The Cal Parents Fund

Parents Fund supports ‘best place
to study’ at Cal

By Amy Cranch

During finals week, students can hunker down in Berkeley’s main libraries, open 24 hours a day. (Peg Skorpinski photo)

Summer 2007 | With three days left in the spring semester, I wandered up to Berkeley’s main libraries, Doe and Moffitt, to see what was happening. As I neared, I noticed students sprinting to exams, snacking, napping, and — most commonly — buried deep in books and notes. All were clearly in finals mode.

Thanks in part to donations from the Cal Parents Fund, the main stacks in the two libraries are open 24 hours a day during exams. For the fund, which supports campus programs with the greatest need or greatest potential to enhance student life, the libraries have been a top priority in recent years. In addition to extended hours, gifts from parents have supported reference services, such as one-on-one research assistance, and new acquisitions for Berkeley’s vast library collection of more than 10 million books.

Thanks, Mom and Dad! UC Berkeley and its students thank the 4,759 parents who contributed a record $1.6 million to this year’s Cal Parents Fund campaign. Their gifts expand opportunities for our students — from move-in day through graduation. To view the 2006-07 honor roll of parent donors online, go to calparents.berkeley.edu/honor-roll and enter the password “Campanile.” To support the 2007-08 Cal Parents Fund, visit calparents.berkeley.edu/gifts or call 510/642-4138.

Study hall or study resort?

Inside the stacks, an edgy quietness pervaded as students crammed into every available nook, their books, laptops, notes, and belongings sprawled out like spilled candy. There are approximately 1,200 seats in Moffitt Undergraduate Library — during the nine-day exam period about 11,000 students passed through the library’s doors, meaning the daily count matched almost exactly the number of seats available. According to University Librarian Thomas Leonard, when the chairs fill up, the floors and hallways become fair game. It is no wonder the stacks were voted the “Best Place to Study” in the 2007 Best of Berkeley poll.

Leonard marvels at the resourcefulness of students in finals mode: “They put toiletry kits on the book shelves. We found a tent pitched in the stacks, and an air mattress. We seem to be passing from study hall into study resort.… Students have figured out: they never have to leave.”

According to Elizabeth Dupuis, director of Doe/Moffitt Libraries, security and custodial staff were increased to accommodate the overflow during finals, a practice that occurs each semester. “The custodial staff should be commended for their work. They were constantly moving,” she says. Library employees also volunteered for additional shifts between 7 p.m. and 1 a.m. to staff the lines and “help keep the library a safe, clean, and comfortable environment for studying.”

One of the busiest areas during finals is the reference desk, where library employees diligently assist students in locating, sifting, and evaluating the loads of information, whether printed or electronic. Karen Munro, Berkeley’s e-learning librarian, maintains a blog on questions students ask. They range from “How do I print?” and “I can’t find this call number” to requests for information on childhood obesity, city planning in South Central Los Angeles, samba as social resistance, or fortifications in the Great Wall of China. (Visit Munro’s blog at bibliophagus.blogspot.com.)

Sleep, friends, and YouTube

Students find creative ways to alleviate stress during such long, intense hours. Eliseo Estrada ’07, who was studying with a group for a transportation engineering exam on the last day of finals, said, “YouTube makes it more endurable. Sometimes you just have to stop thinking about it all!”

Another group preparing for an English 101 exam exclaimed, in unison, “Sleep!” Robin Khamsi ’09 said, “If I can get out of here by 1 a.m., I’ll get at least five hours of sleep.” (Not bad for someone who lives in the Cal Band’s house.)

Sara Ghayouri ’06, who was studying for the MCAT, noted the friendships that form in the library. “You meet a lot of interesting people here,” she said. “People create buddy systems, like, ‘You watch my stuff, and I’ll watch yours’ if you have to take a break. They also study together, which makes it more fun in such a competitive environment.”

Librarian Leonard led a sophomore seminar last semester at which one student wrote, “Entering the library gives you a sense of importance that you cannot find sitting in front of a computer.” Thanks to the Cal Parents Fund, the libraries are a place where students enjoy the feeling of learning.