Rich is a Cal Bear through-and-through. He earned his bachelor’s degree at Berkeley in 1982 and returned as a faculty member in 1993 before going on to serve as Dean of Haas Business School and now Chancellor. Few people know the campus more deeply.

Rich grew up in Los Altos, and neither of his parents had a four-year college degree. He said when he arrived at Berkeley, he could not imagine a career in academia, let alone leading a university. Fortunately, several faculty members saw something in him, encouraged him, and helped open doors. He made an important distinction between mentoring and sponsorship. Mentors advise you; sponsors stake their credibility behind you. I suspect many of us can name the people who did that for us.

We also spoke about “pride without arrogance” — an idea that reflects the culture Rich helped establish at Haas and that he has worked to cultivate across Berkeley’s campus. Universities have every reason to be proud of their accomplishments, but they also have an obligation to remain open, curious, and willing to adapt.

I was especially interested in Chancellor Lyons’ thoughts about entrepreneurship. He has worked for years to broaden the concept beyond founding startups. His goal is to help students across all disciplines learn to think entrepreneurially and recognize opportunities, act on ideas, and believe they can have an impact on the world regardless of what field they end up in. Berkeley’s Changemaker program is one example of putting that idea into practice.

We spent considerable time on AI, which we both see as the defining challenge and opportunity facing universities today. Chancellor Lyons sees enormous possibilities for research, including accelerating work in biomedical science and creating AI resources that are broadly accessible. But he also believes the educational question is deeper. Berkeley should be asking how to produce the strongest generation of critical thinkers it has ever educated and how AI can help expose students to ideas and arguments and engage them in more demanding forms of intellectual inquiry.

That is one reason I found his discussion of Berkeley’s courses on thinking, science, and opposing views so compelling. Chancellor Lyons shared an excellent quote from Clark Kerr: “The University is not engaged in making ideas safe for students. It is engaged in making students safe for ideas.” This speaks to an enduring purpose of higher education to prepare students to encounter new and challenging viewpoints with curiosity and intellectual confidence, to weigh evidence carefully, and to reach conclusions of their own.

Berkeley helped Chancellor Lyons imagine possibilities for his own life that he had never considered. Today, under his leadership, the campus is helping a new generation do the same amid profound technological and social change.

We concluded with a glimpse of how Chancellor Lyons unwinds. After sharing that playing music helps him decompress, Rich picked up his guitar and treated us to a rendition of Paul Simon’s “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard.” He has now set quite a high bar for these leadership conversations.

One of the privileges of serving as president of the University of California is seeing firsthand the extraordinary work carried out across our university. That includes getting to know the three national laboratories that UC helps manage on behalf of the federal government — Los Alamos, Lawrence Berkeley, and Lawrence Livermore — institutions where UC’s research mission intersects with some of the most important scientific and global security work in the world.

I have always loved history, so I had been looking forward to the opportunity to visit Los Alamos National Laboratory. Los Alamos sits on a mesa in the high desert of northern New Mexico, above the Rio Grande, surrounded by an awe-inspiring landscape. Los Alamos was established here in 1943 as Project Y, the Manhattan Project’s secret weapons-design laboratory. Its director, J. Robert Oppenheimer, came from UC Berkeley, where he had helped build one of the greatest schools of theoretical physics in the U.S. At Los Alamos, he led the development of the atomic bomb, one of the most consequential scientific undertakings in modern history. During my visit, I stood outside his modest home. That contrast between the ordinary setting and the extraordinary stakes of the work undertaken here stuck with me.

Los Alamos is a fascinating part of American and world history, and I see why Professor Gage chose to highlight it in her recent road-trip history. But it’s not just a historic site. It remains a hub of scientific breakthrough and discovery. Nearly 18,000 people are engaged in some of the nation’s most important scientific and national security work, from nuclear deterrence to basic research in biology, physics, mathematics, and computer science. More than half of the laboratory’s research and development staff previously came through its postdoctoral program. Many of our students, interns, and postdocs work here, and a remarkable number stay. That includes many people with UC connections: approximately 600 current employees came through UC-related pathways, and roughly 100 UC students are currently participating in laboratory programs. I hope we can continue to support and expand this pipeline in the years ahead.

Laboratory Director Thom Mason provided an outstanding overview of the Lab’s work in a changing global security environment and how it balances its national security mission with its broader scientific enterprise. Los Alamos is one of 17 national laboratories in the federal system, funded and overseen by the Department of Energy. UC is one of three partners in the Triad consortium that manages the laboratory, a governance structure that reflects both the complexity and the importance of the research happening here. That relationship stretches back more than eight decades, making it one of the longest partnerships in UC’s history.

I came away from this visit with a deepened appreciation for what the University of California’s partnership with Los Alamos does for the university and the country. The collaboration between great research universities and the national laboratory system has been one of the most productive scientific partnerships in history, born out of wartime urgency and sustained by excellence. It is worth protecting and strengthening.

I am grateful to Director Mason and the entire Los Alamos team for a remarkable introduction to a remarkable place.

I am not alone in regarding UC as the world’s most important university, and the opportunity to become part of this renowned institution was certainly alluring. But after almost 40 years at or near the helm of four university systems, I wasn’t sure I needed to start over at a fifth!

After much reflection and conversation with my family — including, importantly, my 1-year-old grandson Jamie — I decided I really had no choice. Yes, it was an opportunity to join the premier public university in the country, but more important to me at this stage in my life, it was informed in equal measure by a sense of responsibility to offer what I could to this singular institution, so important to America and the world, at a time of great stress, and the excitement of being part of what I believe will be an even brighter future. I have not for a moment doubted that decision.

It no doubt goes without saying that my first year has come during a time of extraordinary consequence for higher education. Research universities are confronting unprecedented federal attacks on research, student aid, and the ability to fulfill their vital missions. And the decline in public confidence in higher education has been well documented. The cost and return on investment in a college education, as well as universities’ commitment to the unfettered pursuit of truth, are now subjects of vigorous public debate. At the same time, advances in artificial intelligence and other technologies are reshaping education, research, and nearly every profession our students will enter.

None of these challenges should be minimized. They all require thoughtful responses and underscore how important it is to understand what gives the University of California its enduring relevance and value. A year in, I remain convinced there could be no more exciting time to be part of UC. Despite the challenges we face, I am optimistic and energized because this past year has shown me time and again what this university is capable of when talented people pursue a common purpose.

Over the past year, I have spent as much time as possible visiting our campuses, state leaders, and people across California. I have gotten a sense of each campus’s history and character, and every visit has reinforced my appreciation for the people who make this university the greatest in the world. I have met faculty whose work reflects both their extraordinary expertise and a determination to improve the lives of others. I have spent time with students whose curiosity and ambition remind me why opportunity fueled by education remains one of our nation’s greatest strengths. I have seen the commitment of the people who care for patients, support discovery, teach, advise, mentor, and keep a university of this scale functioning every day.

I have also watched the world recognize this excellence. Last December, I had the privilege of traveling to Stockholm for the Nobel Prize ceremonies, where four UC faculty members and one UC alumnus were recognized for their incredible achievements in physics, chemistry, and medicine. When I was asked how UC accomplished this unprecedented feat, I shared that our accomplishments are sustained by a culture that encourages curiosity, supports ambition, and rewards persistence. We must remain dedicated to promoting these ideals.

I have also seen compelling evidence of the confidence Californians continue to place in UC. More students than ever before sought a University of California education, and we welcomed more than 300,000 students last fall — a record. Families continue to see UC as a pathway to opportunity and social and economic mobility. Our researchers continue to expand knowledge and innovate in ways that redefine how we approach everyday problems. Our health professionals provide quality care for millions of patients each year, improving and saving lives. Every day, the university contributes to California’s economy, culture, health, and civic life in ways that extend well beyond our campuses.

These accomplishments matter because they reflect the enduring strength of a mission that has served California and the nation for more than 150 years. They demonstrate the continued capacity of the University of California to educate, discover, heal, and serve, even during a period of considerable challenges.

Looking ahead, our responsibility is both to preserve what has made the University of California exceptional and to prepare for a future that will look far different than the past. Artificial intelligence is one example of the significant changes already underway. It will influence research, teaching, healthcare, and the workplace in ways we are only beginning to understand. Universities have always helped society navigate periods of transformation by asking difficult questions, testing new ideas, and preparing students for a changing world. That responsibility continues today.

One of my predecessors, Robert Gordon Sproul, once observed that any university president ought to know that whatever success they achieve is “but a pale reflection” of the accomplishments of the students, scholars, researchers, and staff who sustain this institution every day. After my first year at UC, I understand that observation on a more personal level than I did before. I look forward to seeing what this amazing academic community will accomplish in the years to come, and I’m grateful to be a part of it.

Just days after the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we spoke about Professor Gage’s timely new book, “This Land Is Your Land: A Road Trip Through U.S. History,” that describes her visits to roughly 300 historic sites across 19 states. A few key ideas stood out from our conversation. A form of conscientious patriotism is at the heart of her book. The book’s title comes from the timeless Woody Guthrie song, one of love for America, and also of protest and critique. And Professor Gage says we tend to forget the second part. Her guiding question is whether you can know American history fully — confront its darkest chapters as well as its greatest triumphs — and come away loving your country? Ultimately, her answer is yes, and she makes the case that patriotism shouldn’t belong to any one political group. Nor should it mean celebrating our nation blindly without reckoning with its shortcomings.

California figured prominently in our conversation. American author Wallace Stegner once wrote that “California is like the rest of America, only more so.” During our conversation, Professor Gage explained her initial vision for the final chapter was to show how California simultaneously gave birth to the modern progressive and conservative strands of American politics. Northern California was home to the Black Panthers, the New Left, and the gay rights movement; while Orange County conservatism, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan were on the rise in Southern California. These competing ideologies have been core to both California’s history and America’s. Unfortunately, Northern California was featured less prominently in the final version due to COVID altering Professor Gage’s plans and forcing her to skip several stops in the state.

Our conversation then turned to Professor Gage’s work as the chair of the Yale Committee on Trust in Higher Education, which published an influential report earlier this spring. Anyone who cares about the future of universities should read the report. Its candor is refreshing. The committee concluded that declining public confidence in higher education is real, urgent, and not simply the result of outside political forces. It points out how some of higher education’s actions have alienated many. Although that kind of self-scrutiny is uncomfortable, it’s also essential to fixing the real problems across higher education.

What connected both parts of our conversation was something Professor Gage said about how history helps cultivate the habits of mind we need most on campus right now: curiosity, empathy, and the capacity to engage seriously with people whose views differ from your own. She spent a decade writing a biography of J. Edgar Hoover, a man she often disagreed with. That project required her, as she put it, to understand how he saw the world — not to sympathize or agree, but to understand. That’s what historical thinking demands of us, and it’s what rebuilding public trust in higher education requires: Honesty about the past, genuine curiosity about perspectives unlike our own, and a willingness to examine ourselves critically.

The Declaration set forth aspirations for a new nation, and the work remains unfinished. Still, one of the country’s greatest achievements in this incredible project has been the creation of institutions, including colleges and universities, that have expanded opportunity and, indeed, the pursuit of happiness.

On July 4, 1861, a couple months into the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln described the purpose of democratic government as clearing “paths of laudable pursuit for all” and affording an “unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life.” In defining the Union’s aims and condemning slavery, he argued that expanding opportunity lay at the heart of the American experiment.

Almost exactly a year later, on July 2, 1862 — 164 years ago tomorrow — Lincoln took further action on that conviction by signing the Morrill Act. The legislation provided for the establishment of land-grant universities, such as the University of California, expressly committed to expanding access to higher education. At a moment when the nation’s survival was uncertain, its leaders chose to invest in institutions whose greatest benefits would be realized by future generations. 

That was an extraordinary decision.

The Morrill Act helped create a new public university system that became one of the most important democratic innovations in American history. No other country has built such a large network of institutions designed to make higher education accessible to ordinary people regardless of background. These universities became one of the clearest ways America translated its founding promise into reality.

One of my predecessors, UC President Benjamin Ide Wheeler, understood this well. Speaking before the California Teachers’ Association in 1915, and reflecting on the value of education, he observed that “Democracy is a matter of free opportunity, a fair field, and equal chance.” His words echoed Lincoln’s sentiment that opportunity must be more than aspirational. It must be built into the institutions of a democratic society. Public universities have done exactly that.

Throughout our nation’s history, they have provided upward mobility for millions of Americans and opened doors to lives their parents and grandparents could hardly have dreamed of. They have prepared teachers, doctors, nurses, engineers, scientists, public servants, and entrepreneurs who have shaped our country and the world. That achievement deserves renewed attention and appreciation today.

Public confidence in higher education has declined over the past decade. Americans have legitimate concerns about affordability, value, and whether universities are fulfilling their public mission. Public universities should welcome those questions. Accountability has always been part of our compact with the American people.

But accountability should be measured against the purposes these institutions were created to serve, namely, expanding opportunity, producing knowledge, and serving society. Measured by those standards, the American public university remains one of the country’s greatest achievements.

Its benefits extend far beyond individual graduates. By opening doors to talent wherever it is found, public universities have strengthened the nation’s economy, enriched its civic life, and helped make the American dream more attainable.

As America begins its next 250 years, public higher education deserves to be regarded as one of the country’s most enduring institutions of opportunity. Like the nation itself, it has never been perfect. But our universities have continued to expand access to education and economic and social mobility, helping generations of Americans build better lives.

Lincoln and Wheeler understood that realizing the goals of democracy depends on establishing institutions that create opportunity and give people a fair chance. The Morrill Act helped translate that idea into action. Public universities have carried that work forward.

Our responsibility now is to do the same.

We must continue to invest in public higher education. We should fund it adequately, govern it wisely, expect excellence from it, hold it accountable, and preserve its public mission. In doing so, we reaffirm our commitment to the belief that every generation should inherit a society with broad horizons and ample opportunities to pursue happiness through lives of purpose and impact.

Few institutions have done more to give millions of Americans a fair chance in life than our public universities. It is one of the clearest expressions of the belief that where you begin should not determine where you can go. There is no better way to honor our inheritance at 250 than by recommitting ourselves to delivering on the promise of a truly American institution.

Chancellor May is an engineer by training, and it shows in useful and sometimes amusing ways. During my one-on-one conversations with each of our chancellors last summer when I started as president, his answers — and our call — were by far the shortest, but I can’t say he missed a thing. His responses were direct, data-driven, and to the point. No wasted words. Unlike me, he’s never billed by the hour. I joked during our discussion that he needed to stretch out his responses so we could learn more about him — and fill our allotted hour — and he kindly obliged.

Gary grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. His mother was a public school teacher and among the first students who integrated the University of Missouri in the 1950s. He became interested in engineering during a summer science and math program in high school and earned a bachelor’s in electrical engineering at Georgia Tech before earning his Ph.D. at UC Berkeley in electrical engineering and computer science. He returned to his alma mater, Georgia Tech, and spent 26 years on the faculty, eventually serving as dean of its College of Engineering. When he arrived at UC Davis in 2017, he found “a sleeping giant”: a university of remarkable excellence that was, for a variety of reasons, reluctant to say so. He set out to change that.

Nine years later, UC Davis is no longer sleeping. It is the second-ranked public university in the country by the Wall Street Journal — its highest national ranking ever — and has achieved that while enrolling more students from all California populations at historic highs. Forty percent of students are first-generation. The average high school GPA of those students is above a 4.0. Excellence and representation, as Gary put it, are not mutually exclusive. UC Davis is proving that every day.

The UC Davis research enterprise tells a similar story. For each of the past five years, UC Davis has averaged a billion dollars in external research funding, a distinction very few universities can claim. Like universities across the country, UC Davis has also sustained losses due to the federal government’s actions, including one we haven’t heard as much about: the loss of nearly $100 million in USAID-funded agricultural and public health initiatives around the world. This has been a significant blow to the communities those programs served, and it’s a reminder of the global consequences that occur when the federal government retreats from its commitments to research.

Davis is the largest UC campus by area: 5,300 acres, or several times larger than UC Berkeley. That land reflects the university’s DNA: a world-leading College of Agriculture, a No. 1 veterinary school just endowed with the largest philanthropic gift in the history of that profession, and a wine and viticulture program that Chancellor May describes as number one in the world, though he acknowledged a few in France may disagree. I can confirm that UC Davis’s own Cabernet is very good.

I’ve been eager to hear from all our campus leaders about AI, and I appreciated Gary’s take. As an engineer, he has worked with neural networks since the 1990s. We share a bullishness about the technology, and anticipate it will not replace people, but rather those who know how to use it will have a distinct advantage. It was also good to hear about UC Davis’s research underway to address AI’s sustainability challenges, including a modular approach to data centers that could significantly reduce energy consumption.

One of the most tangible expressions of UC Davis’s ambition is Aggie Square, a roughly one-million-square-foot innovation district in Sacramento that opened last year. I recently had the chance to tour Aggie Square, and it’s remarkable. The vision brings university research, industry partners, startups, and the broader community together through housing and office space in one place to accelerate the development of discoveries in technology and health sciences. With the city of Sacramento as a key partner, 11 startups already signed on, and several larger companies in the pipeline, Aggie Square is on its way to adding thousands of jobs and half a billion dollars in annual economic activity to the region. Initiatives like this show the land-grant mission in action.

With Chancellor May’s leadership, the sleeping giant is fully awake, and the campus is charging full-steam ahead.

Chancellor Frenk and I have gotten to know each other well over the past year. We both arrived at UC in 2025 and were immediately confronted with big challenges.

Julio came to UCLA after nine distinguished years leading the University of Miami, including through a pandemic, a major hurricane, and a campus evacuation. On his second day of his first full week on the job at UCLA, the Los Angeles wildfires broke out. Several months later, the Trump administration suspended nearly $600 million in research grants to UCLA. I asked Julio if he was jinxed. He took the question in stride, and, in typical fashion, offered sage advice on leading through adversity. His instinct is to communicate constantly and to look for the opportunities that crises force you to see.

There is plenty ahead that will demand exactly that approach. UCLA will exclusively host both the Olympic and Paralympic villages for the 2028 Summer Games. This will be a logistical undertaking of historic proportions that Chancellor Frenk views as an opportunity to showcase the greatness of UCLA and its contributions to the world.

On AI, he sees universities playing three essential roles: as the originators of the basic research that made the AI revolution possible, as educators of the workforce that will navigate it, and as institutions that must model for society how to adopt it responsibly.

And on the future of higher education itself, his concept of UCLA for Life — the university as a lifelong partner for learning rather than seeing education as a four-year transaction — is one of the most important ideas in American higher education right now.

Over the last year, I have also come to appreciate how Julio’s remarkable story, and that of his family, has shaped him. His paternal grandparents fled antisemitism in Germany in the 1930s with their two young children. One of them was Julio’s father, who was six years old. The family ended up in Mexico, and to this day, Julio credits Mexico as the foundation of his family’s success. “They knew no one, no one knew them, no one owed them anything. Yet [Mexico] embraced them. They gave them an opportunity to start a whole new life,” he shared.

Julio was raised with the conviction that his life’s work should reciprocate that generosity. He has found his pathway, as he puts it, through education and healthcare, the two pillars of equal opportunity. His family’s story has informed every step of his career.

That’s the kind of leadership this moment requires, and we are fortunate to have Chancellor Frenk and other outstanding leaders serving across UC.

Charles was honored with the University Medal, Berkeley’s highest accolade for a graduating senior. His story — chronicled here — is remarkable. Raised in California through the foster system, he spent years cycling in and out of incarceration and homelessness as a young man, including serving a two-year sentence for a crime he didn’t commit. When his parole ended, he was able to restart his life, earning trade school certificates and his associate’s degree. In the fall of 2022, at age 40, he transferred to Berkeley. As a sociology and social welfare double-major, he mentored incarcerated men at San Quentin and young people in juvenile halls. Oh, and he earned a perfect GPA. In his essay for the award, he wrote: “Through academia, I’ve learned to make sense of both the systems around me and the experiences that shaped me. But more importantly, I’ve learned to affect them.” What an endorsement for a UC education!

Manu, a 2020 Berkeley graduate, received the Peter E. Haas Public Service Award, one of Berkeley’s highest honors for alumni in public service. As a first-year student, he watched a campus protest shut down a controversial speaker and decided to do something about political division rather than argue about it. He co-founded what became BridgeUSA, a nationwide organization that has brought tens of thousands of students together across dozens of campuses for dialogue across differences. His simple idea at Berkeley is making a difference all over the country. Such leadership is needed more than ever.

Charles and Manu came to Berkeley by very different paths, but their stories point to a shared truth: A great public university does more than confer degrees; it helps people make sense of their experience and equips them to be citizens and leaders. Charles’s story reminds us that talent is often found where opportunity has been denied. Manu’s work shows that universities remain places where people must learn to disagree without giving up on each other. Those ideas were very much on my mind when I had the privilege of sharing some brief remarks with the Class of 2026, following Secretary Reich’s keynote.

Thank you, Chancellor Lyons. And thank you, Secretary Reich, for your words today, for all you have done for Berkeley, and for all you have done for our country. If I had any sense at all, I would simply say “what he said” and sit down!

To the Class of 2026: You are here today — now, let’s be honest — to hear one main thing: that you’ve graduated. And to the family and friends of the graduates who are here today: you’re here to celebrate one thing — their graduation. I’m just what you need right now; another suit, or another robe, before we get to the really important stuff of today. So, I’ll keep this brief.

I’ve been in higher education for almost 40 years, and I’ve been to hundreds of commencements during that time. They never get old. In fact, each one is better than the last. That means, of course, that today is the best graduation I’ve ever attended!

The graduates and their family and friends have so much to be proud of. Secretary Reich was looking at my notes, I think. I had planned to say — and I will say anyway — the University of California is the greatest university in the world. I don’t say “public,” and I don’t say “in the U.S.” Those are true, of course, but not enough. So, I’ll say it again: the University of California is the greatest university in the world. And you all belonged here. You all succeeded here. You all are now part of the UC Berkeley tradition of excellence forever.

You’re graduating at an interesting moment in time, and I use that word advisedly. We are seeing the greatest challenges to higher education and its values in my lifetime. We are seeing the most divided and destructive politics in my lifetime. We are witnessing the most exciting — and occasionally terrifying — advances in technology. We are seeing the most promising developments in science and medicine.

It’s a time of extraordinary change, and it presents challenges, to be sure. But it also presents enormous opportunities. And so I am gratified that you, among the most talented, grounded, principled members of your generation, will take the baton and meet the challenges and embrace the opportunities with energy, with innovation, and with humanity.

Most importantly, humanity. No matter how good Claude and its progeny are, it’s our humanity that distinguishes us and informs us at our best.

Now, my colleagues on the stage — at least the senior members among us — will do everything in our power to leave you with a Berkeley, and with a world, in good shape. But make no mistake: We most certainly will be leaving it to you. And I am comforted by that knowledge. You fill me with optimism — even more so today after hearing from Manu, from Abby, and from Charles.

We need Berkeley graduates in the world today more than ever. I can’t wait to see what you accomplish. Congratulations, Class of 2026, and Fiat Lux.

UC Merced sits at the edge of the San Joaquin Valley, surrounded by some of the most productive farmland in the world. This past fall, 40% of its incoming students came from the Valley itself, and more than 60% are Pell-eligible and are the first in their families to pursue higher education. The campus is, by any measure, starting from a different place than most research universities. But what struck me during my visit is how much that difference is a strength.

A campus only two decades old carries less institutional inertia. It has fewer historical precedents to navigate, fewer entrenched habits to overcome. In this consequential moment for higher education, when the ability to adapt quickly is essential, UC Merced is set up to lead. And from what I saw, they already are.

While on campus, I spent time with faculty from disciplines that ran the gamut from archaeology to physics. We discussed the future of higher education and the impact of AI on teaching and learning. We talked about how students are choosing their majors and how that informs faculty thinking on program offerings, as well as providing students with protected and secure AI platforms. UC Merced’s relative youth shapes how faculty approach these questions. With fewer inherited structures and assumptions, they are helping define what the next phase of higher education will look like.

Chancellor Muñoz has a clear vision for UC Merced to become a leading university in the country at the intersection of agriculture and technology. Reflected in this vision is the Merced Experimental Smart Farm, a 40-acre living laboratory. Faculty, graduate students, farmers, ranchers, and industry partners work side by side on some of our state’s most pressing challenges: water conservation, greenhouse gas reduction, and addressing hunger. One particularly interesting project I learned about was the conversion of almond shells and orchard prunings into biochar – a type of charcoal that help soils store carbon and potentially reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Merced’s PRIME+ program is further evidence of the university’s connection and commitment to the Valley. I got to meet the program’s inaugural cohort of undergraduates who want to practice medicine in the communities where they grew up, including the Valley. Upon acceptance into the program as first-year undergraduates, they’re provisionally admitted to medical school and, as long as they remain in good standing, can continue directly into their medical education without taking the MCAT. I toured a soon-to-be-completed medical education building and saw wet labs and biochemistry labs take shape. The urgency of this project is palpable. A region with one hospital and an overwhelmed emergency room is counting on this program and UC Merced’s partnership to expand health care access to a population in need.

UC Merced understands both its “where” and its “why.” That is no small thing. Many institutions know their rankings, but fewer understand their communities as intimately as Merced does. I am grateful to Chancellor Muñoz and the students, faculty, and staff who made my visit so memorable and so instructive about what a young, ambitious, and unencumbered university can be. I’m so excited to see what they do next.

Below are my remarks from the rally. I’ve been doing this for a long time and have never seen so many people gathered in the rain to support science.

It’s great to be here with all of you.

To our speakers today, thank you for illuminating why research funding is so vital. California’s scientists, medical professionals, workers, and patients all understand the importance of this proposal. As do economists and others who know the huge impact of scientific research on our state’s economy and quality of life.

Of course, we wouldn’t be here today without Senator Scott Wiener. Senator Wiener, we are grateful for your leadership and your support for scientific research. And we are proud to co-sponsor this bill.

We’re here today because we all want to protect research in California, which is the global leader. This didn’t happen by accident. Since World War II, the federal government has been making investments in university research because it recognized that it would fuel the economic, health, and national security engine for our country. It was always a bipartisan issue.

And it was an overwhelming success. Research universities in the U.S. have led the world. Other countries have long tried to emulate us, and they are racing to catch up with us. It seems inconceivable to me that we would voluntarily relinquish the leadership that has propelled our country, fueled the economy, made us healthier, and made us safer. But that’s exactly what’s happening now, and I am optimistic that Californians will not let this happen.

American higher education is facing serious headwinds, and nowhere is this the case more than in California. UC is the most successful research enterprise in the world. Its success is unparalleled. Seventy-five Nobel Prize winners from UC. Last year, the U.S. had six Nobel Prize winners. Five of them were from the University of California. People around the world asked: “What are you doing in California that makes you so successful?!”

It’s not a secret. Our state built the most successful system of research universities the world has ever seen. Its outstanding faculty compete on the merits for funding from agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Energy. That success in research has led to success in innovation. UC leads the world in patents, with twice as many last year as the university in second place.

Today, incredible as it seems, because of actions by the federal government, this success is at great risk. The University of California is facing the most significant disruption to our research enterprise in our history.

This is research that supports tens of thousands of good, local jobs; propels our state’s global leadership in innovation; delivers life-changing and life-saving medical advancements for people everywhere.

To put it simply — no one anywhere does scientific discovery better than the University of California. And if the federal government puts this at risk, I am confident the people of California will understand what needs to be done.

This bond measure would help make sure that California can continue to be the world’s leader in advancing solutions to our most urgent challenges.

The faculty and staff at UC come to work every day to help make Californians’ lives better, whether or not they’ve ever set foot on one of our campuses, or medical centers.

We cannot give up on that mission and all the benefits it has brought. SB 895 is the way Californians can ensure that it continues.

Thank you for being here today. Let’s continue to deliver for California’s economy and workers, for our patients and families, and for every person in this state. That’s our mission, our obligation, our job. We don’t intend to stop now.

Chancellor Gillman and Dean Chemerinsky have been writing and speaking eloquently about these issues for decades, and their second book together is a welcome addition to current discussions nationally. The pressures on universities to moderate or restrict what can be taught, said, and researched — from legislatures, federal agencies, and sometimes within our own campuses — are significant and consequential. Their book is quite a valuable contribution: It offers a principled framework that addresses in clear and practical terms the obligation to protect free expression and where to draw the lines.

A few things stuck with me from our conversation. The distinction they draw between free speech and academic freedom is one that not enough people, on and off college campuses, clearly understand. I liked Dean Chemerinsky’s description of the two protections as overlapping circles in a Venn Diagram. Free speech protects the right to express ideas without government censorship. Academic freedom is different; it’s a set of rights as well as responsibilities of faculty as scholarly professionals, subject to the judgments of their peers. And while the two overlap, they are not the same.

Another area that is often misunderstood involves whether hate speech can be prohibited or regulated. As Dean Chemerinsky pointed out, hate speech, however despicable or offensive, is generally protected by the First Amendment. But that doesn’t mean universities are powerless against it. There is nothing preventing members of the university community, including its leaders, from condemning hateful rhetoric.

Their advice to administrators facing social media firestorms, campus protests, or calls to cancel speakers is practical and worth heeding. The importance of instituting clear, neutral, and well-understood policies before a crisis, not during one, and being consistent about the application of those policies is advice every campus leader should take seriously.

Chancellor Gillman also addressed an aspect of the current decline in public confidence in universities. He acknowledged that too often our campuses reflect homogeneous political views, and that may suggest an inconsistency with our scholarly mission. This is a point that deserves the thoughtful consideration of faculty and administrators. When half the country has lost trust in universities, we cannot simply ignore what our stakeholders are telling us.

I’m especially grateful to the UC National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement and its Executive Director Michelle Deutchman for hosting this conversation and for all their other important work. The Center performs a vital service not only for UC, but for higher education and our country more broadly. Free expression is central to our colleges and universities and to our democracy. I appreciate the Center’s work to help ensure it remains that way.

UC Santa Barbara is a magical place. The campus sits on a coastal bluff above the Pacific Ocean. For the history lovers out there, UC Santa Barbara is a converted WWII-era Marine Corps air station. It’s an incredible spot to go to school and a place worthy of traveling the world to see. My only regret was not knowing about it when I went to college.

I wanted to share some brief reflections from my visit.

One of my top priorities as president is ensuring UC students have their basic needs met. Food security, affordable housing, and medical care especially come to mind. I had a chance to meet with students at the Associated Students Food Bank. Last year, the food bank served more than a fifth of the student population and distributed more than 300,000 pounds of food. It’s a remarkable operation that directly supports student success — not just as a social service — but as infrastructure for retention and academic achievement.

UC Santa Barbara is no. 1 in the country for granting bachelor's degrees in physics, per the American Institute of Physics. It’s also a quantum computing powerhouse, home of the National Science Foundation Quantum Foundry. With over 30 industry partners, including major collaborations with Google’s local quantum AI lab in Goleta and Microsoft’s Station Q on campus, the Foundry is a first-of-its-kind operation in the U.S. Backed by a $25 million federal grant, faculty from across scientific disciplines are finding and building the physical materials that make reliable quantum computing possible. This is advanced technology that can be used for drug discovery, cybersecurity, sustainable energy storage, and more. Students and local industry are essential to this effort, working side-by-side on everything from atoms to applications. It’s exactly the sort of collaboration that’s contributing to our economy and seeding the next generation of scientific breakthroughs.

I was also struck by a conversation with faculty about how AI is reshaping research and teaching, including in the humanities. Students have their own questions about where and when it’s appropriate to use AI and many have concerns about cognitive offloading, a term illustrating how AI reduces the amount of thinking required for certain tasks. At a moment when many universities are scrambling to react, UC Santa Barbara is asking the right questions: how AI is impacting the student experience, what this generation of students needs from their universities, and how institutions like UC must adapt to meet them.

Other highlights of the day included lunch with sharp, engaged, and curious students from the Chancellor’s Student Council and meeting the Gauchos baseball team. They welcomed me with a jersey of my own. Number 22, naturally.

I look forward to visiting other UC campuses soon and am grateful to the students, faculty, staff, and of course, Chancellor Assanis, who made my first visit to UC Santa Barbara a special one.

Below is an adapted version of my remarks:

The National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement is one of UC’s treasures. It’s a demonstration of the university’s public mission and of our responsibility to lead thoughtfully on some of the most pressing issues facing democracy and higher education. I love the name of today’s event—Preserving the Pillars—because free speech is a pillar of American universities.

We’ve all read about the decline in confidence in higher education. It’s pretty clear to me that perceptions of how colleges and universities are protecting, nurturing, and encouraging free speech—or not—are among key reasons for the decline. One of the most serious charges leveled against universities is that we do not truly value the freedom of expression guaranteed by the First Amendment. Some brush these criticisms aside as propaganda or red state issues. I think that’s a mistake. I am convinced we must demonstrate through our actions that we take our obligations seriously, that we recognize the fundamental role of free speech. It’s table stakes in rebuilding trust in higher education.

Now, I imagine that I am mainly preaching to the choir today. And not only that, but I see that later on the agenda there’s an opportunity for UC Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and UC Irvine Chancellor Howard Gillman to politely correct me, but I’m still going to say a little bit more about my thinking on free speech at universities.

Our campuses have to be places where ideas are expressed openly without fear or favor, and certainly without threats of violence. That’s a basic precept of liberal democracy, and it’s a pillar of higher education. The fundamental obligation of an academic institution is the unfettered pursuit of truth. Essential to that pursuit is the ability of individuals to develop their own ideas, to test them, to challenge each other, and to argue for what they believe.

It’s not always comfortable work. It was never intended to be. But a university can’t fulfill its mission by shielding individuals from ideas that are unwelcome or even offensive. It fulfills its mission by ensuring that those ideas are examined, contested, and, when appropriate, rejected through reasoned argument and evidence.

At the same time, conditions for that exchange matter. The university must be a place where people are safe and empowered, both intellectually and physically, to participate in that exchange. It cannot come at the expense of safety, and protests cannot mean preventing others from speaking or learning.

The responsibility we have is to sustain an environment where vigorous debate is possible because the rules that govern it are clear and consistently applied. This isn’t new. The protests of the 1960s, including the Free Speech Movement here at UC, forced American higher education to grapple more directly with enduring questions about speech and expression and the institutional responsibility.

In 1967, a faculty committee at the University of Chicago produced what was at the time a relatively unheralded document, the Kalven Report. Its central insight has gained renewed attention in recent years. It argued that a university fulfills its mission most effectively when all members of its community are free to question, debate, and dissent—a core idea that underpins the more recent Chicago Principles — which affirms the university’s commitment to free and open inquiry in all matters and to the broadest possible latitude for individuals to speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn. They make clear that while expression may be limited in narrow circumstances—such as threats, harassment, disruption of university functions—the institution should not shield individuals from ideas they may find unwelcome or deeply offensive.

I’m a fan of both documents. And as of today, over 120 universities across the country have adopted or endorsed the Chicago Principles. It’s an important first step to responding to the critique that we are indoctrinating rather than fostering inquiry. Preserving the pillars requires more than stating our commitment to free speech. It requires discipline. It requires consistency. It requires protecting the rights of speakers and the rights of protestors while making clear that protests cannot include silencing others. It requires defending freedom of speech and expression, not only when it’s easy, but particularly when it’s difficult.

This is why the work of the Center matters so much. Building on UC Berkeley’s historic association with the Free Speech Movement, the Center has helped UC and institutions across the country think more carefully and act more responsibly around expression, civic engagement, and democratic participation.

This conference has become an important national forum because the stakes are so high and the questions go directly to the functioning, not only of higher education, but of our democracy. We’ve faced uncertainty before, and we have endured by returning to first principles and applying them to changed circumstances. That’s certainly the case at universities. If we do that clearly, consistently, and with a shared sense of responsibility, we’ll not only preserve the pillars, but strengthen them.

I hope you’ll join me for the conversation with Chancellor Gillman and Dean Chemerinsky. Details to follow.

I’ve known Chancellor Muñoz for years. Our paths crossed in Texas, and I’ll admit I once tried to recruit him back there. I am sure glad I failed, as he remains a tremendous asset to UC and the state of California. Juan reminds us why UC Merced is one of the most important universities in the country right now: a top research university – achieving R1 status in its first 20 years, a remarkable achievement in and of itself. But it is also one of the nation’s great engines of social and economic mobility, demonstrated in its designation as a Carnegie Opportunity College and University. His own story, the son of a farmworker from Delano and the first in his family to go to college, reflects the story of UC Merced.

I continue to be struck by how UC Merced has successfully embedded itself in the San Joaquin Valley, reflecting and serving the community around it. This fall, 40% of incoming students came from the Valley itself. More than 60% are Pell-eligible and are the first in their families to pursue higher education. In our conversation, Chancellor Muñoz talked about UC Merced being not just in the Valley but of the Valley, and he highlights many examples of that, from visiting high schools in Clovis to his leadership on the board of the local hospital.

That commitment is driving something important: a medical school designed to serve a region that is, by any measure, grossly medically underserved. Juan described a local emergency room built for 50 to 60 patients that regularly sees 270. Some have traveled all the way to Stanford for life-saving care, a distance no family should have to travel in a moment of crisis. But UC Merced is approaching this problem exactly as they should — recruiting medical students from towns in the Central Valley like Fowler, Madera, and Merced — students who grew up there and want to go back. The data shows, time and time again, that this is how you build talent in traditionally underserved areas. It works. The first cohort is set to begin their studies in fall 2027.

Near the end of our conversation, Juan told a story I won’t forget. As a sophomore at UC Santa Barbara, he was contemplating leaving school because he couldn’t pay a $340 tuition bill. A staff member named Linda wouldn’t let him walk away and encouraged him to reconsider what it meant to borrow a small amount for an education that would serve him for a lifetime. I’ll let you hear the whole story from Chancellor Muñoz, but that one UC staff member changed the course of his life. It’s a reminder that our university is made up of countless people at every level who are changing the lives of individuals, families, and entire communities for the better.

That’s the UC mission in action.

As many of you know, the University of California relies on federal support to sustain and grow the University. These funds — more than $17 billion in 2023-24 — support student financial aid, research, health care delivery and training, and many other critical functions and programs. This investment is not a “nice to have” — it’s essential to UC’s ability to deliver on its mission, which produces phenomenal benefits for the state and nation. The University has faced serious federal enforcement actions and penalties over the past year, and it’s more important than ever that we work closely with Congress to ensure support for the University now and in the years to come.

While in Washington, I met with members of Congress from both parties and diverse regions of California. While they may disagree on red versus blue, they all bleed blue and gold.

Everyone I met with understood the importance of UC and our contributions to California and the nation. They see how UC creates opportunities for students in their districts — and serves as the backbone of our state’s economy and health care system. They know we are the second-largest employer in the fourth-largest economy in the world, with more than 260,000 employees; that our academic health centers served patients from nearly every California ZIP code last year; that we are a driver of the state’s innovation economy; and that we contribute $82 billion to the state’s economy annually.

Most importantly, our California members of Congress want to help and support us. I look forward to deepening these partnerships in California and in Washington on behalf of the University.

A number of structural issues have made higher education increasingly vulnerable to criticism. I recently introduced Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber at UC Berkeley’s prestigious Clark Kerr Lecture, and he articulated some of these criticisms well. One of President Eisgruber’s points was inextricably connected to access and affordability. Over the last several decades, competition for students has intensified while a small group of universities have become far more selective and better resourced. It’s turned college admission into a high-stakes process that fuels anxiety and resentment about access and fairness.  

As the leading public university in the world, UC is especially well-positioned to row in the other direction, toward access and excellence, and away from exclusion. And we have. But we need to row harder.

We need to expand the opportunity for more students to earn a UC degree — but that alone is not the end goal. A great education — and then a great career — is the goal.

We need to help more Californians see a UC education as both attainable and transformative. One way we can do this is through initiatives like our Transfer Pathways and Transfer Admissions Guarantee, which provide greater clarity and help community college students prepare to transfer to UC.

Providing transfer opportunities has long been an essential element of California’s renowned higher education system, but we still have more work to do on this front. Expanding access is not just about the opportunity for more students to get into UC — it’s about getting graduates to stay connected with UC: building lifelong relationships between our institutions and our students. Lifelong learning used to be discussed as a desirable but vague pursuit. Like a hobby. Today, it is an imperative.

No four-year college degree can fully prepare someone for a 40- or 50-year career — especially in a world changing as fast as ours. As our graduates need to learn and retool and reskill throughout their careers, I want them to look to their alma mater. They should be able to rely on UC to provide high-quality, relevant, easily accessible education for life. It’s not a one-time purchase; it’s a lifetime subscription.

At the same time, that lifelong pursuit of learning must be affordable. One way we advance this at UC today is through the Tuition Stability Plan, a model where students know that the tuition rate they pay when they start their education will remain the same throughout their time at UC.

Affordability, of course, extends beyond tuition and fees. For many students and families, the real challenge lies in the broader costs of attendance — housing, food, transportation, health care, and other expenses universities have less control over and that continue to rise. We need to further strengthen our financial aid program and support for basic needs initiatives to ensure that a UC education remains within reach for all Californians.

Much of what we do will be transformed, advanced, disrupted — choose your verb — by rapidly changing information technology. I believe it will provide dramatic ways to expand our reach and lower costs. UC needs to lead this work.

At a time when confidence in higher education is being tested, our response cannot simply be to defend what we have done in the past. Some practices are worth preserving, but we can’t afford to stand completely still. We must demonstrate how excellence and access go hand-in-hand; ensure that a UC education is attainable and affordable; support students’ lifelong learning throughout their careers; and take advantage of all the tools available to us to advance this mission. In this way, we will reaffirm why the University of California matters so deeply to this state, the country, and the world — and why it’s worth the investment and support of people everywhere.

We admitted our largest class of California first-year students, expanded health care access all across the state, and set a world record for the most Nobel Prizes ever awarded to university faculty in a single year. Surgeons at UCLA performed the first human bladder transplant. UC Irvine Health opened the nation’s first all-electric acute care hospital. And researchers at UC San Diego showed us how dogs can communicate with us.

UC faculty and alumni landed 13 spots on TIME’s Best Inventions of 2025, including a new treatment for Parkinson’s patients and better alternatives to plastic bags. Six UC alumni received MacArthur “genius grant” awards, another won a Grammy, and one even led the Los Angeles Dodgers to a World Series victory. Our students, faculty, and staff continued to shine in the classroom and beyond, from organizing food and clothing drives during the Los Angeles County wildfires to donating computers to students around the world. Our community is on the front lines of change, discovery, and service everywhere you look.

I’m inspired by the many good things we’ve accomplished together, and I am particularly thankful for all our faculty, students, and staff who contribute to the success and well-being of our state, nation, and world every single day. UC is lighting the way forward and bringing hope to the future. I can’t wait to see what next year brings.

Fiat Lux — Let There Be Light.

To kick off the week, I attended the Nobel Lectures on Monday. You can watch them here. First on the docket were the talks by the physics prize winners John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis, summarizing their groundbreaking work. At the conclusion, the audience gave them a rousing standing ovation while the Nobelists stood onstage, under a screen that identified each of the three winners as representatives of the University of California.

And here’s a picture of professor Clarke telling me about his move from Cambridge to Berkeley in 1968 and why he spent the rest of his career at UC.

I only wish I could share this with my high school physics teacher!

Next were the chemistry lectures, where gaps in the education of this lawyer were further revealed. Professor Omar Yaghi described his pioneering work developing reticular chemistry and metal-organic frameworks that have been used to harvest water from desert air and filter carbon out of the atmosphere with remarkable efficiency.

Sadly, I missed the lecture by our final UC-affiliated Nobelist, Fred Ramsdell, a UCLA and UC San Diego alumnus, who gave his Nobel Lecture on December 7, a day before I arrived. He talked about his work on the immune system and how regulatory T cells prevent the immune system from harming the body’s own tissues.

Finally, I stayed for the lectures by the prize winners in economics. No UC representatives in this group, but the subject matter was a bit more familiar to someone with a minor in economics, including fascinating work advancing Schumpeter’s theory of creative destruction. The theory was first used to describe capitalism and the incessant process of new innovations displacing old ones.

Throughout the day — over six hours of compelling talks by some of the most accomplished scholars in the world — I was continually struck by the incredible impact of the world’s best universities. Each of these remarkable thinkers did most, if not all, of their work as faculty members at leading universities, sustained by grants that allowed them to advance knowledge in fundamental ways. The most successful model of this support is, of course, that of the funding agencies of the U.S. government, beginning in the post-World War II era. I wrote on this history recently in the LA Times, tracing how federal investment created the research engine that still drives American innovation today.

I’ll have more to say about the Nobel activities and the recognition of UC and its outstanding representatives of whom the world is taking special notice this week.

As I began my role at the University of California, I revisited the writings of one of my distinguished predecessors, Clark Kerr, UC’s 12th president. If you are familiar with his work and his story, you already know the name of this Substack is a nod to him. Kerr’s impact is difficult to overstate. As a faculty member, his defense of colleagues who refused to sign a loyalty oath earned him admiration and eventually helped lead to his appointment as UC Berkeley’s first chancellor in 1952.

Five years later, he was named president of the University of California. In this role, he drafted the California Master Plan for Higher Education that offered a strategic vision for public higher education as enrollments and expectations expanded rapidly after World War II. To help meet this demand, Kerr oversaw the opening of new UC campuses in San Diego, Irvine, and Santa Cruz. He changed the trajectory of the state and helped redefine the possibilities of public higher education. Today, his ideas continue to inform how universities balance scale, access, and quality.

I first read Kerr’s two-volume memoirs, “The Gold and the Blue,” almost 20 years ago and learned much from them at the time. Actually being in his former chair now has yielded fresh appreciation for his insights. He wrote passionately about the promise of a public research university of unprecedented scale, and just as candidly about the pressures and contradictions inherent in leading such an institution.

His memoirs are not exercises in self-congratulation, but rather clear-eyed analyses of his successes and missteps navigating an era of explosive postwar enrollment growth, intense political pressure, and rapidly evolving public demands on higher education.

Kerr understood that UC embodied both aspirations and tensions, with the “gold” representing discovery, excellence, and economic mobility, and the “blue” reflecting political scrutiny, competing expectations, and the logistical demands of serving a vast and diverse public institution. Leading a university system of this size and consequence requires understanding both dimensions at once, recognizing the extraordinary while not shying away from the difficult.

I titled this Substack “The Gold and the Blue, Volume 22” to share my thoughts as the 22nd president of UC, as part of a story that continues well beyond Kerr. Each chapter, shaped by new opportunities and new constraints, sends the story in its own direction.

Today, we celebrate remarkable achievements and face significant challenges, seen in UC’s global leadership in research, its expanding health care impact, and the work of nearly 300,000 students and more than 265,000 faculty and staff across our campuses. At the same time, a climate of distrust of higher education and considerable financial pressures cannot be ignored. Public doubts about the cost, value, and relevance of college, together with beliefs about institutional political agendas, may often be rooted in misunderstandings, but they are nonetheless real perceptions — and addressing them directly and honestly is essential to renewing the compact that has sustained higher education and UC for decades.

This moment demands the same clarity Kerr prized, namely a willingness to speak plainly about what is working, what is not, and what must be preserved at all costs. It requires vigilance in protecting affordability and access, seriousness in confronting the economic and political pressures facing us, and confidence in the enduring value of research and education to the vitality of our state, our nation, and the world. Kerr wrote with a deep sense of responsibility to the public that created UC, and a commitment to these values. I believe this same sense of civic responsibility has guided me throughout my nearly 40 years in higher education, and I hope that it will continue to do so.

This volume is still being written, but its central theme is clear. We must protect a singular legacy while ensuring the University of California remains a source of opportunity, innovation, and public good for generations to come. That work is demanding, but it is also profoundly hopeful, and it requires our collective best.

If you’ve been reading the news, you’ll know that I joined UC during an especially challenging moment in higher education. The University of California the world has come to know is now at risk in a way it hasn’t been in the past, no matter the economic or political pressures. For years—predating the current federal administration—public confidence in higher education has been sinking. We know at least some of the reasons: perceptions about the cost and value of a college education, career readiness, and political and cultural issues. We may not agree with all the critics, but it is foolhardy to ignore them. Higher education can and should do better, but we shouldn’t do damage to a decades-long partnership between higher education and the American people that has proven time and again to result in lifesaving medical treatments and cures, new jobs and economic growth, technological discoveries that make our lives better, and graduating students—some of whom win Nobel Prizes—who make the world a better place. Protecting this university and its singular legacy is the most important work of our lifetimes.

I plan to use this Substack to share my thoughts about the moment higher education is in and to shine a light on UC’s enduring strengths: how our academic excellence, research, accessibility, affordability, and social and economic mobility are engines of positive change across California, the nation, and the world.

Thanks for following—I look forward to sharing more soon.