The Cal Parents Fund

Big-School Benefits, Small-School Experiences

By David Peterkofsky

Student archaeologists work at a campus site, once the home of May and Warren Cheney, 1883 and 1878 Berkeley graduates, respectively. Colleen Morgan (cc) photo

Spring 2007 | With nearly 350 degree programs and 6,700 courses, Berkeley offers students a remarkable breadth and depth of opportunities. But thanks in part to gifts to the Cal Parents Fund, undergraduates can carve out a “small-school” experience at Berkeley through programs that encourage them to interact closely with faculty, contribute to research, and build community with one another.

One such program capitalizes on Berkeley’s strength in research. Since 1991, the Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program (URAP) has helped students engage in hands-on research with professors on semester-long projects. This year, about 900 undergraduates worked alongside nearly 250 faculty members in one-on-one and small-group URAP projects.

Research options include projects in the sciences, business, history, engineering, economics, and lan-guages, to name a few. One anthropology exploration called “Digging Into Cal’s Past” involves students in an archaeological dig near a 19th-century home on campus. Dana Bardolph ’07, an anthropology major and project participant, describes it as “the most beneficial and rewarding experience I’ve had since I’ve been here.”

Another URAP benefit: Students bond with each other in ways that don’t come easily in, say, a lecture hall. “A lot of them tell us how much they enjoy going to the lab and how it’s like a home away from home,” says URAP director Terry Strathman.

Gifts to the Cal Parents Fund also help finance the popular Freshman and Sophomore Seminars. These pair 20 or fewer lower-division undergrads with a professor to explore a topic that interests them — everything from “Time, Money, and Love in the Age of Technology” to “Earthquake Prediction and the Myth of Solid Ground.” Faculty from every department participate in the program, which offers 200 seminars each year, giving 75 percent of all freshmen the opportunity to enroll in
a small course.

“The biggest attraction for participants is getting a chance to interact directly with a member of Berkeley’s renowned faculty,” says Alix Schwartz, director of academic planning in the College of Letters and Science. And because the seminars are not required, Schwartz adds, “everyone is there for the right reason: mutual interest in the subject matter. This creates a very nice learning-for-its-own-sake atmosphere.”

A new L&S program, “On the Same Page,” invites all of the college’s freshmen to read a book of note and then share their impressions at events that foster community and dialogue. This year’s selection was Stephen Hawking’s A Briefer History of Time, a shortened version of his landmark volume that explores the nature of space and time, the search for a unified theory encompassing all the forces of physics, and the history and future of the universe.

To encourage L&S freshmen to join in this shared experience, each received a free copy of the book last Fall. The college has scheduled related events throughout the spring semester, including seminars and faculty-led discussions in residence halls.

“‘On the Same Page’ welcomes freshmen into a community of scholars who delight in tackling big issues and important ideas,” says L&S’s Schwartz. “We will be able to gauge the success of the program by the level of buzz created around the book and its author.”

And excitement certainly surrounds one key part of the program: Hawking’s March 13 presentation at Zellerbach Hall was sold out months in advance. View the webcast.

An anonymous donor underwrote the cost of the books this year, and L&S hopes that private contributions — including gifts from parents — will sustain the program in the future.