[From the UC Berkeley NewsCenter]
“Rumors that the public university is almost a thing of the past” drew grad-student adviser Lynn Keithlin to an Oct. 25 campus forum on the future of public universities. “It’s almost frightening. I have a grandchild now; I have to think about these things,” said the chemistry-department staffer.
The historic role of public higher education in fostering social opportunity and social mobility was the focus of Tuesday’s event in Pauley Ballroom — the first of four public conversations organized by the deans of the campus’s colleges and professional schools at “a definitional moment” in campus history, as they put it. The goal, said moderator Jennifer Wolch, dean of the College of Environmental Design, was to take stock of this existential crisis and “find ways to move forward.”
