The annual report features notable student, faculty and alumni achievements, as well as strategic goals, financial statements and mission-drive collaborations during the 2018-2019 fiscal year and past decade of the College of Environmental Design.

Browse it online or download the report here. 

Dean's Message

As July 1st and the end of my term as dean of the College of Environmental Design approached, I spent some time reflecting on the past ten years.

It was a decade of social turmoil on campus and financial, administrative, and leadership challenges — presided over by no less than three chancellors! Turbulence is nothing new for Berkeley, but such circumstances shaped college priorities and tested CED’s ability to maintain academic excellence, teach and support students with diverse needs, recruit top-flight faculty, and produce scholarship, research, and creative practice of the highest caliber.

All of us — faculty, students, staff, alumni, and friends — should feel proud of our impressive list of accomplishments, which are detailed in this year’s Annual Report. Guided by a strategic plan, CED Frontiers, we recruited exceptional new faculty and talented students, created brand new academic programs, and worked to generate new revenue as our state-provided dollars shrank.

We engaged hundreds of alumni who helped support the college through generous donations. Faculty, staff, and students won a plethora of prizes for research, design, teaching, advising, public service, equity and inclusion, and more. College services and student advising were reimagined and we fashioned an exciting new website. Many of Wurster Hall’s classrooms and studios were redesigned or renewed, and new facilities were built: the Digital Fabrication Lab, Wurster Gallery, Materials Store, 2nd Floor Student Hub, Rice & Bones Café, and Ong & Ong Plaza. Plus new elevators are coming soon!

I am deeply honored to have served as CED’s dean. I am also glad to have been a pioneer — as the first woman ever to lead our college. CED’s successes over the past decade have depended on the collective commitment and collaborative spirit of the entire CED community, for which I am extraordinarily grateful. Thank you.

Moving forward, I am thankful to Renee Chow for her willingness to serve as Acting Dean, and am delighted to welcome incoming Dean Vishaan Chakrabarti. I know he will lead with vision, creativity, and dedication, and with your inspiration and support, boldly take the College of Environmental Design to new levels of achievement of which we will all be proud. 

Jennifer Wolch

Former William W. Wurster Dean
Professor of City & Regional Planning