Day 10

Yesterday, the chairman of my department stood before us all and agreed that each of us is under pressure and stress because of the financial situation of the university and the state. But he assured us that our department is in good shape because we had planned for the future during good times, and we have a few pockets of money that will help see us through. He asked us to stick together, help each other, and not let our intellectual community suffer from the stress. He reminded us that our department consists of great minds with big ideas and that tight budgets should not be allowed to ruin our conversations. I looked around the room while he was speaking, and was inspired by the attention he commanded, the occasional nods of agreement, and smiles of appreciation. He wasn't sticking up for the state or the administration or asking us to go about business as usual and act as if nothing is wrong. He wanted us to feel good about our little piece of the UC community and find comfort and inspiration in each other. It was a nice way to usher in the new school year, a year that might seem daunting at times, but one in which we can all now think back to those words and remind ourselves and each other why we are here in the first place.

Another professor and I had a chat about how we are going to recruit a high quality class of new PhD students on a very tight budget. For the past handful of years, we've been offering very generous fellowships to our incoming students, but we won't be able to go quite so overboard this year. I'd been asking several professors how we are going to entice students to join us based on our department's merits rather than on the size of the fellowship we can offer them (gasp!). This professor pointed me toward a recent ranking published by Washington Monthly that puts Berkeley at the top of the list of institutions that contribute the most to the country's public good by enabling the social mobility of its students, producing cutting edge research, and encouraging students to give back to society, to name a few of the biggest criteria. If we can find the best prospective students who care about these characteristics of an institution, we will be able to enroll an outstanding group of students eager to be part of Berkeley without having to offer them more money than everyone else.