Carol Christ

Carol Christ began her term as the 11th chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, in 2017. A celebrated scholar of Victorian literature, she is also well known as an advocate for quality, accessible public higher education, a proponent of the value of a broad education in the liberal arts and sciences, and a champion of women’s issues and diversity on college campuses. She spent more than three decades as a professor and administrator at UC Berkeley before serving as president of Smith College from 2002 to 2013. As UC Berkeley’s executive vice chancellor and provost, she sharpened the campus’s intellectual focus, strengthening many top-rated departments and advancing major initiatives in areas such as neuroscience and bioengineering. At Smith College, she supervised the development of the nation’s only accredited engineering program at a women’s college, oversaw a significant rise in student diversity, expanded the college’s global activities and reach, and managed a major campus capital planning program. Since returning to Berkeley in 2015, she has played an instrumental role in efforts to stabilize the institution’s budget, confront sexual violence and harassment on campus, create a long-term plan for housing students and scholars, and more. In addition to serving on the PPIC Higher Education Center Advisory Council, she is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. She received her BA from Douglass College and her master’s and doctorate degrees from Yale University.