1st woman chancellor has plenty to deal with
Former Smith College president to succeed beleaguered Dirks
BERKELEY >> Carol Christ didn’t really need this job — the chancellorship of UC Berkeley.
After all, America’s best public university is still reeling from a tumultuous period of sexual assault scandals, budget woes and a fractured sense of community. The Victorian literature scholar could easily have retired from a relatively smooth turn as president of Smith College in 2013 with a solid legacy cemented.
But perhaps that’s why Christ, 73, stands a better chance at success than the outgoing chancellor, Nicholas Dirks, who was forced to step down four years into his tenure.
“I’m obviously not looking for another job,” the new chancellor said during an interview at her campus office.
And that’s probably a good thing. Because Christ, the first woman to lead the crown jewel of the UC system, will have to
make plenty of controversial decisions as the fall semester gets underway this week.
Christ takes the helm at Cal as the school finds itself at the center of a new free speech debate, as the area’s rising cost of living compounds a student housing shortage, and as state lawmakers view the UC system warily after a state audit revealed $175 million in undisclosed funds.
Christ, however, felt she “could do some good in ways that were perhaps different from some other people.”
Faculty support
As she takes the reins, Christ will be the oldest chancellor in its history. But her introduction to Berkeley came nearly a half century ago. After earning a Ph.D. from Yale, a 26-year-old Christ packed up and drove cross-country to teach at Berkeley. It was the first time she’d been west of Philadelphia.
Christ quickly fell in love with the campus and, it seems, the campus with her. By the mid-1980s, she became chair of the English department and rose through the ranks. By the mid-1990’s Christ became vice chancellor and provost at Berkeley before returning to teaching at Cal in 2000 and then leaving to become president of Smith College in Massachusetts shortly thereafter.
Her ties to Cal, obviously, have helped her enjoy a honeymoon phase as she settles in. Across the board, faculty interviewed for this story expressed optimism that Christ’s tenure will be a positive thing for Cal.
While at Cal, she helped shape the school’s response to Proposition 209, a 1996 voter-approved law that barred public colleges in the state from considering race in college admissions. The percentage of black students at Berkeley is around 3 percent, half of the 6 percent of California’s population that African Americans comprise statewide.
“I’m very concerned about that and it’s going to be one of my high priorities,” Christ said.
When she came to Berkeley, women made up just a fraction of Berkeley’s faculty.
“I remember what that felt like and I can only imagine what AfricanAmerican students feel like being only 3 percent,” she said.
Christ also served as faculty assistant to the chancellor for the status of women and as Title IX compliance coordinator during her first turn at Berkeley so she has long been familiar with the problem of campus sexual assault. “Now there’s this sense of both anger and a sense of self worth that says no, I shouldn’t be treated this way,” she said.
Dirks drew international criticism after a renowned astronomer received only a warning after an investigation determined he’d harassed students for almost a decade. The former law school dean, Sujit Choudhry, was also permitted to keep his job after a campus investigation found he’d sexually harassed an assistant.
Christ, a self-professed “child of the women’s liberation movement,” plans to approach the issue by having “conversations … that cut across different groups.”
That’s the gist of how Christ, who will earn nearly $532,000 a year, intends to tackle her entire job — a tall order for sure.
‘Free speech year’
The campus has become a flashpoint for a national conversation around free speech, with violent protests surrounding planned-but-ultimately canceled talks by right-wing commentators.
So Christ is planning to make the 2017-18 school year “a free speech year,” she said. “I’m going to create kind of a point-counterpoint series in which I’ll invite people who have really different views to come and debate one another because I think what we have to do is model what conversation looks like between individuals who have strongly differing points of view.”
She also wants to address the student housing shortage by partnering with Berkeley and Oakland. Few students live on campus and nearby housing costs are skyrocketing. Where Smith had robust residence halls, Berkeley houses less than a quarter of its students on campus, the lowest of any UC.
The possibility of building student housing at the university-owned People’s Park, currently occupied by a number of homeless people, has sparked alarm among activists. But Christ insists she wants to work with the city to address homelessness and safety before she considers building there.
Another challenge Christ has already been forced to confront is the campus’s $110 million budget deficit, which it must slash in half this year.
Even before she officially became chancellor, Christ outlined a blueprint for increasing private philanthropy and making some administrative cuts. “Almost everybody understands this is our problem to solve and we’ll solve it even if the choices are painful,” she said.
Deeply tied to the budget will be how Christ navigates the school’s relationship with Sacramento, which has blasted UC in recent months for failing to be transparent about how it spends taxpayer money. This spring, Gov. Jerry Brown withheld $50 million from the system in his budget, to be released only if UC improves the financial issues laid out in the state audit.
“The whole University of California I think is going to be well served at this point for the campuses to take a larger role in Sacramento,” Christ said.
Giving back
Most challenging, Christ thinks, will be restoring a sense of community on a campus she thinks feels somewhat fractured.
“How do you have a shared conversation on a campus that is 40,000 students?” she asked.
When she’s not working, Christ takes viola and piano lessons. She loves to read, walk and play with her grandchildren. Her son’s family recently moved into her home less than a mile from campus. Christ is the first chancellor in recent memory to choose not to live in the official chancellor’s house, but will use it for school functions.
“I don’t have the kind of house where you can have 65 people for dinner,” she quipped.
In the coming months, Christ plans to spend a good deal of time walking around campus, dropping in on student events.
“I deeply love this campus,” she said, “and I’m frankly at the time in my life when I’m thinking a lot about giving back.”