<p>The city of Berkeley and the Berkeley undergraduate experience isn't perfect. Many of you are probably familiar with the criticism within this forum against various aspects of the UC Berkeley undergraduate experience. Students have already begun to take action towards improving some aspects of it by working with the local government, the university, and other organizations such as the UC Office of the President. These and other pro-student issues form the platform of a relatively new student group called ACCESS (Activists' Commission for the Creation and Engagement of Service to Students.) </p>
<p>Foremost initiatives include increasing safety, reducing housing cost, extending business hours on Telegraph and North Side, and reforming academic policy in order to help undergraduates. We have already been successful at many of our goals. However, there are still many issues that we have not heard of. Be heard and together let us make Berkeley a better environment working on issues that you care about and affect you.</p>
<p>Have your voice heard on every Monday at 9 PM in Wheeler 101. </p>
<p>This is your chance to be heard and your chance to make change.</p>
<p>Good for you DRab. How many students do you have right now?</p>
<p>There is not much you can do about housing costs, directly, except pressure the City of Berkeley to allow developpers and the University to build more housing. If you increase supply, price pressures will subside. Students also need to pressure the city of Berkeley to allow stores to stay open later, because right now the Berkeley homeowners associations are calling the shots and they are the reason why 7-11s in Berkeley actually close at night...</p>
<p>One thing that UC students should do is have a systemwide union to enact tuition freeze or at least slow tuition increases to the rate of inflation. I'm kind of amazed that with something like 200,000 UC students there isn't some kind of a concerted effort there. That's a half million to a million parents and siblings in the State, potentially a very powerful constituency...</p>
<p>WRT academic policies, UCB has been easing its grading policy, with the campuswide GPA climbing to 3.25 IIRC. It used to be below 3.0 not that long ago. Better job placement for non-engineers and non-Haas might ba a good area to focus on.</p>
<p>At the moment, there are about 10 really active key members, about 40 semi-active players, and about 100-200 semi-semi-active people.</p>
<p>Many people who have studied the issue think that housing costs would be drastically reduced if the current parking replacement policy were changed. It's complicated, but basically five years ago the university, to appease faculty, said that for each parking spot made unuseable, 20k would have to be given to create more parking. Now, in a mere five years, it's up to 47k. Anyway, one project ACESS is trying to do is to drastically reduce this incredible amount that seems to clearly increase student housing fees- a large part of the profit from housing goes to this parking policy. </p>
<p>There is a UC wide goverment, the UCSA. All UC schools are member except, as of this year, the UC Davis undergraduates (ASUCD) which felt that they were not being represented and that the UCSA membership fee was a waste of money. They really do only care about two issues- diversity and fees. They are supposedly very unprofessional in their activities, and, until the most recent president started questioning things, uninterested in anything outside of fee levels and the race of UC students. I wonder why they cannot do much about one of the only two issues they care.</p>
<p>If by "improve" Berkeley, you're also talking about Berkeley's prestige, inevitably, this means Berkeley will have to admit less students and increase its standards of admissions... </p>
<p>We'd have to get rid of what I call the "i got in too!" or the "50 kids from my school got in!" factor. Generally, prestige goes to the school where acceptance is more difficult to obtain. </p>
<p>We'd also have to get rid of giving preference to in-state students. I know - what the heck. This means basically, that we'd have to become like a private school...(sad, but true). The use of early admissions and waitlists could also help - this gives the "perception" of more difficult admissions... same game the private schools play (or played). </p>
<p>This of course will have to go hand-in-hand with improving the quality of the education, but having less students and a more "qualified" student body will automatically boost some "quality aspects" even before we start talking about other aspects such as faculty, resources, etc. (i.e. we'd automatically get smaller classes, smaller faculty:student ratio, "smarter" average student population, more diverse population from other states/international, etc.).</p>
<p>khan, actually Berkeley will never shrink its student size due to demographic pressures. Having a larger student body </p>
<p>I agree with allowing more OOS students, but that doesn't mean becoming like a private school, other top publics have much higher OOS %, though they represent smaller state pops.</p>
<p>You talk about the "perception" of prestige, and this perception or changes thereof in the past 20 years or so is largely shaped by the USNWR ranking, in which Cal has dived from #5 to the high teens or low 20s depending on the editorial moods at that second-rate magazine. </p>
<p>Cal could admit more students with high SATs to boost its ranks, like USC has done, but I think that is a bad idea, because those tests are very limited. I agree about the "50 kids got into Berkeley from my school", this would involve quotas at schools like Lowell High and would be un-PC.</p>
<p>DRab: the problem with campaining for lower housing costs is that a lot of the lower-income students have already found solutions, that of sharing apts and houses off-campus (for an avg rent of about $500-600/mth, lower if outside of Berkeley) or staying in Coops.</p>
<p>Safety seems to be less of an issue every year, with Berkeley becoming more and more gentrified. Nevertheless, I think there is a technopogy-based solution to greater safety, perhaps a GPS/cellphone system where campus police could immediatelly pinpoint a student in distress and get to him/her in 2-3 minutes top. I think UCPD also needs to do something about bike theft, like a sting operation by equiping a few fancy bikes parked on campus with hidden GPS/tracking devices. Most of the thefts are done by a few thieves.</p>
<p>What does perceived prestige have to do with the undergraduate experience? The OP discusses concrete areas to address improving the undergraduatae experience itself, not the outside perception. All this chat about changing UCB into a small, private institution is a bunch of c**p. It is the premier public university, and that IMO is a great perception and there is no need to try to change it into a Harvard or Yale.
If the education itself is lacking, services are poor, cost of living is expensive, or there are safety issues, lets tackle those isssues and leave the perception to the list makers.</p>
<p>1) Tear down People's Park. Really, it's insignificant and only serves as a haven for homeless people and pan handlers. Erect a small marker in memory of the riots and build Unit 6 to take care of increasing student housing problems. </p>
<p>2) If Unit 6 isn't an option, build a parking structure. Since People's park is adjacent to Telegraph, it'll bring more business to the area. </p>
<p>3) Quotas are dumb. No really. And since UC Berkeley is well, a University of California, the in state requirement should be kept. More cooperation between the UC's are needed. Just because UC Berkeley is number 9 in the world (and the number one public college) doesn't mean Davis has to be 45, or Riverside being 80.</p>
<p>
[quote]
We'd have to get rid of what I call the "i got in too!" or the "50 kids from my school got in!" factor. Generally, prestige goes to the school where acceptance is more difficult to obtain.
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</p>
<p>Well, let me give you some counterexamples. We can look at some examples from other high schools. </p>
<p>Take the top prep boarding school in the country - Phillips Exeter (PE). What's the top college that PE grads have matriculated at in the last 3 years? Harvard. </p>
<p>Now, one might say, yeah but PE is a private school, and so is not a good example. Ok, fine. So then let's use public schools. Arguably the best public high school in at least Massachusetts, and probably in all of New England, is the Boston Latin School (BLS). The top 2 matriculating colleges for BLS grads are UMass and BU. But what's #3? Harvard. </p>
<p>Yet I rather doubt that the students at Phillips Exeter or Boston Latin (or any other high school) don't think that Harvard is prestigious just because a lot of their classmates will end up going there. </p>
<p>The * real * problem is not the "I got in too!" syndrome, but rather the "I got in too, * but I'd rather go somewhere else*" syndrome. In other words, prestige is not just about who got in, but rather it has to do with who wants to go, as their first choice. And the truth of the matter is that Berkeley does not compete well against the top private colleges on that front. Somebody who gets into both Berkeley and Harvard is probably going to pick Harvard. Hence, Berkeley is often times seen as second-best - just a safety school that you use if you can't get into one of the top private colleges. Incidentally, this also contributes to the problem that Berkeley has lots of students who don't really want to be there, but just couldn't get into the school they really wanted, and hence are quite indifferent about making Berkeley better. </p>
<p>And I'm tired of that. Berkeley ought to improve its offerings so that more people actually want to go there.</p>
<p>whoooooaa hell no don't tear don't people's park! alot of people worked hard to create a patch of land for everyone to share in. sure it's dingy, but we can work together to make it something more enjoyable for everyone. That park doesn't belong to anyone, the death of People's Park is the death of Berkeley's spirit of dissent and revolution.
Improvement's are not gonna come through prestige and through more housing, it's gonna come through putting more power in the hands of the student, lowering fees, creating accessibility on the high school level (making sure the state funds outreach programs) and creating a more diverse student body. We need leaders and revolutionaries, not a factory to produce materials so that corporations can continue to operate.
Berkeley's not just about facts and knowledge, it's about change, we used to be the center of that change, we gotta get back to being a university of great change, a center for progress.</p>
<p>ok, you guys figured out homeless people live in People's Park, congratulations, you just realized 90% of parks in urban locales all over the world. Berkeley's homelessness is a completely different issue, intertwined with a thousand complexities.
I still think having a People's Park is awesome, and hasn't been used as much as it could be, but I know the city of Berkeley's never gonna allow the UC to take away that park, I'd go and occupy it myself to save it. It's a People's park, because it demonstrates the idea that people are more important than profit, and I think that's awesome, it's Berkeley.</p>
<p>The People's Park is not just some haven for homeless persons and pan handlers as some users have exerted. The People's Park is a place rich with the history, activism, love, and tradition that maks the university so amazing.</p>
<p>First, the land was originally owned by the University of California and slated to be turned into a parking lot, but the students (of the '60's) were not about to let that outdoor area be paved over.</p>
<p>The students then constructed a park in the current location, which included laying new sod, a jungle gym, trees, and gardens.</p>
<p>The University then tore down the park and paved over it.</p>
<p>The Students then rallied at the newly paved ground and each participating member placed a square piece of Sod on the surrounding public streets.</p>
<p>This park is truly The People's Park. Tearing it down is a terrible idea.</p>
<p>"The People's Park is not just some haven for homeless persons and pan handlers as some users have exerted. The People's Park is a place rich with the history, activism, love, and tradition that maks the university so amazing."</p>
<p>So let me try to get what you're saying . . . "because thirty or forty years ago People's Park was really awesome, the fact that it's full of homeless people today is totally okay."</p>
<p>This is a bit off-topic to the OP, so I feel bad about drawing it out, but the area around the UC is mediocre (some places are nice, others not so) and getting worse - if you don't think the closure of Cody's represents something larger about the way telegraph has been moving, you're out of it.</p>
<p>As a hs senior who was just contacted about the trustee's scholarship interview (so I've already gotten in), what would attract me to Berkeley over the privates I've applied to would be things like better student/teacher interaction and easier scheduling, not more pot in the dorms and more student protests, which is essentially what you're advocating is the answer, punkdudeus. And while I can only speak for myself, I think a lot of hs kids feel the same way.</p>
<p>But I feel bad about hijacking this thread, so sorry and I won't post here anymore.</p>
<p>Nobody said that having homeless people in the Park is ok, it's a whole different issue. I'm saying that because we have something with such a rich history we should embrace it, and improve it as it is, not just give up on it.
I agree, there needs to be improvements made to scheduling and teacher interaction, but that's not gonna be fixed by tearing down the park, and Berkeley as a school and City isn't going to be improved by making it some ritzy town center. But by keeping it weird, and unique, which is what attracts the kind of people we should have at Berkeley: Free-thinking, change oriented people, not people who just want a degree to make money.
The rustic, independent, free-loving, cooperative nature of the City is what makes it great, and the UC should continue to support that. People's park is underutilized as an institution.
Cody's closing is a shame, but the area around Berkeley is still cool, great food, great music places (freight and salvage folk bar is AWESOME, and they're moving to downtown), great head-shops, and there's still great book stores.
And pot in the dorms is everywhere, I'm not complaining about that, just tape up the fire alarm and throw a towel under the door. I would like to see the dorms run by students, instead of random RA's and RD's giving random punishments for "violations" which don't hurt anyone.</p>