Alumni Relations
Faculty Highlights
Dean's Desk
by Clayton H. Heathcock
A Bright Era for the College
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Dean Clayton Heathcock |
Well, here I am again. Many of you know that I retired
at the end of the last academic year, after 40 years of faculty service.
After broad consultation with the college faculty, Chancellor Berdahl
announced the appointment of Professor Charles B. Harris as my
successor—but not until July 1, 2005! Charles is currently chair of the
chemistry department, a position he has held only for one year, and he
is doing such an outstanding job guiding the department that we were all
unwilling to give up his leadership after just one year. Therefore, even
though I am retired, I agreed to be “recalled” as dean for one more year.
In essence, I am a rent-a-dean.
The fall semester is in full swing and the campus
has the usual hustle and bustle of a new academic year. Enrollments are
up again, we have several new faculty members, and a number of improvements
to our infrastructure are underway.
Chem Bio attracting students
Undergraduate enrollments are up dramatically—the
total number of undergraduate majors in the college is a record high of
794 this semester, compared to 697 a year ago. The main reason for this
14 percent increase is the popularity of our new chemical biology program,
which was initiated two years ago on a trial basis and approved by the
Academic Senate last year. At the May commencement I conferred the first
six Bachelor of Science in Chemical Biology degrees. The chemical biology
undergraduate program now has 138 students, compared to 391 in chemical
engineering and 255 in chemistry. The increase of about 100 College of
Chemistry majors, relative to last year, is a result of a somewhat larger
entering freshman class and a significant increase in the number of students
who transferred into the College of Chemistry, mostly from the College
of Letters & Science.
Faculty additions
Since last fall we have added three new faculty members
to the college: Professor Rachel Segalman in chemical engineering
and Professors Christopher Chang and Richmond Sarpong in
chemistry. Because of the weak budget situation during the past year,
we delayed several other faculty searches. At the moment, we have two
active searches, both in chemical engineering. One of these appointments
will be at the senior level and one at the junior level. Looking ahead,
we have been given a new faculty “target,” which will permit us to appoint
four additional faculty members over the next three or four years.
Money issues
The budget situation in California seems to have
stabilized somewhat and after another hard year, we expect things to improve
in 2005-2006. For the current year, in addition to delaying three new
faculty appointments, we have made a 2.25 percent permanent budget cut
by relinquishing several vacant staff positions and by recharging grants
and contracts for some of our research support service that was formerly
funded by the state.
In hard economic times for the state, the support
of our alumni and other private donors is doubly important. I am pleased
to report that we are currently engaged in several major renovation projects,
all funded with private monies. One of these projects, recently completed,
is a new state-of-the-art undergraduate biotech laboratory that will serve
Biochemical Engineering 170L and eventually will play a major role in
the laboratory curriculum for students in the Chemistry Department’s chemical
biology major. A second major renovation project will provide laboratory
space for 14 graduate student researchers on the sixth floor of Latimer
Hall. Yet a third project, scheduled to begin in January 2005, will give
us new laboratory space for 10 graduate student researchers on the eighth
floor of Latimer Hall. Further renovations, also financed by gifts from
private donors, will be launched in the summer of 2005.
New campus leaders
You have probably read that the campus has a new
chancellor—physicist Robert Birgeneau, and that the Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory (LBNL) has a new director—physicist (and Berkeley
alumnus and Nobel laureate) Steven Chu. We are all excited by the
vision that these two leaders bring to Berkeley, and we look forward to
a bright era in which the College of Chemistry will cooperate to a greater
degree than even now with biology, physics, engineering and LBNL in interdisciplinary
initiatives such as nanotechnology and chemical biology.
