Berkeley and the East Bay

To the first time visitor as well as the long time resident, the City of Berkeley is a diverse and exciting community, from its quiet residential neighborhoods to the hustle and bustle of campus and downtown Berkeley, from countercultural vendors on Telegraph Avenue to students studying in campus libraries. People-watchers enjoy gathering at Sproul Plaza on campus at noon to see the array of speakers, bongo drummers, political protests, student groups, and a continuous stream of students running to and from class. Berkeley residents appreciate this diversity, and although it presents challenges and sometimes conflicts, most would not trade living in Berkeley for anywhere else in the world.

campanile at dusk with golden gate bridge in background

Situated between the East Bay foothills and the San Francisco Bay, the City of Berkeley, with a population of about 105,000, enjoys a mild, year-round climate, perfect for outdoor activities. UC Berkeley is located on a lush 1,232 acres in the eastern sector of the city.

The hills surrounding the University present challenging hiking trails and stunning views, while the Berkeley Marina is a favorite for recreational boating, fishing, and kite flying. Neighborhood and regional parks such as the Rose Garden, Indian Rock, Tilden, and Cesar Chavez Park at the Waterfront, provide a wide range of recreation for individuals and families. A system of creeks runs through Berkeley, including Strawberry Creek, which meanders its way across the Berkeley campus.

The legacies of architects Julia Morgan, Bernard Maybeck, John Galen Howard, and many others are evident in the city's residences and public buildings. It is a legacy shared by the campus, which has many outstanding examples of Beaux Arts and Craftsman architecture.

Read about the colorful history shared between the City of Berkeley and the University of California.

The City and University Today

The campus contributes in many ways to the local economy, schools, and community. From developing new technologies and collaborating with industry to volunteering in the local public schools, University of California faculty, students, staff, and alumni take their knowledge out of the classroom and into the community to serve Berkeley and beyond.

Cal in the Community is a guide to over 200 public service programs, activities, and resources offered by the University for the benefit of Bay Area communities. Each listing includes a brief description of the program and contact information.

Campus/Community Partnerships
The University's teaching, research, and public service missions are all furthered by the forging of productive relationships with local constituencies and the nurturing of a supportive physical, social, economic, and political environment in the surrounding campus community.

In recent years, the campus has partnered with the Berkeley community on several projects, mostly in the densely populated student residential area south of campus and in the downtown. The following are only a few examples:

Cal Corps Public Service Center on campus offers UC Berkeley students opportunities to serve the community in literally hundreds of ways. Cal Corps participants give haircuts to the homeless and hold musical performances in convalescent homes. They teach dental hygiene to children in the Head Start program, tutor recent immigrants on the duties and rights of citizenship, and aid high school students prepping for the SATs. Each year over 2,000 Cal students, through Cal Corps, volunteer their time to help others.

Telegraph Area Association. Jointly funded by the City and the University, Telegraph Area Association is comprised of local residents, merchants, campus staff, and students working together to improve the quality of life in the area.

People's Park. Located in the south of campus area, the University operates People's Park as public open space. The University provides recreational programming, outreach, and groundskeeping of the park. The park can also be reserved for special events. The People's Park Community Advisory Board advises the University on policies, programming, and physical improvements.

Joint Policing. UC and Berkeley city police jointly patrol the south campus area on bicycles and on foot as part of a community-involved policing program. The campus and City police departments collaborate in providing mutual assistance, joint training, and information sharing.

Capital Improvements. Under an agreement with the City of Berkeley, the campus contributes 20% of the costs of mutually agreed-upon capital improvements in the south campus area. These have included street trees and improved pedestrian lighting.

Collaborative Planning Activities. Under a Memorandum of Understanding signed in 1997, the campus works closely with the City of Berkeley to coordinate planning activities and provide early notification of campus projects. The campus has also begun to work with the City of Berkeley and the Downtown Berkeley Association on joint projects that will help to connect the campus with transit centers and businesses in the downtown.

The Berkeley Alliance. Under the umbrella of the Berkeley Alliance, the City, school district, and University recently formed a community partnership that links UC's academic and technical resources to projects that directly benefit Berkeley's youth and community. Building on the collaborations that already exist between the campus and the City, the Berkeley Alliance links faculty research, undergraduate and graduate student interns and volunteers, and University class projects with identified projects that benefit from a community-wide approach.

Economic Impact
Each year UC Berkeleygenerates $1.1 billion in personal income in the Bay Area, buys more than $533 million in goods and services, and does business with 2,400 vendors, 40 percent of whom are owners of small businesses.

UC Berkeley is the fifth largest employer in Alameda County, employing 13,500 people, plus an additional 9,980 student employees. Its annual payroll exceeds n $603 million. The campus also generates an additional 17,500 Bay Area jobs in business and industry. The University employs individuals with a wide variety of educational backgrounds and work experiences to fill jobs ranging from faculty to entry-level positions. Through its educational and extension programs, the University also enhances the skills and abilities of the local labor force.

UC alumni and faculty, totaling over 62,000 in the East Bay alone, have founded and presided over some of the region's technological and industrial giants. For example, UC Berkeley researchers and alumni founded Intel, Apple, Inktomi, Chiron, Sun Microsystems, Vriolab - and Chez Panisse and Powerbar.

Every year UC Berkeley spends millions of dollars on capital construction, goods and services, thereby fueling the local economy. Students, employees, and visitors also contribute to the local economy through their expenditures at retail establishments, restaurants, hotels, movie theaters, grocery stores, and gas stations.

Public Service
Public service is one of the University's primary missions, and is evidenced by UC Berkeley's extensive involvement with K-12 and continuing education, health care, and business and urban assistance. The University, through the efforts of its students, faculty, and staff, makes significant contributions to the education, health, and well-being of Bay Area residents and to the quality of life in communities surrounding the campus.

Each year thousands of UC Berkeley students volunteer their time to help others. Cal students serve as mentors and tutors in elementary, middle, and high schools. They help new immigrants learn English and provide health care for the homeless. With the help of "service-learning" classes and volunteer resources such as the Cal Corps Public Service Center and Stiles Hall UC students are helping to build stronger communities while gaining valuable real world experience through their volunteer work.

UC Berkeley faculty are equally active in the community. Each year, faculty members and campus departments offer hundreds of lectures, colloquia, and workshops--bringing cutting edge knowledge out of the classroom and into the community. From pioneering new techniques to reinforce buildings and highways, to working with the state to improve schools and expand educational opportunties, faculty research often yields practical applications which benefit local residents.

Campus-wide initiatives, such as Rebuilding Together, the Berkeley Alliance, and YouthWorks further demonstrate the University's commitment to public service by mobilizing the campus's resources to address community needs.

Additional community partnerships between UC Berkeley and the East Bay are described in the Cal in the Community resource guide.

Intellectual and Cultural Center
As an intellectual and cultural center in the Bay Area, the University hosts numerous lectures, art exhibits, and musical, theatrical, and dance performances. Many of the University's academic resources are also accessible to the public.

Cal Performances is one of the most prestigious performing arts institutions in the country and a jewel in the crown of the Bay Area arts scene. From the pounding Taiko drums of Kodo to the soaring leaps of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Cal Performances consistently attracts the best of international performing arts to the Berkeley campus.

The UC Berkeley library system is the repository for more than 8,000,000 books and 89,750 serial publications (magazines, periodicals, and newspapers), and millions of manuscripts. The system contains sound recordings, videos, and rare paintings. It is also a resource which, with a few restrictions, is available to the community.

Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive draws from Western and Asian cultures in all periods of history. It has brought to the Bay Area important exhibitions by artists Juan Gris, Louise Bourgeois, Edward Munch, and Christian Boltanski. World renowned for the preservation and showing of cinema, the Pacific Film Archive offers a collection of 7,000 films and videos.

UC Berkeley Extension offers more than 3,000 college credit, professional credit, and non-credit courses to the Bay Area public each year. Subject areas range from new technologies to ancient Greek philosophy. Berkeley Extension also offers 30 professional certificate programs that provide comprehensive study of a single subject. Open to all adults, Berkeley Extension enrolled over 60,000 students in 1995-96, with over 20,000 from the East Bay.

Each year, over 250,000 people visit the award winning and nationally recognized Lawrence Hall of Science. More more than a research center, the Lawrence Hall of Science is a public science museum and a center for teacher education, research, and curriculum development.

Further academic and cultural resources at the University may be found in Cal in the Community. See also the Campus calendar for a listing of upcoming events.

Environmental and Recreational Resource
The University is a guardian of an extraordinary legacy that provides a major regional open space within the City of Berkeley with natural and cultural resources. The park-like character of the campus extends from the ridgelands of the regional open space area of the East Bay hills through Strawberry Canyon to the historic core of the central campus, and continues to the edge of downtown Berkeley.

The Department of Intercollegiate Athletics and Recreational Sports offers a wide range of recreational programs for community members of all ages. Cal Adventures provides instruction in numerous outdoor activities, such as rockclimbing, windsurfing, sailing, kayaking, and backpacking. CalFIT offers fitness, sports, and dance classes for students, staff, and community members. The Strawberry Canyon Recreation Area organizes summer sports and recreation programs for children ages 4-15 years. The Cal Rec Club offers local residents access to some of the most complete recreational facilities in the Bay Area, including four gymnasiums; four swimming facilities; three weight rooms; squash, handball, racquetball, and tennis courts; a martial arts room; and two 440-yard tracks.

Further environmental and recreational resources at the University may be found in Cal in the Community.

In addition to its community involvement in Berkeley, the University's presence extends to the neighboring communities of Albany, Oakland, and Richmond. The campus has property in the City of Albany, where University Village (see below) and the Gill Tract, an agricultural field station, are located; in the City of Richmond, where UC's Richmond Research Center (see below) is located; and in the City of Oakland, which borders the campus hill properties and research facilities.

University Village
Located three miles northwest of the Berkeley campus, just north of the Berkeley-Albany border, University Village provides low-cost housing for Cal students who are married or have children. Most of the residents are graduate students; many are international students. The 920-unit community houses 1,652 adults and 861 children, and includes light industrial land, and the Gill Tract, an agricultural research site. A patchwork of wood-framed buildings, some originally built as WWII military barracks, University Village has a police station, swap shop, recreational areas, a cafe and a child care/community center. University Village residents comprise nearly 17% of Albany's total population. Playing fields located at University Village provide valuable recreational open space for Berkeley and Albany little league and youth sports teams.

The University has begun to replace 420 World War II housing units and renovate 500 units constructed in the 1960s. Plans are also underway to create a mixed use/retail center along a portion of San Pablo Avenue.

Community Partnerships
University Village fosters partnerships with the City of Albany through a number of community outreach programs. Sponsored by the University of California Police Department (UCPD), the Cal Police Activitites League provides activities for local teenagers, such as the Friday Night for Teens program and a "Unity in the Community" pizza night for adolescents and their parents. The Youth Services department at University Village hosts a "Know Your Rights" panel for teens, in conjunction with UCPD officers, and coordinates the Academic Support Program at Albany Middle School. University Village also designates teen hours at its computer center.

Community Partnerships

The Institute of Urban and Regional Development's 7th Street McClymonds Corridor Neighborhood Improvement Initiative is a seven-year project in West Oakland that focuses on improving the physical, economic, and human conditions of the area by developing resident leadership and processes for strategy input and implementation. IURD staff provide academic knowledge and campus resources to professionally contribute to the economic development of East Bay neighborhoods. One of the project’s primary goals is to involve residents, community organizations and religious institutions in the planning and strategy development of the community improvement process.

The Hills Emergency Forum works to improve coordination between response agencies and jurisdictions responsible for large areas along the wild land-urban regions of the East Bay Formed after the 1991 Berkeley-Oakland hills fire, the forum includes representatives from UC Berkeley, East Bay Municipal Utility District, East Bay Regional Park District, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the cities of Berkeley and Oakland.

Richmond Research Center
The University of California, Berkeley, operates the Richmond Research Center (formerly known as the Richmond Field Station) on 152 acres of land located on the southwest shore of the City of Richmond. The Center is primarily used as a research facility for the UC Berkeley College of Engineering. Other research activities on the site include the Institute for Transportation Studies, the Environmental Engineering Health and Safety Lab, and the Earthquake Engineering Research Center. Non-engineering units include the Forest Products Laboratory, Art Practice and Architecture facilities, and the Labor and Occupational Health Program. The UC Northern Regional Library Facility and offices utilized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are also located at the Center.

Community Partnerships
University research conducted at the Richmond Research Center contributes to the quality of life of the local community, region, and beyond. For example, the UC Northern Regional Library Facility provides library services to the public; the Institute for Transportation Studies works to improve California's transportation systems; and the Earthquake Engineering Research Center is a national information service for Earthquake Engineering.

	The Berkeley Community
	Town and Gown: A Brief History
	The City and University Today
	UC Berkeley's Role in the Local Area
	Albany, Oakland, and Richmond

	City of Berkeley
	Berkeley Unified School District
	Berkeley Chamber of Commerce
	Berkeley Convention & Visitors Bureau
	League of Women Voters