Equity & Inclusion

When Derek Coates was 10, he found out he had a degenerative eye disease and was going to gradually lose his eyesight. Over the next 30 years, his visual world shrunk until he became completely blind at 41. Now, as a disability compliance officer at UC Berkeley, it’s his job to make sure students with disabilities are getting the accommodations they need to be academically successful.

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The UC Berkeley African American Initiative has offered the first set of scholarships to Black students for the fall 2018 semester.

The initiative is a “a comprehensive effort to address the underrepresentation of African American students, faculty, and staff,” according to the UC Berkeley Division of Equity & Inclusion’s website. While 40 students were interviewed, only 28 were ultimately granted the scholarship, which was administered by the Cal Alumni Association.

Stephen Sutton is UC Berkeley’s new vice chancellor for student affairs, tasked with overseeing the student experience of Berkeley’s 30,000 undergraduate students and 11,000 graduate students. Chancellor Carol Christ and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Paul Alivisatos announced his appointment on Wednesday.

The Berkeley Food Institute recently launched Hungry for Change, a multi-media project that highlights the stories of 20 emerging California innovators working to transform food and agriculture systems within their community and beyond.

Dear campus community,

We are very pleased to announce that Professor Tsu-Jae King Liu, who is currently concluding her term as Vice Provost for Academic and Space Planning, has been named the next dean of the College of Engineering (CoE). She will assume her new position on July 1, 2018.

Billy Curtis, the director of the Gender Equity Resource Center at UC Berkeley, has spent the past two decades working to build a more inclusive campus for the LGBTQ community. This year, he was named a grand marshal of the San Francisco Pride Parade and Celebration, an honor given to people and organizations for their work and advocacy in helping strengthen LGBTQ communities in the Bay Area.