Elizabeth Bowler
Elizabeth Bowler manages the Arcus Social Justice Corps, a fellowship program that provides graduate students who are committed to working in social impact careers with free tuition, a basic needs stipend, community building, and professional development opportunities during their time at Berkeley. By alleviating the burden of student debt, the program aims to empower fellows to pursue careers driven by social justice principles rather than paychecks. Bowler launched this program in 2020 in partnership with University Development & Alumni Relations (UDAR) and CED's development team with an initial gift of $5.3M from the Arcus Foundation. The team achieved program renewal in August 2024, with an additional generous $10.8M gift from Arcus.
Prior to joining CED, Bowler was the Northeast program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), responsible for political advocacy to protect and preserve national parks and monuments throughout the Northeast region. In 2016, her New York City–based team successfully lobbied the Obama Administration to induct the Stonewall Inn into the National Park Service as a National Monument, to tell a more accurate and inclusive version of American history that honors and includes LGBTQIA+ history.
While in New York, Bowler also managed a green roof installation for the NYC Parks Department, funded by NFWF and the NY State Attorney General's Office, to help mitigate runoff and harmful pollutants from flowing into the adjacent Bronx River. Before that, she was a crew leader for the GreenApple Corps, a "green jobs training program" that offered job readiness training and technical skill-building to young adults interested in environmental careers. Bowler is also an alum of AmeriCorps in her hometown of Oakland.
Outside her work at Berkeley, Bowler is the founder of a workforce development program in Oakland called Hort | Culture. This is an official partnership program of Covenant House California (a national nonprofit that provides sanctuary and support for youth overcoming homelessness and trafficking) offering young adults paid opportunities to run a social enterprise plant shop that promote creativity, wellness, entrepreneurship, and job readiness. Her work on Hort | Culture earned her a 2023 UC Berkeley Chancellor's Award for Public Service.
Bowler has a bachelor's degree in landscape architecture from UC Davis, a master's in urban environmental systems management from Pratt Institute, and a trauma-informed specialist certification from the Center for Cognitive Diversity and Cal State East Bay.