Ernest S. Kuh Distinguished Lecture & Dean's Society with Nobel-prize winning professor Jennifer Doudna at UC Berkeley’s Pauley Ballroom in Berkeley, Calif. on Friday, Feb. 2, 2024. (Photo by Adam Lau/Berkeley Engineering)Building on strength
Earlier this year, UC Berkeley celebrated the extraordinary success of its Light the Way campaign, which raised more than $7.3 billion, far exceeding the original ambitious goal of $6 billion. The fundraising total included $900 million for Berkeley Engineering in support of our research programs, faculty and students — including a new Engineering Center that is slated to open early next year.
The Light the Way campaign has established a strong foundation upon which to build.
The campaign has established a strong foundation upon which to build, as it engaged almost 18,000 unique donors over the course of 10 years. Looking ahead, the college’s priorities will be to modernize and expand the capacity of our facilities for research, teaching and learning; to support new faculty hiring and graduate student fellowships; and to enhance the success and well-being of all our students.
Solutions to pressing societal challenges, such as digital authoritarianism, require innovation and collaboration across multiple disciplines. Therefore, we are continually forging new partnerships with other academic units across the campus — building on Berkeley’s comprehensive excellence — to cultivate multidisciplinary competency in our future engineering leaders.
One such collaboration that I’m excited about is the Yardi Scholars Program, a scholarship program launched last fall that brings together undergraduate students in Berkeley Engineering and in the Division of Social Sciences in the College of Letters & Science. Run by the Division of Undergraduate Education, this program has an intellectual focus on the intersection of democracy, technology and social change — timely topics as we head into a consequential presidential election with concerns related to disinformation and voting security.
Our newest Berkeley Engineering graduates recently walked across the stage at commencement. I can’t wait to see all they will accomplish as agents for positive change in our global society.
Fiat Lux!
—Tsu-Jae King Liu
Dean and Roy W. Carlson Professor of Engineering