Watch a message from Chancellor Lyons welcoming UC Berkeley to a new academic year

There is no better time of the year than now and there is no better place to be than here, on the Berkeley campus. This, for me, is a special time of renewal and reunion as we gather again, animated by Berkeley’s boundless promise and potential, welcomed by Cal’s extraordinary community of students, staff, and faculty, and ready to take on our individual and collective opportunities and challenges.

What sets Berkeley apart from the higher education crowd is not just our academic excellence — it’s also our culture and values that make this university one of a kind. Underlying it all are our seven Principles of Community that provide for the coexistence of a strong community and strongly held beliefs through their embrace of civil discourse, mutual respect, and diversity writ large.

Berkeley is more than a place; it’s a promise. And those principles are what enable us to deliver on that promise. They support an environment where all can thrive and feel a sense of belonging, where the freedom to teach, learn and discover is revered and protected, and where we embrace the central role of diversity and pluralism in the life of our university: the diversity of origins and identities, of beliefs and perspectives, of academic interests and pursuits.

Together, these principles and attributes are what enable us to advance the greater good, to deliver even more long-term societal benefit. Equitable access to a great education and society’s opportunities is fundamental to who we are and always will be. Honoring those principles enable us to model and embody a way of being in community, of bringing people together in constructive coexistence, that offers an antidote for so much of what ails modern society.

These are, for me, essential elements of what makes Berkeley Berkeley — and, as Chancellor, my responsibility is to protect these time-tested values in the present and ensure they will guide and strengthen our plans for the future.

In fact, my intention is to make this year a launching pad for a new era of excellence for Berkeley. We will soon embark on a comprehensive planning process in order to define and sharpen our strategies for the future, and as we do, let’s direct inward our renowned disdain for the status quo. Let’s challenge and question the tried and true – let’s apply our aptitude for innovation and our entrepreneurial spirit to how we deliver on our public promise. As the pace of the change in the world around us accelerates so too must the pace of our institutional evolution and our pursuit of even better ways to fulfill our public mission.

Even as our strategic planning process looks to the horizon, we can and must keep our eyes on the road ahead. While change and challenge are roiling college campuses across the country, I am confident that we will get through these tumultuous times. We have been engaged in comprehensive contingency planning, we are doing all that we can to confront discrimination and harassment of every sort, and I am beyond grateful for a campus community that is united and resolved to protect our values and our powerful public mission.

Together we can and will safeguard Berkeley’s vital contributions to our nation’s success through discoveries that advance the health, well-being, and security of the American people.

We will do our best to keep you informed about developments on the federal front. We are working closely with the Office of the President, and I can assure you there is strength in our University of California numbers.

And with that, I wish us all a rewarding and resonant year of discovery and discourse, another year when Berkeley’s light shines brightly as we leave an indelible stamp on the society we serve and the lives we enrich.

As I said, Berkeley is not just a place, it’s a promise — and together we can ensure it will forever be kept. Fiat Lux and Go Bears!