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January 2006 > School News
Chancellor Inspires Students at Cal Prep Dedication
Cal Prep students listen intently to Chancellor Robert Birgeneau at the Oakland school's dedication ceremonies.
The California College Preparatory Academy (Cal Prep), a new charter school collaborative between UC Berkeley and Aspire Public Schools was dedicated November 14 in a ribbon-cutting ceremony that included GSE faculty, community leaders and UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau.
The North Oakland school, which opened its doors August 24 to underserved East Bay sixth and seventh graders, will be guided by a multi-disciplinary committee of faculty, staff, graduate students and local educators co-chaired by GSE Professors Mark Wilson and Frank Worrel, and including Dean David Pearson, Associate Dean Diane Mayer; faculty Christine Cziko, Ingrid Seyer-Ochi and David Stern; doctoral student Brent Duckor; and Coordinator of the Early College Initiative, Robert Jorgensen. Cal Prep Principal Michael Prada is a Ed.D. student in the Joint Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership.
During his keynote address, Birgeneau reflected on his tough childhood in Toronto, Canada, where he was one of four children raised by a single mom in an urban "tenement" and worked in a factory. Birgeneau says his life took a different path when a Catholic priest singled him out for a scholarship to a parochial high school in the suburbs. He was later admitted to college on a scholarship in classics — the first in his family, and one of the few in his neighborhood, to make it out.
“Coming from those circumstances you had to be lucky, and your luck and opportunity is ending up at Cal Prep,” Birgeneau told the 85 Cal Prep sixth and seventh graders in the audience.
“You are a vanguard group that we’re depending on for the future of our state and we need you to achieve,” he said. “My dream is that I’m going to come back here and one of you from the first graduating class is going to be standing up here as Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley.”
That person may be Natassija Jordan. The Cal Prep seventh grader followed Birgeneau with an inspirational speech, that opened and closed with the line: “I aspire to set the world on fire!” Jordan said she aspires to a medical career in which she helps cure AIDS and cancer.
By the time Jordan graduates from high school in 2011, Cal Prep is expected to grow to 420 students in grades 6–12.
“We’re off to a great start with a wonderful group of students, dedicated staff and a respectful collaboration among all the stakeholders,” said Worrell, who researches psychological and social factors related to academic engagement. “We all look forward to these students graduating from college.”
For more information, contact Worrell at (510) 643-4891 or by e-mail.
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