A message to alumni,
from the manager/webmaster Liz Ozselcuk and Professors Ken Wachter, Gene Hammel and Mike Hout:
Dear Demography alumni, former trainees and friends,
I have recently updated our directory of alumni, with the help of Google, to try to get the most up-to-date versions of your employment and e-mail addresses. The results are to be found here: http://www.demog.berkeley.edu/directories/alumnidirectory.shtml. My apologies if I have guessed wrong; please let me know and I will correct your information or remove you from our list.
It would be wonderful if you can also send me a narrative update for your entry on the alumni page, a bit about what you are doing now in your work and life. And please look through our web pages to see how the department has progressed in your absence. Though we have been affected by the California state budget shortfalls, as have all departments on the UC campuses, the Demography Department continues on as before in its strong collaboration between faculty, graduate students, trainees and distinguished visitors. As can be seen on the alumni pages, our graduates have a strong record on the job market. And we still gather most weeks for tea time in the "tea room" and for Brown Bag Seminars in the Seminar Room.
In addition to my administrative message, I would like to bring you greetings from Ken Wachter, Gene Hammel and our current Chair, Mike Hout.
from Ken:
I am delighted to see updates on the activities of so many of you. We continue to
think of you all as members of the Berkeley Demography family and appreciate your
keeping in touch. It's been my pleasure to see quite a few of you in one place or
another in the last few years. The Department is still very much the same kind of
community, but with some diverse and active new cohorts. Best wishes to you all.
from Mike Hout, current Chair:
Background information on the state of higher education in the US can be
found in my article in The American Prospect:
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=rationing_college_opportunity
Our challenges are surmountable. I am very optimistic about Demography in particular and Berkeley in general over the next five years. Count this as year 1. The campus has a credible rebuilding plan that will commence in year 3 and accelerate from there. In Demography we have the added support of the Berkeley Population Center (BPC) that has two more years of NICHD funding and we will definitely be very competitive when we come up for renewal. The BPC has helped us build bridges to Public Health and the Business School and strengthened our ties to Sociology. Our faculty is as productive as always and our students are making strides in all aspects from formal demography to human rights demography, from Northern California to far away research sites in Malawi and Tajikistan. We will publish occasional research updates on our revamped website.
From Liz again:
And, finally, I would like to direct you to our new Demography donation page, which outlines some of the current costs associated with being a graduate student at Cal today (a part of these fees will be increasing again this spring): http://www.demog.berkeley.edu/donations/index.shtml. A donation of even a portion of an expense item would be helpful.
Whether or not you are able to donate at this time, please, do keep in touch!