 Greetings and welcome to this academic year ending campus conversations and today it's my distinct pleasure and honor to welcome Chancellor Carol Christ. For discussion about the year that that's passed and what lies ahead. As always we're going to welcome your questions for those of you who haven't submitted them already they can be posted to our Facebook live site Carol welcome. Thank you Dan, good to see you. Likewise, so without further ado, perhaps a few reflections on the academic year that's coming to a close and some thoughts about what lies ahead. Thank you. First of all I want to thank everyone who is listening for your contributions this year for staff for your incredible work for faculty your incredible research and teaching and for students for your work and hopes for successful completion of your year. So thank you. It's been a challenging year I think, both because of adjusting to the end of the pandemic, and also because of the graduate student strike. I want to talk a little bit about the pandemic because we've been so focused on its medical impact that I think we haven't spent enough time thinking about its psychological and social impact that so many of us have been remote for significant years of the last two and a half years I'd say it's really been three and a half since we started isolating because of the pandemic. And that is not only takes a toll in and of itself, but it really breaks our social patterns in ways that I think we're still recovering from. So I think paradoxically, this is a stressful time as we try to remake those patterns. And, and so I want to say first I think it's been a hard year. I talked to a lot of staff and faculty who say they feel really burnt out. And I think it's because of the difficulty of the year. That said, there's an enormous amount that's gone on that's really exciting. We in the campaign, the $6 billion campaign that we have that will end December 31, 2023. And so this December, we hit the goal 14 months early in November of 2022. So that's really extraordinary news with some extraordinary gifts for the campus, which is itches really good. We're at a moment of real building on the campus. Any of you who drive down Oxford Street will see anchor house it looks like it's going up a story a week. So that's the, the residence is called that will is dedicated to transfer students and the, the, it's the biggest gift the university has ever received. And a stipulation of the gift is everything we save through not having long term debt on that building because it's a gift will go to financial aid so that's very exciting. The park is stalled, but we're working on trying to get a resolution of that so we can, we can, we can continue with the people's park project. We also have two more residence halls in active planning, one on the corner of a Bancroft and Fulton, another on the Channing Ellsworth parking lot. So we're really making good on our commitment to double the number of beds in our housing system within a 10 year period. I forgot to add that we're also have already started construction on graduate student housing in Albany near University Village. We have about 770 beds. So I'm really excited about the progress that we're making on housing. It really seems tangible now, whereas it had been just that plans. In addition, you can see the gateway rising up from the Tolman site. In this Regents meeting, the Regents will have the opportunity to consider and I hope approve the new College of Computing Data Science and Society. The campus has not founded a new college in over 50 years. So this is a very exciting moment. It's had a long time and it's development over seven years, and, and it's the fastest growing major on campus so that's extremely exciting. We have other projects that will begin construction in the fall. There is the, the, the addition to chemistry, Hethcock Hall, up at the top of campus along Gailey Road. And there's the Center for Connected Learning, which will continue the renovation of Moffat Library really constructing a real center for learning for undergraduates, not only library space, but also a space that undergraduates can access central kinds of programs and services. So that's really exciting. We're adding two floors to Bechtel. Groundbreaking has already happened for that project though, as some of you may know, groundbreaking doesn't actually mean groundbreaking. It means they bring in a sandbox, and you take a shovel of the sand and that's the breaking ground but the actual construction project will start before the fall. And then there's going to be a new classroom and LNS advising building that will be built on the Duenail Hall parking lot, and I and all the others that park there will be very disappointed with parking going away, but that's really exciting. And then the research is so amazing that our faculty do. There's been so much progress in regard to research and climate research and biomedical research that that's enormously exciting. And finally there are the students we're on Saturday, graduating the class that entered in 2019. They were the students that went home thinking it was just going to be a few weeks in March of 2020 and wound up being many of them away for a year and a half. So this is a very special class that we're graduating on Saturday. And then of course there are the new students that we're welcoming we had again 125,000 applicants for about 6000 places. Those students have all signed their letters of intent the transfer students haven't yet their deadline I believe is June 1, but the, but the freshman entering freshman have signed the letters of intent. I don't know we yet know what the new class is going to look like, but I'm excited that we have again splendid students coming in we've been doing a lot of yield events to try to persuade those extraordinary students that we've committed to choose us. So those are some of the things that have happened this year. Next year. I expect first of all will be ending our, our campaign on December 31. We're going to have a big celebration for years to the date of when we launched the campaign publicly. That'll be February 29 of 2024. And, and I expect our students and faculty to continue their extraordinary research and we're going to see all these buildings springing up. So an exciting year in many ways. Thanks for that rundown. It's kind of amazing you keep track of all that given how much activity there is on campus. And that was a bit of a mixed bag, to be honest there talked about burnout and stress and adapt adaptation to change. You've been connected with this university for so long. How do you when you step back how do you assess our, our current health, our strength as an institution as a community. And I think a lot about as resilience. I think resilience has characterized Berkeley throughout its history. And it's had many crises, many budget crises, many, many political crises, and it always has emerged from them, I think stronger. I believe that that's a quality that's important, not only to individuals, but to institutions. And I, I think the pandemic though I certainly wouldn't wish it to happen if I, you know we're standing back at the beginning of it and have the power to do it. It enabled us to develop online tools that we didn't have before, just like this conversation that we're having currently on zoom online, online tools for instruction that I think are going to be a make instruction better. It made us think more deeply, I believe about the, the power of community how important it is to us. So, I, I, I believe that resilience is something particularly characteristic of the Berkeley campus maybe it's because we're, you know, as almost as far west as it can be in the United States and, you know, always looking for the next frontier. I think it's our scientific culture, I think it's our political culture. So, I, I really think, I mean there's always, I have been Hermelin the provost talks about how Berkeley is often in the past, talked about doom and yet it's always emerged from whatever challenges that have been said is, I believe stronger for them than, than they were, it was before so I would talk, I would say resilience is the most important characteristic. Yeah, I think it's hard to argue, argue with that for anyone who truly knows the university. At the same time you brought up at the beginning, this issue of burnout. How do you hope we will address that what, what's your message to people who are feeling maybe just a little maxed out after the last few years of challenges. I think a good summer vacation is mostly what I would say. I think the summer is for many people certainly I'm planning on it. A time of renewal, a time for decoupling a bit from your job, and, and really taking time for family for friends whatever you like to do best. I think that's important. I also think, I mean it's really, I've been struck in these conversations I've had about burnout, that people often attribute it to their jobs, whereas my take on the situation is that it's in large part the result of the pandemic. In the world we're living in where it seems to me there is this relentless parade of catastrophes mass shootings, international crises, very combative confrontational politics. I think all of those things are contributing to burnout, not just the stress one might feel from one's individual job. I also really believe in letting go of aspects of your job that's a little bit like, I think an analogy is housekeeping that you don't, you know, stress yourself to remove the dust bunny from your house. And I think the same thing is true in your job, certainly in a job like mine, which could keep me busy more than 24 hours every day. And I have to prioritize all the time and let things go that I don't think are worth my time and I would encourage everybody to do that, to, to not feel like you have to spend the same kind of exhaustive and perfectionist energy on every piece of your job and always to make time for relaxation, for family, for friends, for all of the things that are outside of the workplace. It is important in keeping you productive and happy in your job. Yeah, yeah. What an interesting multi layered answer, which resonates in many different ways. You know, one of the other things that I think people are noting and some may be concerned, some may be happy and that's leadership transitions leadership changes on campus. Can you run down the primary ones and maybe just give us a sense of what the sense of what the plans are for replacing those who are leaving. Well, of course, the one that I'm most conscious of is Rosemary raise retirement she's been an extraordinary partner to me through to budget crises, and we're now in a third. So, of course, very sad to see her go. We already have made an offer for an interim person to come in for a two year period, I can't announce who it is, because the office the president has to approve it. And, but I'm very happy about the appointment I think it's really going to be. The person is going to be really excellent in that in that role. And that person will overlap a little bit with Rosemary. And we'll have a very full orientation to the other financial and planning issues on the on the campus early next year will be starting a search for the permanent role. But it seemed to me it was really important to have an interim and an interim that would have some length of tenure. So that's how we're proceeding with that. There's another person who's leaving the campus going to the Getty to take a wonderful position as the chief information officer there. And we've already started or search for her replacement and we will appoint an interim but not a long term interim as in an in Rosemary's case. And then there always are deanships that are in, you know, we have a policy now that we in only in very unusual circumstances, encourage deans to stay longer than 10 years so with as many deanships as we have there are some transitions there. So we'll be starting a number of dean searches we just announced a new dean for the Berkeley School of Education that's really exciting. So I think those are the main transitions. Got it. I, and if you will I don't want to ignore the chancellor in the room, but what are your own plans. I'm thinking a lot about what what I, you know, when I want to retire and certainly feel like I've, I've done a lot of the things that I wanted to achieve so I'm thinking a lot about that question. Okay, we'll leave it at that. Stay tuned. Let's talk about budget I want to dive a little bit more into that there were a couple of questions that came in from members of our staff that sort of relate what we were talking about and both these questions had to do with reducing the bureaucratic burden. And the questions are, how can we keep trying there's an initiative underway to reduce the bureaucratic burden. You're being asked, how can we how can we meaning staff and faculty and students I suppose keep track of that initiative. And also, whatever can you describe whatever plans currently are already exists for modernizing that bureaucracy. There's two things to bust bureaucracy as the provost puts it. One is the he has a task force, I assume they'll be regular report outs from that task force about the progress that they're making and indeed they are making progress. I think that we're doing our deep dives into some of our administrative units, trying to figure out whether they're doing business in the most efficient way possible, whether there are things they can simply eliminate. And then I would encourage everybody and their individual job to if you think there's, you're doing something that doesn't make any sense to step forward and tell your supervisor about it. I know, even in my job there are things that I do and I just scratch my head about thinking, why are we doing this. It's really worth the effort. And so I would really encourage that I think busting bureaucracy is both the provost initiative will also be a result of these reviews we're doing of administrative units but I think it's all of our responsibility of trying to figure out. What are we doing that really doesn't make any sense that we don't need to do it. I mean, how best to keep track of that just check the web or we will we be campus messaging. How do people follow. I assume it will be on the provost website, I think that'll be that's a good way to keep track of it. Okay, I hope I've become sort of cynical about how messages I've talked to too many people who seek out message at the top and just delete without even reading what it's about. So Ben is listening today and understands that you've just given him a new task. Let's turn to the budget. You mentioned that in your initial remarks about a third financial crisis. We recently had a last camp campus conversation delved into what could be an expected or what might be a $82 million deficit. And an update on the budget. What's happening with the state and what the forecast is our financial forecast is well I spent all day yesterday in Sacramento going from a legislator office to legislator office, making the case for the 5% that's been in the current governance budget 5% increase in the budget of the University of California. I should say I've got a very good response from the legislators that I was seeing. They seem to be a very good intention and supportive of the University of California. So I was really happy with with my day. And so there's that it's really important for us to hold on to the 5% in a state budget that seems to look bleaker by the day. But in addition, well we first want to reassure people that we do have the money, despite the $82 million deficit to balance the budget this year we're going to use accumulated investments to balance the budget this year. But that there is still an imbalance between our the rate at which our expenses are growing, and the rate at which our revenues are growing the combination of cohort tuition that we now have that's tuition that increases for entering students only and then say stable throughout their time at Berkeley. The combination of what the state gives us even 5% and cohort tuition simply doesn't equal the growth on our expenditures. I've always believed that it is better to generate new revenues than to cut, which is very painful, particularly after so many years of financial austerity. And so we're working very hard on trying to figure out how to generate new revenues I've already talked about how successful philanthropy has been. But of course philanthropy is lumpy. You can't go to a donor and say please give me some money for deferred maintenance or please give me some money for just the operations of the university that in talking to a donor you're very much trying to match between the university's needs, and, and their passion about their legacy. So it's not like donors are not like an ATM, they're, they're not like a shopping list. So what we have to figure out is what is the appropriate system of taxation, if you will, of our revenues that are coming in for the common good. And that's how the the financial reform is is working that Ben Hermelin is heading is trying to think not only how we read more transparent about our resources and about how we decide where resources are going, but what uniform system of taxation can we create across the campus that will enable us to to fund the common good. We've already instituted one piece of that, and we've added 2.5% to what we call the philanthropic allocation. So basically a gift tax, we've added 2.5% up to that specifically for deferred maintenance which I is such a huge problem on the campus. So one of the questions that just came in just to drill down a little bit further, how would you assess progress on that financial reform. I think it's been a goal that's been spoken a lot about for many years. And I think people are really interested to know why you think this time will be different and how things are going. I think this time will be different because we have more agreement about the terms and the questions with the Academic Senate. I think that the piece of financial reform that's about the temporary academic staffing budget is largely done although I don't know if it's been communicated yet. So I think that every time I've talked to a campus that's engaged the leadership of campus that is it's engaged in this kind of financial reform. I think the timetable is four to five years. So it's not something that you just leap into an expect is going to be finished in six months to a year, but I think we are making good progress the pandemic. It really set us off the course we originally anticipated. So a question that came in from the audience that is financially related and this is about in general salary increases. And the question is, what's the justification for giving everyone the same percentage increase. Is this the most equitable way to distribute budgeted funds for salary increases. Could the university be missing an opportunity to promote diversity by lessening economic disparity. That's a really, really interesting question. And I first I should say that the policy about salary increases set by the office the president is not set by the campuses. So Berkeley couldn't decide to do this on its own. Many of the workers that are paid less are in unions and the union contract sets what not only the current salaries of those positions but their rate of increase. The salary increase of 4.6% is for unrepresented staff and for faculty. And I think the decision to give it across the board really reflects the concern about inflation. So I think the whoever the question is, makes a really interesting point and I suppose if I were in the position of deciding how to do this I might decide to do that but again that policy is set by the regions ultimately but the, the proposal is made by the office of the president. I see someone from the provost office must be watching today I just got a note, saying that on the provost website the ebcp's website there is indeed a tab for the bureaucratic burden task force so folks who are interested in tracking their progress. You can head on over to the ebcp's website. Let me turn now to I want to talk a little bit about another one of the goals that you've really prioritized and put front and center and that is diversifying the campuses population. So what's an update about where things stand with the various initiatives and goals that we've set for ourselves. So I should say first that I think there are two goals that we have related to diversity one is to change our demographics. And I think we're making good progress there I'm really interested in what the figures look like in diversity terms for the incoming class I don't have those yet so don't know. We are have been making strides in diversifying the faculty there are a number of programs that exist that I think have been very successful a cluster hires faculty searches with much more general rubrics have been really quite successful and diversifying the faculty. Of course it's a long process because faculty stay on the average, about 30 years. The progress among staff is good in kind of lower classifications and job categories, but less successful I would say in leadership and I so I think that's something we need to work on. But, but we've been having making good progress with a student body and good progress with with faculty. But that's only half the problem is the demographics, even more important, I think, is making sure that everyone feels like they belong that they're respected for who they are that they can bring their whole self to work. So I, I, and we have we're really working on that I think Donia Montos has been an extraordinary leader in in her various thriving initiatives that we have for each segment of the, of the, of the population as defined by ethnicity race and ethnicity. So I think it's as important to thrive at Berkeley, as it is to have diverse representation in various categories of our of our community. And so that's one of my goals, certainly, I talk a lot about equity of opportunity. That means that for our students. We, you know that students have the same access to STEM majors, for example, the same access to study abroad, the same access to research opportunities. It's as important that we think about the experience that students have available to them as the demographics of the student body. And with staff, I'm really committed to career ladders on the campus, making sure we're creating internal ladders or paths to advancement that give opportunities to the, to the people who are working so well for us. So that's the status there are two federal designations I know the university is seeking one of the designation is, let's talk about the first one in a Hispanic serving institution. Are we on track how's it going. We're on track and the goal for that is 2027 so few years to go but we're really on on track. The goal there is 25% of our undergraduate student body is Latinx. And I think we might break 20% this year which will be really good. And the other designation that we're working for and we're very close is an appeasie that's Asian American, Native American Pacific Islander. I think there'll be a campus announcement about that soon. Fantastic. I'm going to turn now to another question that came in from folks watching I know it's an issue of concern and that is any updates on school safety on securing campus buildings we also got questions concerns about unhoused people sleeping on campus, and not to load too much perhaps I think a lot of people haven't had an opportunity to meet our new police chief yet. Yogananda Pittman she's really wonderful. Yeah, so perhaps a few words about her and just in general your take on where things stand with safety concerns have been expressed by parents and members of the campus community. So, Yogananda comes to us from the capital where she was number two in command in the January 6 uprising. So, used to complex environments, in which there's a combination of keeping order and protecting. So that's, and she's really brought such fresh eyes to us so that's really good. We're working toward a tiered policing system, in which we want to use armed officers, only for the kinds of incidents where there is violence, or crime that is threatened. We're using a new category of officer who will not be in police officer clothes to to do the more routine jobs of keeping order. So every time I don't know skateboarders making a rocket, you don't have an armed police officer showing up. And the, the thing that I'm most excited about that we've already had a soft launch for this semester is a mental health response team. So when you have a wellness crisis or mental health crisis, who we send is not an armed officer or not trained to handle such crises, but rather someone who has been trained in responses to crises and mental health, we sometimes call them wellness checks. In regard to safety on campus, we're thinking hard about it, and about how best to assure safety. I think it's not so much a problem on the campus proper as in the, as in the part that's just outside of campus so we're thinking hard about how to do that. I encourage everybody at night to use our walk service, and to Berkeley is a city, and you have to use your city skills that said we're deeply committed to a safe environment. And it is to talk about the past place that I led Northampton, Massachusetts, it's not Northampton, Massachusetts and you cannot leave your house unlocked and your car unlocked as everybody in Northampton did it's a more, it's a city and, and demands city skills, but we should also have city safety guards and realize that maybe, you know, maybe not a good example because there's been so much criticism of, of the protection of safety in our, in our cities. In regard to homelessness. We have a, a social worker who is on the chancellor's office, a staffing list, who is whose job his name is are a new light to deal with homeless people we don't use a police response. If you see people camping on campus they are not allowed to camp on campus but you have to tell someone. It's not enough to just say oh why isn't someone coming around, because you know our, our people can't be everywhere. But we use a, a helping and counseling of policy strategy with with homeless people, but camping is not allowed in campus structures like parking garages, or on campus itself and if you see someone, you should tell someone so that the appropriate person can offer help to that, or most person. Yeah, and I may be wrong, correct me if I am but my understanding from our police department also is that unhoused people don't really pose a safety thread and that it's not really a law and order issue, which is what your answer seems to suggest is that your understanding as well. That's exactly right. I think homelessness is one of the tragedies of our time. It really embarrasses me about our country that we tolerate the kind of human wretchedness that you see often on the street among homeless people. As you many of the listeners may know, part of the People's Park project involves a permanent supportive housing for the homeless. So it's permanent it's not a shelter, and it's supported housing it means the services are actually in the building that many homeless people need. We offered housing to when we thought we were going to be able to start the People's Park Park project. Last summer, we offered housing to there were about 60 campers in the park at that point we offered housing to them all at a motel that the city and the campus were jointly renting. We faced a lot of skepticism people said, Oh, people like to camp outside they're not going to accept this offer of housing, all but three of the people camping in the park accepted the offer of housing. And we're committed to whenever we proceed on the People's Project, making sure to offer anyone camping in the park housing. Now I want to circle all the way back to something you mentioned the beginning you talked that we have a re gentle vote upcoming on the establishment of new college computing data computer data science and society. And it seems like the face conspired pretty nicely in terms of the explosion of AI. I mean it's all you hear about these days and Berkeley is sort of the leading center, you know, in the world for AI research the chief engineer for chat GPT is a Berkeley grad. I'm wondering what your thoughts are about it, whether as an English professor you're just feel like you're on the sidelines or do you have sort of skin in the game here. I, first of all, I think humanist very much have skin in the game. If you read the newspapers about AI, as I do and probably everybody does you know the profound ethical questions that are being asked about it. And the profound existential questions to what does it mean to have an intelligence. Can you call it an intelligence that is non human. Are you know what kinds of I've heard a number of computer scientists tell me, they just don't understand how these programs in fact work. So what does that mean, what does it mean that these programs make stuff up that they lie. And I've long been interested Frankenstein as one of my favorite books. The question that Frankenstein asks is if you create a non human creature with powers of reasoning. What are your obligations to that creature. And what rights do they have. I'm fascinated by the fact that novelists have particularly in the last decade, been writing books issue chorus novel Clara and the sun, for example, are they have been confronting this issue. So I think imaginative literature has a great deal to teach us about the questions that AI raises philosophers certainly have a lot to teach us about the ethics about its use and this college. And of course to our College of Engineering and the ECS department in that college has an enormous amount to. I mean that's so exciting, what they're discovering that there used to be a lot of fear of what was called the singularity. And the, the intelligence that was going to be greater than human intelligence and take over the world. And Ken Goldberg is a professor in in engineering talks about we should be thinking about not the singularity with some fear but rather about the multiplicity, and how AI can in fact enhance human human life and human enterprise. Yeah, it's a fascinating it's a fascinating time interesting to hear everybody's got a different balance of fear on the one hand and excitement on the other so interesting to hear that I want to turn now to another question that came in from the audience. This is, what are you as chancellor doing to reach the countless conservatives who fear harassment discrimination and possible termination for revealing their political affiliation on campus. We're part of the diversity. I this person says have already been retaliated against. Certainly, this is a huge concern for many. I should just start by saying and just reiterate for everyone that if you believe you've been retaliated discriminated against. Again, see something say something report it to we have an office for the prevention of harassment and discrimination, but beyond that Carol, what's your response to people. This isn't the first time we've heard this. People who are conservatives who are on that side of the political spectrum and do feel at times that it's a difficult environment on the Berkeley campus what's what are your commitments and thoughts in that regard. Yeah, that's a great question. First of all, when I address audiences about free speech, I often asked the question, who among you comes from a mixed political family. And I'm always amazed at the number of hands that go up. I myself come from a mixed political family that has people who are very conservative and very liberal attitudes in it. But I think more people have the experience of a call political diversity than we may think. I think part of the answer to question that's been asked is calling on our principles of community as I do often, and that we owe each other respect, even if we profoundly disagree with their ideas. One of the things that I feel very good about is we've had a number of very conservative speakers speaking on campus without disturbances. And I see that as a sign that we are making some progress, although I always, you know, warn myself not to be too complacent about this progress because in our world is a volatile one and our student body changes by more than a quarter every year. So, you know, the community is always changing too. Yeah. And I just want to make sure that what I said at the beginning about reporting that something that you endorse or whether you have anything to add to that about what people should do if they feel they've experienced perspective base discrimination or retribution. It depends a bit on the situation certainly there are grievance procedures available to you if you've suffered discrimination for your, your, your views. I also think that conversation provides a really important resource. And, and it, again, it's very situational you wouldn't do this if you were, you know, someone were yelling at you on sprawl Plaza but if someone who's a co worker for example says something. It's really something that not going to angry but you say, I'm a person, you know that that hurts me, or let's have a conversation about what you just said so I also believe people should feel depending on the situation is if they have a power of agency, not by yelling, but, but just by having a conversation. I hear you saying that that sense of belonging of community that you talked about earlier should expand across the entire community without regard to one's political perspective is that do I have that right. That's exactly right. Yes. So we did question came in from the audience somebody asked, there was a controversial speaker let's say at a different university who deeply upset the person who posed the question and they wonder why you didn't speak out in a campus message, rather than delve into the specifics that were very specific in this instance, wondering just generically in a broad sense how you think about when you need to send a campus message, taking into account your previously expressed skepticism about Cal messages. We've been, we've been talking a lot about what the policy should be about Chancellor's messages. And whenever I get together with university presidents university chancellors we talk about this, when do you speak, what do you speak about. I spoke about everything that gave me pain in the world today. There would be a constant stream of email coming from my office. I tried to when I speak. I try to speak only about things that are directly relevant to the University of California at Berkeley. I wouldn't ever criticize another institution for a conservative speaker first of all I know from our policy here that it's not the institution that invites the person. Here, it's a registered group of some sorts so that there is no, there should be no assumption that because a speaker of particularly important views speaks on a campus the campus holds those views. And also, I just don't speak out on things that happen at other institutions, just as I expect people not to speak out at things that happen at Berkeley. I certainly don't know an instance when a president or chancellor of another university has spoken out about Berkeley though certainly people are not shy about saying what their opinions are about things that happen on Berkeley. I'm curious what you make of there's been so much reporting lately about the so called cancel culture about free speech about political strife on campuses about, you know, faculty being sanctioned or students being. Where do we stand in that what's your sense in terms of higher education as a whole across the country about these currents that seem to be washing up on our shores so much lately. I think it's a very complex question that on the one hand, you know, there were as a student of the Victorian period. I know that, you know, people in other centuries and other decades even held points of view that we now strongly disagree with think or racist think or intolerant. I were involved in a process that sometimes painful is kind of painful historical reckoning. Think about the removal of statues of the Confederacy, for example, that's happening. Trying to determine what our, what our public names statues language means. And I think for the most part, that's a really healthy process of changing our language of understanding. For example, I think of the Native American mascots understanding when something that seems part of institutions culture is demeaning to a particular population and that culture. It's a process that's never going to be simple and straight clear white line that maybe white was a bad word to use there but a simple and clear line of progress. There's always going to be debate back and forth. And I think the important thing is to have the conversation. And that I think that that, you know, it's sort of moving to the point of canceling something before having the conversation is probably not healthy. Yeah, you know you're mentioned just now of Native American mascots. This brings to mind something else I forgot to ask you about earlier, and that is your assessment of where things stand with our repatriation efforts and Native American indigenous ancestral remains and cultural and sacred objects. There's been a lot of coverage about that a lot of criticism for our past practices. Where do things stand with that with our effort to improve relationships with the tribes and move forward. Well, first of all I want to say I think a deep wrong was done to Native American people by collecting their remains for scientific and museum purposes. We are trying as a very high priority of mine to return the remains and associated artifacts as quickly as we can. I wish the progress were faster. It's often a complex negotiation with tribes and between tribes. UCLA did something that I wish we could do here, which is they reached an agreement with the tribes whose remains they held to have a single burial of those remains on a piece of UCLA land that was remote from the campus. But I really want to make progress where we're appointing we were doing a search for someone who will sit in Chris, Chris Treadway's governmental affairs office who will be a tribal liaison so we'll create a single door for tribes wishing to have some engagement with the campus whether it's about remains or something else. We also have added significant numbers of staff, just to the repatriation project so that can proceed as as quickly as possible. Another question that came in this one is about admissions, it says, we appreciate how you see Berkeley has been putting in place policies that facilitate more equitable access and admissions. And we know the that faculty value students who are inquisitive and curious equal eager to learn. How is Berkeley putting these student traits front and center in the admissions process. Well, we, it's a good question to ask Femme O'Gondelli our director of admissions but I, we have embraced indeed we are a leader in holistic review of students and look very much for those qualities of temperament that mean that somebody is going to be a good and eager learner when they come to this campus. One of the things that makes me sad is that with 125,000 applications. There are many more of those students than Berkeley can possibly serve. And, you know, I have conversations with alumni often. Oh, I can't believe that my friends, you know, son or daughter wasn't admitted she's so brilliant, what happened, and there are lots of those students who would thrive at Berkeley who would be wonderful contributors to our community, and just the sheer numbers, you know, mean that we don't admit a large number of them. I wanted to just step back, even just for a second when you and I sort of met briefly to discuss today's conversation. You mentioned that you felt this was a pivotal moment in higher education. Why do you think that what did you mean by that. It was a pivotal moment because there's something I referred to earlier. The pandemic has created this whole new language of digital instruction, which many faculty perhaps all faculty are familiar with in ways that they weren't before. So if you were to have a conversation about online instruction or digital instruction before the pandemic you would have faced a lot of resistance and skepticism. Now the conversations are different. So you have on the one hand, a new set of tools. And you have on, you know, another hand, you have enormous pressure to get into universities like Berkeley. At the same time that other colleges that are less competitive in their admissions are closing their doors. So there is this. It's almost like a barbell effect. You have these swollen applicant pools for very competitive institutions and no applicants at all for ones that are less competitive or that are small and rural. And so that's a huge problem for higher education. And then you add to that the problem of cost, where the cost is just going beyond the capability of I'm thinking particularly private institutions, many families to afford and the very complex way in which private schools use merit aid to try to create operating budgets that are sufficient for them. It's just, I believe that it's a pivotal moment. It's a pivotal moment for public institutions in that state support I think in all the states has really lessened, and public institutions are trying to come up with these mixed models of financing that are a real revolution in certainly public higher education financing. So, lots of reasons that this is a pivotal moment, I think that there's lots of concern about jobs, both higher education, preparing for our graduates for the workplace which I believe we should, but also concerns about obsolescence. So, there's this really weirdly schizophrenic characteristic about the debate on the one hand you have people questioning the value of higher education. On the other hand, you have these swollen applicant pools, what does that, what does that mean, and then the the distance between discoveries in the laboratory and their commercialization in the marketplace has gotten shorter than it's ever been, and that creates both new opportunities and new dilemmas for universities. So many reasons that this is a pivotal moment. Fascinating. What do you make and what do you make of data that seem to suggest there's a growing partisan divide, regarding people's perceptions of the value of higher education with less support among people who tend to vote Republican and greater support among people who tend to vote Democrat. Are you concerned about the politicization of the academy. I'm very concerned about the politicization of the academy. I think higher education is a good. It is our surest path to social mobility and wealth, if not wealth equalization at least the building of wealth. For families that have not traditionally had wealth, and I find the things that are happening in states like Florida or Texas, really frightening, using higher education as a kind of weapon and political fights when I think it's so important for our country and for the economic prosperity of our country to have a really robust higher education system. Before we end we're going to take a sharp topical turn as is often the case. No campus conversation with you would be complete without at least one question about athletics and there were many, but I'll take one that seems to be of great interest to a number of people which is your thoughts about UCLA moving to the big 10 and what that pretends for Cal and whether we're going anywhere. First of all, no, not to my knowledge are we going anywhere. I was very disappointed in what UCLA and USC did. I think that it is not good for student athletes to have to do as much travel across the country, as they're going to have to do. I feel that our athletes are students first, not athletes first. And so we would hope that any change we make in college athletics things first and foremost about the about the student experience. It's a time of enormous volatility and change in college athletics there is the name image likeness without any guardrails and some campuses taking enormous advantage of the freedom it gives them to offer signing bonuses and the millions of dollars to athletes I find that very, very concerning. There are the number of lawsuits proceeding through the courts that would make athletes employees, rather than students. There's conference instability. So a very difficult moment in college athletics. There are no easy answers. I think there's rather little about athletics spend a lot of my time thinking about it, because it's so the questions are so hard at the moment, but the pack 12 meetings are actually this coming Monday and I'll know a lot more about from those but we don't have any plans to move anywhere at this moment and I would never make a move that would involve that kind of extensive travel for our athletes. Thanks for that closing thoughts before we say goodbye. I just want to thank everybody again, I know that these are challenging times. I know that sometimes you come to work or you come to your classes, or your labs, burnt out. But I really believe as we continue to recover from the pandemic. We're going to recover some of our sense of joy. And indeed I already see it in some of our my daily experiences and I know we'll see lots of that in graduation. Thank you Chancellor chris and thanks so much for your time and for great answers to a number of complicated questions. And on behalf of all of us who work to bring campus conversations to the campus community. Thanks so much for joining us and we will see you again next year. Thank you. Have a good day. Thanks.