Professor Roy speaking during CalSO. Photo by Peg Skorpinski.

Professor Roy’s new curriculum: a minor in Global Poverty and Practice
The undergraduate student body, and its articulation of a global conscience, led Professor Roy to develop a new curriculum. The recently launched undergraduate minor in Global Poverty and Practice, housed in International & Area Studies, allows students to gain field experience researching and acting upon issues of poverty and inequality in different world regions, from the Americas to sub-Saharan Africa. The Global Poverty and Practice Minor trains students in the study and analysis of global poverty and allows students the opportunity to approach its key issues in imaginative and practical ways. Undergraduate students in all disciplines are encouraged to join the minor. For more information, visit blumcenter.berkeley.edu, or 129 Stephens Hall; email alexisb@berkeley.edu.

Welcome to Cal

I came to Cal as a graduate student, interested in the study of cities. Why cities? Because the 21st century will be an urban century, with more people living in cities than at any other time in human history. The human condition is increasingly the urban condition. Cities promise a better life, economic prosperity, communities of difference, and yet in cities around the world these promises are more often betrayed than fulfilled. The city in which I grew up—Calcutta, India—a teeming metropolis of 13 million people—is marked by extreme and persistent poverty. The metropolitan region in which I now live—the San Francisco Bay Area—struggles with sprawl, with how to maintain public infrastructure, and with the divided and segregated nature of its social landscapes. These issues continue to animate my work.

But it is also worth asking: Why Cal? I could answer that (in my field) Cal is simply the best, the top ranked, the most accomplished, the most respected. All of that would be true. It is a statement that can be made about many other departments and fields at UC Berkeley. But I also came to Cal because I sensed that there was a magic about this place...and I have not left since. In welcoming you to Cal, I will not burden you with detailed advice on how to succeed or survive. The fact that you have been admitted to Cal and have made the decision to attend is a testament to your talents and capacities. You will survive and succeed at Cal. But I do want to share with you the magic that keeps me here and puts a smile on my face, even during the busiest weeks of the semester, the crunch time that many of you will come to know well.

I was recently asked by the students on campus to give my Ideal Last Lecture, and it set me thinking. Yes, it is a gloomy format, but it also provided the occasion to ponder what I may want to convey to my students in the last lecture of my career. I titled my lecture 2040 because I wanted to signal the bold ambition of Cal students and faculty as they constantly imagine—and even seek to craft—a better world. Is this some foolish utopian enterprise? I don’t think so. Not at Cal. For here the mandate of a better world is complicated, steeped in critique, and characterized by competing ideas and contentious voices.

There is no blueprint at Berkeley, and that’s a good thing, for it means that each of you will get to figure out how you want to engage with the world, each of you will have to imagine your own future. What sort of an engineer will you be? Do you like the idea of social entrepreneurship? How will you actualize this? Why are you so inspired by the meticulous reading and interpretation of text and how does this allow you to frame hitherto unthinkable questions? In what ways does history matter to you and how do you catch glimpses of the presence of history in our contemporary struggles? You live a green life but you worry about whether this is enough to address the pressing problem of climate change. What else must you know and do? You are intrigued by ethical philosophies. How do they allow you to define something called justice? The magic of Berkeley lies in the vast collection of these questions that run through our classrooms, research papers, labs, libraries. What unites them is a quest for knowledge, and particularly the belief that knowledge matters.

What is thrilling about being at Cal is that your ideas will matter. There are many good universities, many concerned with the urgent issues of the 21st century. But very few have undergraduates who are central to their mission. At Cal, undergraduate students are not simply apprentices and assistants; they are participants and partners. The ideas of your generation make Cal the special, surprising, and inspiring place that it is. We look forward to seeing what you do and learning from the passions and commitments you bring with you to the University.

— Ananya Roy
Associate Dean,
International & Area Studies

Education Director,
Blum Center for Developing Economies

Associate Professor,
City & Regional Planning