Statements & news

Dear E&I Colleagues,

After a competitive national search, UC Berkeley welcomed Patrick Naranjo as the new director of the American Indian Graduate Program in May.

Prior to coming to campus, Patrick served as the Resource Coordinator for the Intersection, Academic Multicultural Resource Center at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). In that role, he was instrumental in developing and implementing campuswide strategies to enhance the academic outcomes of students and establish strong Native American engagement. 

Welcome to a new year at Cal! I am excited and humbled to be starting this year as the Vice Provost for Graduate Studies and Dean of the Graduate Division.

Cal has long been a place of innovation, an institution that has produced knowledge that has, literally, changed the world. But I also know that the past few years have been challenging on campus and that many of our graduate students struggle to keep body and soul together.

With that in mind, I have three main goals that I hope to advance this year:

Dear Campus Community,

I write to you today to share some information which I hope will serve as a reminder to our community that there are people around us who carry with them different life experiences and identities, and with whom we have a shared humanity.

Last week, in an unfortunate escalation of events next to a playground on university property, two young Black boys, sons of two of our students, were detained by two of our campus police officers. 

UC Berkeley joined the tens of thousands who flooded into downtown San Francisco on Sunday to celebrate LGBTQ pride. Clad in T-shirts that read “Fiat Love” and holding “Go Bears” signs, the campus community — led by the Cal Alumni Association and Gender Equity Resource Center — brought their Cal spirit as they joined some 50,000 marchers and dozens of floats on Market St. In addition to honoring the city’s vibrant LGBTQ history, the celebration also marked the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York City.

At what point in a nearly four-year same-sex relationship does one question their own sexuality? For some, the heavy lifting has been done long before the relationship starts. For others, it’s an ongoing investigation. 

I entered my relationship believing the former for myself, but in the last year I’ve rapidly descended into the latter.