In any career, you have ups and downs, triumphs and setbacks. This past year, we experienced both extremes at the College of Letters & Science. Our scientists unveiled life-changing discoveries, our faculty members and alums earned major awards, and we ended the school year with inspiring Spring Commencement speeches by University Medalist Asher Cohen and ASUC President Shrinidhi Gopal, two outstanding students — now alums! — of our college. We even named a new dean, Richard Harland, for the Division of Biological Sciences.
It has been an exciting year for our college — and a fraught one, given the extraordinary uncertainties regarding federal grants and policies. The financial climate surrounding higher education makes your gift to the L&S Leadership Fund even more impactful. It is an enormous relief to be able to draw on the L&S Leadership Fund’s unrestricted resources to respond to our college’s most pressing priorities. Your philanthropy extends the reach of our academic advisors, provides additional research opportunities for undergraduates, invests in innovative and interdisciplinary academics, and creates a more welcoming environment for our new students.
I believe in our innovative curriculum and have seen firsthand, as an instructor and course designer, the impact of programs such as L&S 1, Openness to Opposing Views, and the Freshman and Sophomore Seminars.
UC Berkeley — and higher education as a whole — is facing strong headwinds, but I’m an optimist. We have the brightest students, the most committed faculty, and the most creative ideas. With so much up in the air, I’ve kept myself grounded by focusing on what we can control and our core mission to maintain the College of Letters & Science’s status as the best place in the world to study and grow.
Sincerely,
Jennifer Johnson-Hanks, Executive Dean, College of Letters & Science
Rolling out new curriculum
With 20,000 undergraduates, the College of Letters & Science would be one of the largest universities in the country. Your generous support of the L&S Leadership Fund helps the next generation of scholars navigate our large campus and a complex world.
Designing new pathways
Decades of research on college success have pointed to the importance of the first-semester experience. We developed L&S First-Year Pathways to help new students transition to the college setting by providing themed, cohort-based learning experiences and a simplified enrollment process. We have experienced a high level of success over the program’s two years, as measured by student surveys and spring-term grade assessments.
This fall — thanks to robust support from L&S Leadership Fund donors — we are more than doubling the program’s capacity while keeping overall costs level. We now have room for up to 341 students in 17 custom course clusters. The expanded program has tracks for a variety of intended majors, including psychology, neuroscience, biology, and sociology. We are also launching new, thematic groups of courses, such as “Evaluating & Presenting Evidence” and “Who We Are and How We Argue.”
Due to a newly expanded range of enrollment capacities, we’ve been able to offer these options while dramatically lowering the cost per student. Supporters like you are vital in helping us to scale up this program to spark the joy of discovery in more students who are finding their way in a busy college.
An introduction to the liberal arts
For years, the L&S 1 course has oriented students to our large, diverse college so they can get off to a strong start. In the spring of 2024, we undertook a thoughtful revamp of the course, jettisoning the “parade of majors” approach. In its place, we adopted interdisciplinary panels of scholars addressing big questions, interspersed with practical advice about how to succeed in college. We launched the first version of the course in the fall of 2024, and Executive Dean Jenna Johnson-Hanks is co-teaching it this fall.
Dissecting the concepts changing society
For years, L&S Leadership Fund donors have sponsored our Big Ideas Courses, where professors from different fields co-teach a class centered around one transformative idea. Last spring, faculty members from ethnic studies, social welfare, and gender and women’s studies guided the “Prison Abolition” course to analyze why the United States holds almost a quarter of the world’s incarcerated population. As one student noted, “All four professors brought something different to the table, and that was truly the greatest gift to all of us as learners.”
Allowing close access to top faculty
The Freshman and Sophomore Seminars program is a testament to educational excellence, offering a diverse array of high-quality seminars to help new students explore their interests in smaller, welcoming environments. Thanks in part to the L&S Leadership Fund, the program hosted an impressive 82 seminars during the 2024–25 academic year, split evenly between the fall and spring semesters. Your support directly improves our students’ access to distinguished campus faculty and the world-shifting ideas they advance.
Executive Dean Johnson-Hanks is so fond of this program that she decided to teach a freshman seminar course in the fall of 2024 on setting boundaries and being assertive. Every undergraduate earned their place here — our admissions office is intentional in choosing the most qualified and compelling applicants. Yet, we know many students still feel doubt and hesitate to speak up in class. Johnson-Hanks’ course was designed to help these students recognize their value and strive for their goals with confidence through research and practice.
She found the small class size and discussion-based model to be a fantastic environment to help our students learn. The program’s student evaluations echo her takeaway:
“I felt both challenged and supported, academically and personally, in ways that facilitated incredible growth. This was a perfect first–semester class, and I am so thankful for it.”
“It was the highlight of my semester — both the professor and my classmates were deeply passionate about what we learned, and I left every class feeling intellectually inspired and challenged by our discussions.”
“The seminar helped me get more comfortable on campus because, when we had discussions, I felt that my thoughts were heard and valued by all the people in the room, and I made sure I gave that same attention to my classmates.”
Filling the research gap
Undergraduate research is an integral part of a complete college education, offering students an opportunity to move beyond the classroom and into the lab, studio, or archive. This journey is about more than just finding answers; it’s about learning to ask the right questions. It empowers students to become creators of knowledge, giving them a competitive edge in the global workforce. While these experiences often lead to rewarding research careers, students develop critical thinking, analytical, and communication skills that are invaluable no matter what path they choose.
This past year, L&S Leadership Fund donors sponsored 56 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships and six recipients of the Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program Summer Award. Students explored intriguing questions touching on all of our divisions, from a review of a 19th-century cholera epidemic’s dental records to an analysis of the cyberpunk genre’s popularity in the digital age.
Student evaluations consistently cite how transformative and impactful participation in research has been on their scholarly development and sense of purpose.
Through the L&S Leadership Fund, you have supported:
- Sarah Felson, a philosophy student exploring moral responsibility for nonvoluntary mental states
- Levi Galvan, an astrophysics and data science double major who is building a physics-informed neural network to detect Earth-like exoplanets
- Elaine Guo, an English and molecular and cell biology double major searching for the mechanisms that allow infected cells to detect pathogens and trigger cell death
- Matthew Martinez, a sociology student interrogating how structural labor conditions shape workers’ access to work-life balance and mental well-being initiatives
- And many other brilliant students!
These impressive researchers are all undergraduates; imagine what they will accomplish in graduate school or in their careers! Your support opens doors to new intellectual horizons.
“At such a tumultuous time for science funding, I am especially grateful that undergraduate students can still pursue research thanks to the generosity of private donors.” — Ryan Bloch, 2025 SURF participant
Undergraduate Research Spotlight: Ethan Xie
Neurodegenerative diseases are notoriously difficult to treat due to their many causes and complex biological pathways. They are also expensive: In 2014, the nine most common neurological diseases cost the U.S. an estimated $789 billion.
Some scientists believe that toxic protein aggregates cause these diseases. To investigate this hypothesis, molecular and cell biology student Ethan Xie submitted a proposal through the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF). SURF provides students with a $5,000 stipend to conduct seven weeks of concentrated research on an original project of their own design.
The L&S Leadership Fund extends this opportunity to students such as Xie. Professor Roberto Zoncu provided mentorship to Xie through the program.
Xie’s project investigated the mechanisms behind neurodegeneration by studying the role lipid transport plays in the synthesis and metabolism of protein aggregates. He examined the lysosomal mTOR pathway, a master regulator of cellular growth and repair, through the recently discovered cholesterol sensor LYCHOS. Xie hopes his research will identify a future pharmacological target.
“Thank you for providing me with the resources and funding that I need to pursue this neurobiology research,” said Xie. “Without your support, I would not have been able to purchase the antibodies, CRISPR guides, and DNA required to investigate omega-3 fatty acid signaling in neurons. You are a big reason why I feel comfortable doing research as an undergrad at UC Berkeley, and I cannot thank you enough for supporting me in my pursuit of science.”
Responding faster to advising requests
Academic advisors are critical to the college experience. They help students choose majors, get into desired classes, work through challenges, and prepare for life after college. Yet, just a few years ago, our students had tremendous difficulty securing appointments.
The L&S Leadership Fund supplements our advising program with peer advisors. These upper-class students are naturally able to understand the needs of L&S undergraduates, having faced many of the same obstacles themselves! Our peer advisors keep our Virtual Front Desk open all day and even some evenings. Donors like you allow peer advisors to be paid for their work, helping them afford college and its many associated expenses.
Peer advisors have been a great success as part of our multipronged strategy to provide more advising resources. We now offer 80 percent more advising appointments compared to one year ago. In just the first month of this semester, our college advisors had 2,700 appointments with students. Instead of lengthy delays, our students can almost always get appointments the same week they reach out — often within 24 hours! This sea change in our responsiveness will have a lasting impact on our students’ success.
Thank you for sustaining our college’s excellence!
For over a century, the College of Letters & Science has served as the core of UC Berkeley’s preeminence. Your support is critical to our ability to provide students with a vibrant, enriching liberal arts education at a scope and scale unlike any other.