My latest campus visit took me to UC Berkeley for a day with Chancellor Lyons, faculty, staff, and students. The day moved quickly from Nobel physicists to renowned Shakespeare scholars to bioengineering breakthroughs at Bakar Labs. I did my best to keep up with the intellectual tour de force. Each of the conversations underscored how UC Berkeley embodies the University of California’s mission of excellence in teaching, research, and public service.

I started with Saul Perlmutter, who shared the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics. Over a decade ago, he designed a course called “Sense & Sensibility & Science” (SNSNS), which brings together approaches from science, social science, and the humanities to teach students how to evaluate evidence, reason through uncertainty, and make sound decisions. The course stems from a simple but insightful premise: a physicist, a historian, an economist, and a philosopher can look at the same question and see very different things, because they begin with different assumptions, evidence, and methods of evaluating information. Students learn to understand those differences and to engage with them seriously.

Universities have devoted a lot of energy to helping students learn to engage across differences, particularly on politically charged topics. SNSNS starts from a different point and poses several interrelated questions: How do we know what we think we know? What counts as good evidence? What do we do when the evidence is incomplete? These are the questions we want college students thinking about, and able to answer when they leave with a degree. Other universities and schools across the country are now adapting this approach, and I am glad to see it spread.

The afternoon took us to Bakar Labs, where researchers, students, founders, and investors work together in an environment designed to move discoveries out of the lab and into the world. Programs at the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3) provide students with experience, mentorship, internships, and introductions to employers. The entrepreneurial ecosystem created here is launching both companies and careers.

UC Berkeley was recently ranked #1 overall for undergraduate entrepreneurs, and after spending a little time with the impressive cohort of QWEST interns, it was easy to see why. But innovation at Berkeley isn’t limited to biotech or engineering, either. A conversation about the humanities and AI showed me how scholars are applying new computational methods to literature, history, and culture.

Throughout the day, Chancellor Lyons returned to the topic of public service several times. As he described during our conversation this summer, he is encouraging the Berkeley community to live by the principle of “pride without arrogance.” Berkeley has plenty to be proud of, and being a public university means owing something to the public in return.

This public service-oriented ethos is evident across campus. The Nancy Pelosi Institute for Representative Democracy, announced this summer, is just one example. The nonpartisan institute will bring together faculty, students, and visiting leaders for research, teaching, and civic engagement on democratic institutions and challenges like polarization and artificial intelligence. I look forward to its launch in January.

I appreciate Chancellor Lyons and the campus community for giving me a day showing UC’s teaching, research, and service missions in action.

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