UC Berkeley nominates new chancellor
A former president of Smith College, Carol T. Christ, was selected Monday to become the next chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, the nation’s leading public research university.
If approved this week by the UC Board of Regents, Christ will be the 11th chancellor of UC Berkeley and the first woman to lead the campus, University of California President Janet Napolitano said. Christ currently serves as the school’s interim executive vice chancellor and provost.
She will succeed Nicholas Dirks, who announced his resignation in August after widespread criticism from faculty and students over his handling of sexual misconduct cases, a budget crisis and other campus issues.
The appointment comes at a “pivotal time in the campus’ storied history,” Napolitano said, in announcing her nomination. “From among the many highly qualified candidates for the position, Carol’s exceptional leadership and strategic planning skills, her deep commitment to the university’s core values, her many academic and professional accomplishments, as well as her deep knowledge of, and affection for, UC Berkeley stood out.”
Christ, who has been praised as a tireless champion for gender equality and diversity, was a popular choice among faculty. On Monday, she acknowledged the responsibility she faced in leading the campus through challenging times.
“It is a small way to give back for everything the university has given me,” she said in a statement. “My experience at Berkeley has been transformational; it formed my ideas of higher education, and it formed my ideals of higher education.”
Tsu-Jae King Liu, a UC Berkeley vice provost and microelectronics professor who led the search team’s faculty subcommittee, pointed to Christ’s academic accomplishments as well as her reputation as a “seasoned administrative leader who has the respect and trust of the Berkeley faculty.”
“She is readily accessible, profoundly thoughtful and open to new ideas, and transparently decisive,” Liu said. “Her deep knowledge and appreciation for our university’s traditions of access, excel- lence and shared governance, her championship of diversity and inclusion, her genuine concern for student welfare and outreach to alumni and the local community will serve as the bedrock of her leadership.”
Christ, a renowned scholar in Victorian literature, began her UC Berkeley career in 1970 as an assistant professor. At a time when about 3 percent of the faculty were women, Christ stood out. By 1985, she was chair of the English department. She was appointed dean of humanities three years later, and in 1989, became provost and dean of the College of Letters and Science.
By the 1990s, she was named executive vice chancellor — the highest-ranking female administrator on campus. She left Berkeley in 2002 for Northampton, Mass., where she led Smith College until her retirement in 2013.
But academia continued to call. She returned to UC Berkeley in 2015 to lead the campus’ Center for Studies in Higher Education. The following year, she agreed to take up her former role of executive vice chancellor and provost on an interim basis — overseeing day-to-day operations and finances as well as all academic programs for the campus’ 27,000 undergraduate students, 10,000 graduate students and 1,500 full-time faculty.
Her selection this week follows a tumultuous period under Dirks, who has been under a UC investigation for alleged misuse of public funds and the personal use of a fitness trainer without payment. Dirks — who took the reins at Berkeley in 2013 and agreed to stay on as chancellor until a successor was found — has declined to comment on the charges.
A petition expressing discontent with Dirks was signed last summer by more than 45 distinguished professors, including former Academic Senate leaders, members of the National Academy of Sciences, department chairs and heads of research units. Some faculty members considered calling for a vote of no confidence in him if he did not resign.