the recognition I thought I would reach," says Schekman, who shares the 2002 Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research with James Rothman of the Sloan-Kettering Institute in New York. The Lasker Award is often referred to as the American Nobel, and more than half of Lasker winners have gone on to become Nobel laureates.
The work for which Schekman is being honored--his description of how yeast cells shuttle proteins to the cell’s surface to be secreted--very nearly didn't happen at all. When Schekman came to Berkeley 26 years ago and applied for a grant to do this research, he was turned down. Funders were skeptical about his two basic assumptions: that this pathway in yeast cells was similar to the one in human cells, and that the process is also how new cell membranes are formed.
But his hunches turned out to be good. Both yeast cells and human cells have a protein-sorting, -packaging, and -delivery system that Schekman likens to a conveyor belt. Proteins are packaged in small membrane-bound "vesicles" that are sent to the cell surface. There, Schekman and Rothman showed, they fuse with the cell's outer membrane, releasing their protein contents and regenerating the membrane. In humans, this is the way that hormones, growth factors, and neurotransmitters are secreted. But this conveyor belt can also be hijacked by viruses or bacteria.
While Rothman detailed this process in a test tube, Schekman used genetics as a way to reconstruct the biochemical pathway from the ground up. "This changed the field from a descriptive approach to a more mechanistic approach," he says.
Apart from advancing the understanding of how cells work, Schekman's work has had several practical applications. Yeast cells now produce one-quarter of the world supply of human insulin; they also produce the antigen used in all hepatitis B vaccines. And defects in the pathway are implicated in widespread diseases, including type II diabetes, Alzheimer's, and schizophrenia.
While he realizes that his award makes him a serious contender for the Nobel Prize, for now Schekman says he has no dreams of Stockholm. "Since I didn't expect to get to this stage, I've decided to savor this for the time being and let the future bring what it may."
--Ayala Ochert
CAA endorses Proposition 47
On August 24, the Board of Directors of the California Alumni Association passed a resolution endorsing the Kindergarten–University Public Education Facilities Bond Acts of 2002-2004. The two bond acts would raise $25.3 billion--the first, worth $13.05 billion, will appear as Proposition 47 on California's November 2002 ballot; the second will appear on the March 2004 ballot. The funds will be made available to repair, renovate, and improve classrooms, libraries, and laboratories throughout the state's public education system. The University of California, the California State University, and the California Community Colleges collectively stand to receive $1.65 billion in 2002 and $2.3 billion in 2004 if the measures are passed.
Blues in the News
 At the U.S. nationals in August, Natalie Coughlin '04 became the first woman to swim the 100-meter backstroke in less than one minute (she swam 59.58). Coughlin was also named USA Swimming's Athlete of the Year in September.
 David Goldstein '73, Ph.D. '78 (pictured), an energy-efficiency expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Daniel Jurafsky '83, Ph.D. '92, who is developing natural language computer systems at the University of Colorado, have been awarded MacArthur Fellowships.
 Sandeep Pandey, Ph.D. '91, received the 2002 Ramon Magsaysay Award--Asia’s most prestigious award--for "emergent leadership." Pandey co-founded Asha for Education, which taps the resources of Indians abroad to support the education of poor children in India.
 Madhu Sudan, Ph.D. '92, was awarded the 2002 Nevanlinna Prize for his work in theoretical computer science. Chinese President Jiang Zemin presented the award to Sudan at the 2002 International Congress of Mathematicians in Beijing.
 In August, Lynne Withey, Ph.D. '76, was named director of the University of California Press. During the 1980s, Withey worked for UC's Office of the President and lectured in history at Cal.
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