Berkeley chancellor will step down (but reportedly has a skeleton in her closet)

UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ says she will step down in 2024

Nanette Asimov, June 15, 2023, Updated June 16, 2023, San Francisco Chronicle

UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ, who took over the University of California’s flagship campus in 2017 at a time of low morale over deep financial problems and high-profile sexual harassment cases, announced Thursday that she will step down in June 2024. In a message to the campus, Christ said she hadn’t intended to stay beyond five years, but when the pandemic dramatically slowed the university’s fundraising efforts, housing projects and other endeavors, she stayed on.  “I simply could not imagine parting ways with so much left to do,” Christ said. 

She said she will spend the next year revitalizing those while the UC Office of the President and the regents seek a successor. Though Christ, a popular chancellor, steered the campus through its earlier difficulties, including a $150 million structural budget deficit, the university saw new financial difficulties during the pandemic. This spring, she described UC Berkeley’s financial foundations as “fragile” and said the campus spends about $33,000 on instruction for each undergraduate, while receiving an average of $25,000 in tuition and state support per student.

Christ has spent her tenure seeking ways to raise revenue outside of those traditional sources, such as entering into business partnerships. She said the campus would accelerate those efforts in the next year. As the lead author of UC Berkeley’s housing master plan in 2017, Christ had also set a goal of greatly expanding student housing on the campus that houses the lowest rate of undergraduates in the UC system. Several of its efforts have been stymied, however, by community opponents who have sued to halt its expansion efforts. 

Source: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/uc-berkeley-chancellor-carol-christ-says-step-18155239.php.

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On the other hand, apart from the People's Park matter, she will be leaving a skeleton in the closet:

UC Berkeley admits human remains on campus were found nearly 2 years ago

Amy Graff, SFGATE, June 14, 2023

In January, news broke that a human skeletal remains had been found at UC Berkeley’s Clark Kerr Campus. Now, Cal officials are admitting the remains were first discovered in 2021, but police were not notified until nearly two years later.

This information was released by the university after the Berkeley Scanner reported [last] Monday that a construction company told a UC Berkeley facilities supervisor about the remains “immediately” after crew members found them in June 2021, but the supervisor allegedly never notified police. Contractors with the company told the Scanner that when the finding had not been officially reported after nearly two years, the company went directly to the police. 

In a statement to SFGATE, the university confirmed that members of a construction crew company reported the remains directly to the UC Police Department on Jan. 10 and police “responded immediately.” 

“The crew told UCPD that they first discovered the remains in June 2021 while performing work at the site and at that time reported it to a campus facilities supervisor,” the university said. 

UC Berkeley did not directly comment on the facilities supervisor’s alleged failure to report the remains. The university said the manager was interviewed by police earlier this year and is not a person of interest in the investigation of the remains. He no longer works for the university, the statement said. 

Back in January when police were first notified about the remains, the university released a statement saying the remains were “skeletonized.” They did not issue any information on how long the remains had been there or the person’s identity. UC Berkeley police told SFGATE in March that the remains were with the Alameda County Coroner’s Office and the Department of Justice was looking for a match in its database. “I was told that the turnaround could take several months,” Sgt. Kevin Vincent, a spokesperson for the UC police, told SFGATE in an email. “We have not heard anything from DOJ yet to my knowledge.”

Clark Kerr is a residential hall complex and event space six blocks from the main campus. It primarily houses freshman undergraduate students.

Source: https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/skeleton-found-at-uc-berkeley-clark-kerr-18152552.php.