Best of CASE District VII Award
 

Institution: University of California, Berkeley

Title of entry: General Mag award

About this entry: Last year, sweeping cuts in federal research funding impacted dozens of universities, many of which were also subject to antisemitism investigations. UC Berkeley did not escape scrutiny. The small staff of California, which is independently published by the Cal Alumni Association at UC Berkeley, decided to open its first print issue of the year with a carefully reported look at the effects of the cuts on higher education at a time when many faculty and administrators were reluctant to speak out for fear of attracting more scrutiny and animosity from Washington. Not every story in the magazine was overtly political, but civic concerns were nevertheless a through line. A profile on Berkeley fire expert Lenya Quinn-Davidson ’04 revealed how controlled burns are bringing local communities together, both red and blue. A piece on UC’s historic Nobel haul carried a tinge of anxiety around the future of scientific research. Even college football, the theme of our final issue of the year, felt somehow political, as the above-mentioned funding cuts put fiscal pressure on universities at a time when legislation and court rulings have made college football more like the pros and thus much more expensive to run. It was an issue that clearly resonated. Readers responded with dozens of impassioned emails to a newsletter promoting the issue, among our highest response rate in recent years.