University of California Berkeley - Blue and Gold Yearbook (Berkeley, CA)

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Below Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds: In keeping with the co-op tradition of less-than-stringent rules of conduct in all aspects of house maintenance, the removal or addition of graffiti art is dependent upon the taste of the owner inhabitant of the respective wall room. Bottom Dig It: Conveniently located at the corners of Bancroft and Telegraph, the food stands provide good, cheap, and environmentally-conscious meals for thousands of students every day. Opposite Tell Me What You See: A place to sit. . . and watch . . . and kiss. Dogs swim here, too. It ' s been almost four years since I ' ve lived anywhere else. My experiences here have had an incredibly profound ef- fect on me effects that will continue to influence my life for a long time. I ' m also egotistical enough to be able to pretend that my experience is unique. Of course, it ' s not — I ' m sure that what I ' ve gone through would rank pretty averagely on the scale of college experiences. But, I really do pity those students who think that going to college is nothing more than just a stepping-stone to that rosy future waiting for them in some management firm, or in that new automated office, or in that ... well, you get the idea. Sure, there are other reasons why one might choose to attend Berkeley: tuition is cheap, it ' s close to home, etc. Oh yeah, let ' s not forget the attraction of living in a place where the electricity of constant sociopolitical conflict and the animated frivolity of a community firmly committed to upholding ideological liberty makes every day an intriguing adventure. So perhaps it ' s wise to say that this little piece of commentary will not interest everyone nor will it attempt to cater to or define the typical Cal student. There is no such creature. The typical student is a vague abstraction, the brainchild of those who bring you TV shows like Eye on Hollywood . The same people, I might add, who try to tell us, their viewing public, what is cool and what is not. Nevertheless, as a Cal student, you are involved. You ' re already part of the story. Traditionally, a yearbook is an almanac of the past academic year. Yearbooks serve as valuable written histories, describing through words and pictures the at- titudes that surface and the events that occur during that brief period in time. But yearbooks can also serve as a means to investigate the change in a particular institution or community over many years. The Blue and Gold feels that the last twenty-five years of California history warrants a review, or at least a discussion that introduces new perspectives on this particular time period. Bezerkeley. The interaction of the traditional ivory tower with liberal experimentation has made the universi- ty what it is today. The Berkeley known to the majority of students today is the product of social changes occuring both within the city and the university over the last twenty-five years. Before that time, Berkeley was known solely as the home of the University of California, a highly respected academic institution: a college defined by its traditional similarity to the Ivy League universities. Today the Berkeley experience is permeated by constant reminders of the past — Hare Krishnas, Barrington Hall, Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union, People ' s Park — all parts of the ' 60 ' s legacy. The ghosts of the recent past con- tinue to haunt us. But living in the past can be just as damaging as ignoring it. We should take to heart the message in the photo on page one: This is not the ' 60 ' s, this is your life.