 Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Dan Mogulov from the campus office of communications and public affairs And I am truly delighted and honored to welcome a guest who really needs no introduction Chancellor Carol Chris to this the final version of campus conversations For this semester, so let's just welcome the chance I'm going to read a very brief bio even though she needs no introduction she's going to get one And then Carol's going to sort of set the table with some brief opening comments And then we're going to we're going to take your questions and get into the conversation part of this event so Chancellor Chris began her term as the 11th Chancellor of the University of California on July 1st 2017 I just want to note For and I've seen this with numerous reporters if you want to get off on the wrong foot with Chancellor Chris Does a reporter just ask her what it's like to be the first woman Chancellor? So if any of you have written that on a card toss that immediately just just some informal advice She is a celebrated scholar of Victorian literature and known as an advocate for quality accessible at public higher education Carol spent more than three decades as a professor and a senior administrator here on campus both as Executive vice-chancellor and provost between 1994 and 2000 She was president of Smith College one of the country's most distinguished liberal arts colleges 2002 to 2013 She returned here in January 2015 to direct the campus's Center for Studies in Higher Education And was appointed interim executive vice-chancellor and provost in April 2016 Before being named Chancellor last March March 2017 Without further ado the floor is yours. Thank you, Dan Thank you You know it would be so much more natural for me to be walking around But I realized there's a stationary camera so there has to be a stationary Chancellor I Want to say first of all that the reason that I so much just like this question about what is it like to be the first woman Chancellor? Not a single person I can guarantee you said to Clarker. What's right to be the first male Chancellor? Anyway what I want to do is first thank you I see lots of familiar faces in this room And some faces that I don't know Most of you are staff not all of you are but I just I We have such a fabulous staff at Berkeley And I just want to thank you for the good work that you do every day the Imagination you bring to your work the loyalty you bring to the campus. So thank you I'm going to do two things in my opening remarks. The first is to remind you what my goals are the goals that I Determined when I began that Chancellor ship and then I'm going to talk about the strategic planning process and relationship to those goals So first my goals, there were five of them. There are five of them first to build community Second to enhance the student experience. So every student thrives at Berkeley doesn't just survive at Berkeley The third is to increase diversity Among students both graduate and undergraduate staff and faculty The fourth is to invest in those research initiatives where Berkeley can make the biggest difference to our State our nation and our world and the fifth is to create a new financial model for the campus as You I think most of you know we've been engaged in a strategic planning process since the fall We haven't had a strategic plan since 2002. So it's certainly timely to create a new one And I decided to structure this Strategic planning process around four strategic questions that I think are really important for the campus to answer Before I say what the four questions are I want to say That it's very easy and it's certainly I've done this a lot in this 150th year anniversary to have a triumphalous narrative of Berkeley You know of all the great things we've done I think it's much more important to have a resilience narrative about Berkeley Because in fact there have been lots of challenges in the course of our 150 year old History and one of the things that distinguishes the campus is how imaginative how inventive how resilient The campus has been in regard to those challenges whether they're the loyalty oath controversy budget problems repeatedly the free speech movement and So I think it's important. I I think triumphalous narratives get you into trouble Because there there's no place to go but down but but I so I've been trying to build a resilience narrative for the campus and I Berkeley is as Henry Brady was saying the other day in a talk that he gave to the Regents Berkeley is a kind of miracle the University of California is kind of a miracle and it's important to think About what that miracle is But also important not to shy away from the questions that I believe we have to answer If we're going to have a future that is been as brilliant as our past and the questions are these the four questions What are the? the the I Was using the word grand challenges some faculty feel that's too corporate, but I'm going to use that word anyway What are the grand challenges that this the campus can't collectively address that are going to have the most impact on the State the country and the world the big big research questions where you need multiple disciplines to come up with solutions Second or what investments can we make that will have the greatest impact on the quality of student experience? the third is What our Enrollment strategy is for the future. It's not any secret that Berkeley has been growing our enrollment Targets are not entirely within our control But I think the campus would be well served if at least it had its own viewpoint about what we thought how big we thought We should be and then finally what is a new financial model for the campus? And so you can see from my just saying what those questions are very much connected to my priorities Tomorrow morning in your email box your inbox You will have the steering committee's first draft report of the strategic plan And so I wanted to do just by way of kind of stimulating the discussion Tell you what the main recommendations are and then we can talk about them more if you like the first is Define and leverage Berkeley's distinctive character and comprehensive academic excellence it is really calling on Berkeley to articulate celebrate and reinforce The values and qualities that have made it great and to continue to serve as an exceptional international model now I You know, I'm a student of English That's my academic field and I am a really a big believer in Narratives and how important narratives are and I think Berkeley has to spend a lot of time thinking about What its story is at this moment in its history not it's oh, we're so great That we're the greatest university in the world, but what's the story of the next 10 years? What's the story we want to tell about ourselves and I believe in the power of mission statements So I've been challenging this steering committee to think about a mission statement I've been very moved by the mission statement or the principles that the high school developed question everything Students always confidence without Attitude and beyond yourself That's this a lot if you think about each of those things and they're pretty close to what Berkeley has to so the first recommendation is really a kind of Recommendation about narrative and about mission The second curricula for the future create new flexible academic programs that fall foster Multidisciplinarity and draw on Berkeley's comprehensive excellence The world is so different now Then it was certainly in the 90s when I was in the administration before and I think most people are aware That you need more than one string to your bow To be successful in the world of today that you need more than One discipline that you do But really come multiple capacities and competencies So the steering committee that is really interested in the idea of Combining two majors. They're calling them half majors. I'm not sure that's the best term But that's what they're calling them and three plus two plus four and four plus one programs So students in five years leave not just with a bachelor's but with a bachelor's and a master's They recommend expanding high-quality online summer off-campus programs that create flexibility for students and explore non-traditional kinds of enrollments Online certificate programs degree completion programs post-bac programs We want to what our admit rate this year was only 13 percent That's a real problem for Berkeley and we need to reach out and touch more people and we can do it through different kinds of programs third Create a community where all Berkeley students can thrive both academically and personally for me the big issue here Is housing I've set off and I want to double the housing capacity of Berkeley in the next 10 years I'm happy to talk about how I want to do that if you interested in talking about that later We are in something of a crisis in terms of financial support for graduate students We're no longer as competitive as we once were in our financial packages. So We're financing for particularly doctoral students is really important our facilities need work as you all know I think enough said there and I think we have to improve our both advising and mentoring of students on both undergraduate and graduate Fourth is grand challenges, which I think they are now talk They've decided to use the word signature initiatives develop targeted approaches including research teaching and public service For Berkeley to address a set of very carefully determined issues and the ones they're thinking about now are Inclusive intelligence that means both human and artificial intelligence and the way they interact environmental change sustainability and justice democracy governance and freedom of expression inequality and opportunity Charting a new course to health and well-being and being the public University of the future the fifth is a recommendation about diversity, which I believe in very strongly to increase our diversity and they Put forward the very audacious goal of becoming in 10 years a Hispanic serving institution that would mean 25% of our undergraduate students are Hispanic Expanding access access this the steering committee this will probably be the most controversial thing they're recommending is Recommending that we continue to grow If if we can get the adequate resources So that's going to be a complicated one to think about I think Seventh move toward a more holistic and disciplined approach to making financial decisions We we're really stuck in a set of financial practices That relate to an old financial world in which we had lots of different colored money Most of them from the state and those monies were mapped to their uses We have to change our whole philosophy of budgeting See money has money All money is green rather than saying all of this money came from this so it has to be used for that We're not going to be using our resources wisely until we Develop a culture and a financial system of integrated and holistic budgeting and Then finally a trust-based ethos increasing transparency reducing complexity and building revenues With methods by methods that are consistent with our values So I'll stop there. There's lots of room for conversation in those Thanks, we're going to get to some more questions about the strategic planning process But I just I'm going to use my moderators prerogative to ask you a couple of questions I really have been meaning to ask you for a while actually So I think it's safe to say that few chancellors have come into office here Knowing the campus as well as you did What surprised you what challenges that you face were surprising or what pleasantly or Unpleasantly now that you you know you've been in that corner office Well, I think it's so important to not assume that the university you knew in my case in the 90s Is the university now they are a lot of important changes to the campus Certainly the way the free speech controversies have played out very different very new dynamics The world of research is research funding I should say is profoundly different than it was in the 90s It used to be in the 90s that the public dollar was the most valuable dollar the federal research You know whether it's from you know NIH or NSF or NASA that was the most valuable money now It's much more. There's a very complicated high-stakes world of private philanthropy and research and Often for for many of our researchers I've heard them say those are the most valuable dollars the freest dollars for us to use the dollars that allow us to Take greatest risk So the world of research is different the world of entrepreneurship is so different It used to be I remember having a meeting in the 90s in which we brought a bunch of venture capitalists into a room Somewhat like this them and ask them How do we create a better relationship between the campus and venture capital and everybody was looking really puzzled in scratching their head and Now as you know, there's grown up on the borders of the campus incubators accelerators this world is so robust and Has so many moving pieces to it. That's really different. So I I think it's so Easy for Berkeley because it's been so great for so long to develop what one of the deans called a legacy problem Just thinking it's great in the past and so nothing has to change We just have to go back to our glory days and the things things change But you asked me what surprised me about this job the thing that surprised me the most is how much time I've had to spend on athletics. I didn't expect that And Yeah, amen And what's this and what's the hardest part and what's the best part of being chancellor? Oh The best part is you know when you're in these positions. I felt this when I was president of Smith You meet people you never would meet if you were a faculty member and It's just the variety of people that you meet alumni staff Students and so just understanding them and getting this sense that you feel I mean certainly very powerfully for me that this is Berkeley Berkeley is its human communities that extend in space and through time So that's the best part What's the worst part hardest the hardest part? I think there are two really hard parts to my job One is making progress on diversity if that it's these they're I've come to so much appreciate how hard Life is on this student front on this campus for undocumented students How hard life is for our African-American students 3%? I when I came to the campus in 1970 3% of the faculty were women. I know what it feels like to be 3% It means in a room like this Maybe there are five people who you are like you and so I've been aware of how many of our students struggle with just basic needs Homeless by which I don't mean they're pushing shopping carts around the campus But that they're couch surfing the living in their cars They're sneaking into campus buildings to sleep at night and and a lot of them just don't frankly get enough food So I guess I have those weren't really the same issue, but that's one issue is the is the Real intractability not just on campus, but in our country of diversity Issues the other is that the financial challenges that the university is facing and the way in which the culture has to change to create a Different financial model is genuinely hard. I don't think hard is bad. I like challenges I like hard problems, but you can't ever pretend they're not hard Carol you also mentioned free speech and just you know here We are in May and September you said you want to dedicate this year to campus to an engagement to a conversation about free speech Lots happened we spent an incredible amount of money to provide security through yesterday We're Milo enopolis is being chased out of a bar in New York being heckled and I think we can take some credit for that And but by the same token and if people may not even know it in the last few months We've had a number of high-profile Conservative speakers have come through campus not a ripple in the pond no fuss no must so where do you think we are? What do you think we've learned and what have you learned in the course of this? Academic you're engaging with those issues. Well, I've learned first of all that free speech is not just a set of principles You put on a piece of paper. It's very much a process of engagement and that you you the Constitutional protections for free speech in which I ardently believe I'm not someone as some people in the community argue We should change the protections in the First Amendment. I believe that those are extraordinarily important protections even when we hate the speech that we're hearing But they will therefore often come in conflict with some of the values We hold as a community and that's a process of engagement and I hope we've made some progress in Making people's or allowing Everyone on campus to understand how complex these issues are and to engage with them more thoughtfully and deliberately We're about to release the report of the Commission on free speech. I think it's a really really Excellent report makes some very good recommendations. I think of ways in which we can better align The protections we afford to free speech with our values as a community and but that's what's You know, I suppose this is true of any really important issue that affects a community It takes a lot of talk and a lot of work to start to change how people see things I also think we were successful in changing the narrative. I think I know that many people including me are Really a hate that we spent so much money But on the other hand the fact that we had such a calm spring I think is related to the fact that Spending the money enabled us to change the narrative Thank you. So we're going to go now and do some questions in the audience And I just want to remind folks that as we go along if you questions pop into your minds And you want it would like to submit them fill out the cart hold up your hand somebody will come gather them So it's actually this first question. It's the third time. I've heard this this week for whatever the reason I love that I've seen you on Bart It's like oh Getting to and from someone like a quote regular person And so this this person wants to know what do you do a practice or something? And I assume they mean something like yoga or meditation to stay grounded. Oh gosh, well, I Have a living with me this year my son and my daughter-in-law and my two grandchildren who were six and two and That keeps you grounded My granddaughter my six-year-old granddaughter doesn't quite understand my job. She thinks I'm the principal of the school And she says you arrange everybody's schedules, don't you grandma? Yeah, okay, that is more seriously I play I try to play music more than I get it the time to do that really keeps Me grounded you when you play music you're always in that music space And what do you play? I play the viola on the piano, and so that's not at the same time I hope no, no, I haven't mastered that yet So the next one to go into a slightly different areas What in your opinion gets our major donors excited? How do their interests mesh or not with our own and then maybe you could expand on that a little bit talked about your Your vision for philanthropy and the role it's going to need to play in the campus's future. Yeah, what donors want? donors are they want to love us and They they what they want is a vision What they don't want is a shopping list They don't want a Sense of how terrible the state is to us. So of course you have to give us lots of money. They don't want a tale of woe That donors with the capacity to invest Philanthropically in a transformational way Want to invest in a vision that they feel Their gift is going to help you achieve They love our faculty. They love our students And so in part why we're doing this strategic planning process is That we need that vision in order to motivate philanthropy at the highest level in terms of philanthropy we have to learn how to do things somewhat differently as a campus and I would say there are two principle ways in which we have to learn to do things differently the first is that Well, we're kind of Johnny come lately to the philanthropy game our first comprehensive campaign for the campus was in the late 1980s so that's way behind places like Harvard and Stanford and Yale and Princeton and For a long time because we got we were so generously funded by the state Philanthropies were nice to have extras Now what we have to do is raise money for the core it has to become an important revenue stream for the very center of what we do and Second way in which we have to change Philanthropy is very decentralized at Berkeley. So I've had so many donors tell me When I walk on campus, I feel like I have a target on my back Or I feel that I can't have a conversation With an individual that I might happen to know Without being kid up for money for their special project and for donors with Large capacity you have to deal with them in a holistic way and and being nickled and dime to death or another donor Use the word bitten to death by mosquitoes. It's just I mean, it's just not the most effective way to be Inspiring the greatest philanthropic gifts. So this is going to demand much much more Collaboration between our units and you can't see a donor as an ATM or Go to a donor with a kind of shopping list as you would go to the supermarket. You really have to when a when a Someone with great capacity financial capacity Gives a gift. It's a statement about who they want to be on this earth and who they want to be What they want their legacy to be and you have to tap into that Imagination that that's really important So you mentioned collaboration just now and in fact two questions have come in from the audience that Touch on exactly that issue and I'm going to read them both What plans in there to are there to improve collaboration between apartments? To facilitate coming together as a university and then in the same vein another question Despite good intentions and statements university decision-making does not seem collaborative from the staff perspective How do you see changing that or do you want to? Okay, two really challenging questions the first I mean one of the things that has surprised me in coming back to Berkeley after being in a much much simpler institution is how complex and bureaucratic and Decentralized the campus is in a way that I believe now carries Huge costs for the university. It means people are never sure when a decision is made It's never clear who's supposed to be making the decision And it's it seems as our culture. It's easy to if you want to do something new Create a new department or a new unit or a new center to do it rather than figure out how our current units or centers Could change in order to accomplish whatever the goal is so I believe that the collaboration issue is a symptom of a governance problem that we have that we just need to learn how to become both more transparent and more agile in our governance and I I believe nobody has all the best ideas. I seek advice a lot and And take advice I hope when it's often But one of the things I've observed about this campus is People often represent as not being sufficiently consultative When in fact they're unhappy with the decision and and I think it's really important to be clear And this is an enormously consensus-driven campus But we may not be able to afford that kind of elaboration of consultation At a time when there are so many urgent issues pressing on us I don't mean by that that I'm going to go up into you know, you know My office in California Hall and just sit at my desk and decide a lot of things. Of course, I I Consult but You also have to have I I believe Healthy organizations have a respect for decision-making and Sometimes I feel this campus has lost its Respect for decision-making What do you mean by that? I mean, how do you for for the very active making decisions or people don't want to accept decisions? They don't like what is what does that mean exactly? Well one of the you know time-honored ways of resisting a decision you don't like I said the process wasn't right and So I think that it's that it's the It's you know, there's some very contentious issues that we're dealing with right now I'll just name a few of them What to do with the Oxford tract whether to use it for housing what to do with People's Park another one and There are decisions about either of those just to use those as examples Are our not everyone is going to agree. What about what to do? I see Jenny Simon O'Neill here what to do about the budget and athletics And what kind of size and scope of program can we afford the answers to any of these questions? People are not all going to agree But decisions really have to be made what I've found in my career as best as you really Explain how you're going to make a decision what the timeline is for a decision then you stick to it But I realize it's a that's a that's an issue in any complex organization This is probably one of the most complex organizations in terms of governance in existence You have the office the president you've got the regions you've got the legislature You've got all the deans of all the colleges. You've got the or you directors. You've got the administration You've got the academic Senate and every one of those feels they have an ownership stake in every decision And also every one of those it doesn't particularly isn't particularly comfortable with recognizing the ownership stake of others So it's really it's complicated I think we have that to your list of most challenging things So now Touch on something you brought up and that was the issue of diversity and this question goes as follows current data shows That underrepresented minority groups are significantly low in enrollment and yet it is not and yet It is crucial the this person states for excellence in the classroom What can be done to ensure we have equitable representation of the public in California? That they I think we have to spend even more energy effort and money in in Outreach that is recruiting For students to apply to Berkeley and then outreach and yielding that We have a very diverse state, but I think I in coming back it felt that the Campus had been actually kind of shell-shocked by proposition 209 and not Not tried to figure out as energetically as it might You know what kind of latitude do we have and we have a lot of latitude in those two pieces of the recruitment process I also believe that there is more opportunity in Building a diverse transfer population than we currently have That's where a lot of underrepresented students start at community colleges I'm Becoming a proponent of Re-instituting they're called tag of programs programs in which you are Admitted both to a community college and to a university campus at the same time Then you have a very tight connection With that student in his or her years at the community college and then they you know come come to Berkeley If they've you know taken the right classes and performed adequately in those classes, but I believe that that transfer I think we have opportunities to diversify with transfer students that we haven't as Fully taken advantage of as possible So you had to bring up athletics now it's time to reap the rewards Two questions on that front One states athletics is no longer responsible for the stadium debt as per an announcement you issued earlier in the year is athletics receiving a higher budget cut or budget reduction as a result and Similar question. What sort of budget cut will there be for athletics? And I think the broader question here is about The financial future of the program and where we are and what you anticipate well first Let me talk about the stadium debt first of all It's not that the whole stadium debt is on the campus's books It's the seismic portion of that debt which is roughly fifty four percent of that debt is on the campus's books I thought that that was important because I thought that we have an obligation as a campus to ensure the seismic safety of one of our biggest spaces for for community community events the I Have said to athletics that their budget must be balanced by 2020 Just as the campus's budget must be balanced by 2020. I actually do see a road to that the Athletics is underperforming both in terms of revenue generation and in terms of philanthropy So lots of opportunities there doesn't mean that there may not be some really hard decisions That as we as we reach the balanced budget Athletics has shared the budget reduced size budget reductions of all the administrative units on campus I've tried to protect the academic units, but they've had significant budget reductions and and But one of the things we recently had a study of athletics by a firm called collegiate sports Associates CSA one of the things I discovered as a result of that study, which is kind of stunning to me is that the Monies that athletics gives the campus if setting aside the deficit, which is a huge setting aside I admit that but the monies that come to the campus are greater than the contribution that the campus makes to athletics There is a Byzantine Financial It's hard to call it a plan system That that is you know, it's it's a lot of our finances on campus are Byzantine and not Transparent, but athletics they're particularly so and I think we just have to have greater transparency But I don't think and the CSA Confirm this it's not that there's waste fraud and abuse It's really that with the campus has never come to terms in my view with the Tension between our goals and athletics and and the resources available to athletics Okay, we're going to shift gears here a little bit for a question about unions and representation in the two-fold question Do you think having collective representation for staff categories is an aid or a hindrance to achieving your goals? How so and the second part is what would your top advice be to staff considering the unionization drives is that supporting the mission I Believe in unions. I think that Union representation has been good for the American workforce at lots of unions at Smith we worked very very constructively together and And I think that this campus from my observation has a somewhat I don't want to say needlessly antagonistic but more antagonistic than You know would be ideal and it's the relationship between the campus and the unions So what would your advice be for that second part of the question for for staff who are facing unionization drives and Trying to understand how best I Think that this is really a personal conscience and work workplace conscience if you can use that word issue for staff themselves I wouldn't give any advice pro-work on Moving on to the third rail of former third rail of Berkeley politics regarding plans to develop people's park What kind of opposition do you anticipate? There's a positive question What kind of opposition do you anticipate and how do you plan to respond to that opposition? People's Park. I mean whatever you think of the ideals that Motivated the creation of the park in the 1960s. I don't think anybody Walking past or in the park today Could say it represents those ideals I've been very troubled by the crime in the park One of our staff members who works in the park really serving the park was violently attacked Maybe two weeks ago A two-year-old playing in the park was fed methamphetamine and taken to the hospital. I mean it's really horrible and And I think it's our land and we have a responsibility for it. I Believe the situation of homelessness is one of the greatest public challenges in our country today It used to be that people who Traveled to India Would say how hard it was to see the very close juxtaposition of wealth and poverty in India Our country has become the same way And I believe we have to be a partner with the city and addressing the issue of homelessness so the solution that I'm going to propose in just a few weeks publicly but Hear this now here is to propose that we build about 50 beds of long-term housing for the homeless on people's park with you know wraparound services so so so that those students at the Population gets the kind of help it needs Part of it as a park and a usable park as opposed to the park now Which is not terribly usable and then student housing which is so desperate in need and So I hope this three-way Plan this tripartite plan will gain acceptance I've been talking about it a lot informally and have not Gotten a lot of resistance to it the mayor has said he would be happy when I announced this plan to be my partner in announcing it The mayor supports it as just the city council So I mean maybe this is fool's rush in where angels feared fear to tread But I feel we have a kind of opening now where we can do something with the park that would both recognize and Contribute to the solution of the problem of homelessness, but also provide much much needed Housing for our students. There was also another related question that came in from the audience Regarding homelessness and specifically so I think as many people know you're not living in University House You had a home in Berkeley where you happily return to and the University houses obviously continues to be used for campus events and government community relations is being moved in And to occupy some of that space regardless the question was how you reacted to the demand of some students that University house be converted into some sort of residence hall for some number of them I don't think that was a Very realistic proposal at the same time I very much respect the advocacy of these students in regard to student homelessness as I've said I think it's a huge problem. I don't think turning University house into Housing for homeless students is the right answer. It's not finally a long-term or a structural answer Our problem is really that we have so few beds We have just a few more than 7,000 beds I can't remember the number of hundreds with the 7,000 for 40,000 students and Community in which housing is extraordinarily expensive and also really hard to find So that what we need to do is I've said double our housing capacity we're doing this in the first instance by long-term leases and Then we're going to be building on all the land we can build on and that will include people's park and it will include the ox retract That that that seems to me so fundamental to the quality of student experience to better address their needs for for affordable housing and and and also for food We're going to move into a couple of questions here in the budget realm The first one is so what are you doing to either confront or combat or Plan forever what the the questioners describes as ever just decreasing state support And how is that transforming the campus's financial model? Well, I hope that we can keep our state support I am not optimistic that we'll be able to increase it But I've been spending a lot of time in Sacramento this spring talking to legislators and the tenor of the conversations is changing and They are More and I've been experiencing much more openness to buying out the tuition increase and to restoring the one percent that Jerry Brown cut from the Agree previously agreed upon four percent increase to our state Allocation I think we have to be present and actively engaged in Sacramento So that the only face in Sacramento is not the face of the office of the president But that they see the campuses and understand the faculty and the students are the Really that the people that the inadequate budget really hurts So I believe that we have to be constantly vigilant about About the state It was Chris Treadway who said we should be treating our legislators like donors and I believe that that's a very Good way of putting it and it really changes your way of understanding those meetings That I also believe that the We absolutely must multiply and diversify sources of revenue that there is Nobody is going to come in on a white horse with you know saddlebags full of gold and save us We really have to look to our our own creativity and ingenuity Of course always do things that are consistent with our mission and our objectives our characters a public institution But we have lots of levers we can we can Pull and we should be doing that So just to follow up on that I think for a lot of us It seems like a slam dunk and we struggle to understand why legislators would resist Any sort of return to the level of funding the university used to enjoy given the return on investment and the clear public service and the growing population of prospective students What do you hear up there when they what it what's the argument for the status quo and for not some sort of return to Funding that's more appropriately matched with what the needs are of the state and of the population we serve. I hear three things Only one of which I I mean I certainly grew credibility that people think all three things, but I think only one of them is it is really a Substantive answer the one that's a substantive answer is That the tax structure of the state and the entitlements there simply isn't any money Even if the legislators were very differently minded I think the best opportunity for increased funding for the university is a proposition that's going to be on the ballot in 2020 the next presidential election that will remove corporations From the protections of proposition 13 this would create huge huge income streams for the for the campus And so we have to be really Work very hard. There are powerful interests already organizing against this obviously corporations are not very happy about this and And also be really very deliberate about lobbying for that money to go to education What if if the proposition passes so That I see the root problem is not a we don't like you Problem, but a but a but a revenue problem and the structure of the state's finances the two things that I hear are There but there are a lot of legislators are very unhappy at various things that they put at the door of the office of the president and And they think we waste money and we're paid too much There you go The next question has to do with the humanities in its intersection with budgetary issues And that how do you see support of that or and I guess the potential for additional support of humanities in this climate a climate where there's a lot of money for private investment in technology and for business and for science so One of the most important budget questions that we have to answer is is What a reasonable tax rate is right now every Agreement that we have on campus is its own agreement and there are you know Dozens if not hundreds of different tax rates on different things what we have to do is if for those who have the you know possibility of of Engaging in revenue producing Cons of programs and activities We have to figure out how that best serves the rest of the campus And this is a question actually not just about humanities There are public good common good kinds of units like the library the library can't go out and raise money But so you have to figure out what a what a reasonable tax rate is So you don't have a system where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer And you don't have a system in which various units that have lots of revenue producing Opportunities like the high school for example or the law school Are not contributing to what are the kind of common good services? So these are complicated financial issues That's why I said the hardest issues to me in this job are trying to figure out those Financial issues where we're moving to a really different financial model and it's complicated intellectually to do that Thank you So this one is about has to do with graduate graduate admissions Sorry, the writing is a little hard to read graduate admissions and particularly in the arts humanities and social sciences But not exclusively do not appear to consider the realities of potential employment for those students Does the university's business model which relies heavily upon inexpensive graduate student labor? Not create a perverse incentive for Berkeley in particular Well, I think it's unconscionable to grow graduate programs to meet undergraduate teaching needs I think that graduate programs should be sized in ways that are Appropriate for the market. I also don't think though that I'm not kind of odd person out in this view That it's not a great thing to get a PhD in English or history if you want a career in something else I believe we're moving in the right direction and that departments desires To have their students well supported is leading them voluntarily to shrink their PhD programs And I think that's that's a good thing We will have to think differently about our undergraduate teaching needs, but that's the right thing to do And then this one our or use are facing up to a 20% budget cut How is this equitable in comparison to other areas receiving cuts? I I actually think that question is inaccurate. I've just met with with Randy Katz I know two days ago like last week I can't remember when it was and he has them working on a budget planning exercise first of all the 20% exercise is on the state portion of the budget. That's very different from the whole budget and it's an exercise It's not what the what the cuts are the cuts are much much smaller So we're just about at a time and I just had I had one last question Carol You're one of the straightest shooters that I know and In that context You know, you've you've put a stake in the ground around a balanced budget in 2020 and I'm How confident are you and how do you feel about the longer-range future of the university right now? Given all these challenges that we've been talking about When you go home at night, what when you think about the road ahead? How you feeling? Well, I am completely confident that we're going to balance our budget by 2020 yet. That's not I See the path there We're going to get there and it would be terrible for the campus to To just feel like you're in this endless tunnel of despair of not having a balanced budget What's much harder is making that budget stick in the in the out years So I'm not at all concerned that we won't make a balanced budget by 2020 But creating the financial model that is robust enough to sustain an institution at this excellence Is going to take a lot of very imaginative Work on the campus's part. It's going to take discipline decision-making and which we will choose the Things that are most important bets and say no to some nice shiny objects that are probably not going to lead us that far and And requires a lot of operational discipline, which we hasn't always been our strong suit and longer term the future of the university This is The University of California is the greatest public university in the world and I feel for all of us we're its custodians and I it has such It is hard to take a university. That's not very good and make it great. It's really hard We have a university. That's great. And so it's on us all of us to make the choices that Sustained that greatness. So I I believe in the people here and ultimately This is really about the people here the faculty the staff the students and our wonderful alumni Well, I can't think of any better note to end this what was a really fantastic conversation. I just thank you. Thank you