Chancellor Lyons welcomes UC Berkeley to a new academic year

Ever since my undergraduate days, there is no place I would rather be than on this campus as a new academic year begins. This is when our university reanimates with that sense of Berkeley’s infinite promise and potential generated by Cal’s extraordinary community of students, staff, and faculty.

I’m thrilled and honored to be sharing this special time with you in my new role as Berkeley’s Chancellor.

I want to take this opportunity to describe the values that will guide my tenure in office — to share my vision and aspirations for Berkeley’s future, and to seek your partnership and participation in launching a new era of excellence for our university.

Here’s my starting point: Berkeley is one of a kind. The combination of our extraordinary, comprehensive excellence across the academic spectrum; our accessibility; the fuel we provide for socioeconomic mobility; our scale; our dedication to the greater good; our system of shared governance with faculty; our questioning of the status quo and relentless pursuit of a better way — together these are the attributes that make this place one of society’s greatest assets and a university unlike any other.

Berkeley is the antithesis of an Ivory Tower. As part of our public DNA, we are open to, and deeply engaged with, the world around us. And so we are committed to facilitating the constructive collision of ideas, to Free Speech, to supporting diversity of perspectives, origins and identities, to providing every community member with a true sense of belonging regardless of who they are or what they believe in, and to preparing our students to be true changemakers. Berkeley Changemakers.

Underlying it all are our seven Principles of Community, which provide for the coexistence of a strong community and strongly held beliefs through their embrace of civil discourse, mutual respect, and diversity writ large.

Together, these principles and attributes are what enable us to advance the greater good, to deliver even more societal benefit, and to model and embody a way of being in community, of bringing people together, that offers an antidote for so much of what ails modern society.

These are, for me, essential elements of what makes Berkeley Berkeley. As Chancellor, my responsibility is to ensure that these time-tested values of our past will guide and strengthen our plans for the future.

We are, I believe, on the cusp of an exciting new era for higher education in general, and Berkeley in particular. To make the most of what our future holds, I will place a premium on transparency, and on constructive engagement with the full range of representative faculty, staff and student organizations. I will lead with a commitment to the greater good of the entire university, and I will do all that I can so that our students, our departments, and our programs are provided with the support and resources they need to thrive.

While these are my goals, values, and aspirations, I still have much to learn. And for that reason, I am in listening mode. I need and want to hear it all when it comes to your interests and concerns, your ideas and perspectives. And in the true changemaker tradition, we will most certainly need your participation as we question our own status quo.

I am certain that if you’ll join me, we can together harness the restless spirits of innovation, exploration and discovery that pervade our campus in pursuit of an even better Berkeley.