Colleagues,
Happy fall semester! As Wes Johnson would say, “Winter is HERE!” (for all you Game of Thrones fans). He has often referenced GoT as we all have been preparing for the start of another academic year…and we are now three days in! It has been a little bumpy with our Wi-Fi issues. Shout out to all who are working so hard with our vendor Aruba to track down the issues. As of this morning, the team implemented a downgrade of our controller software, and we hope that will give us more stability. You can always check https://systemstatus.berkeley.edu/ for the latest information.
I am heading out to Burning Man (BM) tomorrow, and I was meditating on the 10 Principles that reflect the community’s ethos and culture as it has organically developed since the event’s inception. The one that connects most to my daily work is:
Participation
“Our community is committed to a radically participatory ethic. We believe that transformative change, whether in the individual or in society, can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation. We achieve being through doing. Everyone is invited to work. Everyone is invited to play. We make the world real through actions that open the heart.”
As we all are working so hard to support the campus community, I truly believe that we are making a difference through our daily work and actions that support our teaching, research, and community service mission. I encourage you to think about how to “make the world real” in our daily work.
Thank you to the ~230 people who joined us at the monthly bIT All Staff yesterday. It’s the second day of instruction, and I know everyone is super busy. We shared photos from many colleagues in a section on summer fun, be sure to check out the slide deck, including the speaker’s notes, to learn more! Our bIT Campus Applications & Data directors joined the meeting to introduce their teams. This has been an ongoing portion of our all-staff meetings this year to give everyone some better insights about what teams do, who the people are that work in these different areas, and what their roles are in our organization. View the Zoom recording here
Kenneth Wilson asked a great question during the meeting about making printer.berkeley.edu available for the entire campus. Patrick Pender responded that this service is owned by the EOS team in Data and Platform Services, and anyone interested can feel free to reach out to Alex Kim (alexk@berkeley.edu), who heads that team, or to Patrick (patrick.pender@berkeley.edu).
Earlier this week, I was able to attend the first in-person Deans & Chairs Retreat, where ~180 people gathered at iHouse. The Chancellor provided a welcome and shared some news and an update on the Capitol Campaign; excited to be very close to reaching our goal of $6 billion!
