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Birgeneau Poised To Become
Berkeley’s Ninth Chancellor
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Birgeneau
(left), with Chancellor Berdahl on the steps of Doe Library,
is described as a man with a deep commitment to students,
social equity, and the responsibilities of a public university.
He was the first in his Toronto family to graduate from high
school.
PEG SKORPINSKI PHOTO |
Robert J. Birgeneau, a 62-year-old internationally renowned physicist
who is currently president of the University of Toronto and served
on the MIT faculty for 25 years, will become UC Berkeley’s
ninth chancellor when Robert Berdahl steps down from the post
this fall.
After weeks of widely publicized speculation, the UC Board of
Regents made the announcement July 27 in Doe Library’s Morrison
Reading Room, followed by a formal introduction of Birgeneau to
the campus community by Berdahl and President Robert Dynes.
"I genuinely believe that UC Berkeley is simply the best
public teaching and research facility in the world," Birgeneau
said in addressing the crowd of faculty, students, staff, and
media gathered outside the library.
He pledged to ensure equal educational access for all Californians
and aggressively pursue both public and private funding to see
the campus and UC through its current budget crisis.
A Toronto native, Birgeneau received his B.Sc. from the University
of Toronto and his Ph.D. in physics from Yale. He met Dynes, also
a native of Canada, 30 years ago at Bell Laboratories, where both
were performing research. He joined the MIT faculty in 1975, then
in 2000 became president and professor of physics at the University
of Toronto, Canada’s largest university.
Berdahl announced last fall that he would be retiring after seven
years as chancellor. Birgeneau will take the helm around October
1, when an interim president is named at the University of Toronto.
Go to http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/07/27_chancellor.shtml
for more details.
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