“I am deeply grateful to have been entrusted with the profound responsibility of leading this great institution and its outstanding faculty, staff and students through one of the most challenging periods in its 144-year history,” Birgeneau wrote.
Birgeneau noted that since he became chancellor, UC Berkeley has seen higher graduation rates and has enrolled more international and out-of-state students.
“Our undergraduate student body continues to be among the very best in California and each year we have attracted more applicants,” he wrote. “Our graduation rates have risen to over 90 percent.”
Birgeneau was the chancellor of the University of Toronto from 2000 until he moved to Berkeley in 2004. He said that he intends to return to teaching at Cal after he steps down.
“I am planning to return to the departments of physics and materials science and engineering as a regular faculty member and hope that I have at least one more truly significant physics/materials science experiment still to come in my academic career,” he wrote.
UC President Mark G. Yudof commended the chancellor for his work in a statement released by the UC Office of the President on March 13.
“In his more than seven years as Chancellor at the University of California, Berkeley, Robert Birgeneau has proven to be a passionate, dedicated and effective steward of the world’s greatest public university,” Yudof stated.
Birgeneau presided over a tumultuous time for UC Berkeley. Tuition at UC schools rose 32 percent in 2009, another 8 percent in 2010 and again by 11 percent in 2011. In 2011, U.S. News and World Report ranked Cal second for room and board costs and 10th for out-of-state cost of attendance.
Birgeneau again came under fire in November 2011 when police used batons and bean bag guns to subdue Occupy Cal protesters in Sproul Plaza. Students said that Birgeneau was not supportive of activists, and publicly condemned his actions.
With Birgeneau’s announcement, UC Berkeley joins UCSD in a search for a new chancellor. UCSD Chancellor Marye Anne Fox announced last summer that she intends to step down at the end of the 2011-12 academic year. Fox has also been chancellor at UCSD since 2004.
The La Jolla Light reported on March 8 that UCSD will begin interviewing candidates for Chancellor Fox’s position this month.
