A Liberal Arts Curriculum
The L&S Division of Undergraduate Studies is dedicated to creating and overseeing curricular and co-curricular programs that nurture rich intellectual relationships between faculty members and students. In the best tradition of a liberal arts education, our programs encourage students to explore new worlds of knowledge. Our programs and courses serve students in every college and school across campus at every stage of their undergraduate careers, from the initial years of intellectual exploration through the process of finding and pursuing an in-depth academic focus.
Hallmarks of the L&S liberal arts curriculum are the small-group freshman and sophomore seminars, the Big Ideas Courses that bring together prominent professors from divergent disciplines around a single vital concept, and the L&S Discovery Courses taught by legendary Berkeley faculty. These teaching jewels offer undergraduates in their initial years of intellectual exploration a great way to explore new and exciting fields of study.
Featured Faculty
The Berkeley faculty who teach in our programs are not only superb teachers, they are also distinguished experts in their fields. Our esteemed faculty include:
Carol Christ
11th Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley
Carol Christ was the 11th Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley. She previously served as President of Smith College from 2002 to 2013. She teaches freshman seminars on Nineteenth Century Fiction and the Boundaries of the Human, Monsters and Robots, and Frankenstein and Its Rewritings.
Saul Perlmutter
Nobel Laureate
Saul Perlmutter received the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics. He led one of the two research teams that simultaneously discovered the accelerating expansion of the universe. He co-teaches the Big Ideas Course Sense & Sensibility & Science and has taught the L&S Discovery Course Physics and Music.
Nikki Jones
Michael J. Hindelang Award
Nikki Jones received the 2020 Michael J. Hindelang Award from the American Society of Criminology (ASC) for her book The Chosen Ones: Black Men and the Politics of Redemption. She co-teaches the Big Ideas Course Prison.
Randy Schekman
Nobel Laureate
Randy Schekman received the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his role in revealing the machinery that regulates the transport and secretion of proteins in our cells. He teaches freshman seminars on Insulin as a Window on Discovery in Biology and The Challenge of Neurodegenerative Disease.
Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Lifetime Fellow
Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton was elected lifetime fellow of AAAS “for outstanding contributions to the science on the causes and consequences of prejudice and the identification of factors that serve to enhance academic success for individuals with historically minoritized identities.” He co-teaches L&S 1: Research, Discovery, and You.
Courtney Dressing
Packard Fellowship
Courtney Dressing received the prestigious Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering in 2019. Her research group is interested in the prevalence of planetary systems orbiting other stars and how the properties of those planets depend on the characteristics of the host star. She co-teaches the L&S Discovery Course The Planets.
Michael Manga
MacArthur Fellow
Michael Manga received a MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship in 2005. He studies the geological processes that shape Earth’s surface. He teaches freshman seminars on The Day the World Exploded: The 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa, Geoscience in the Movies, and Geoscience in the News, and has taught the L&S Discovery Course The Planets.
Whendee Silver
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Lifetime Fellow
Whendee Silver was elected lifetime fellow of AAAS “for distinguished contributions to determine the biogeochemical effects of climate change and human impacts on the environment, and the potential for mitigating these effects.” She co-teaches the Big Ideas Course Climate Change and the Future of California.
Leadership and Team
Jennifer Johnson-Hanks
Executive Dean, College of Letters & Science
Jennifer Johnson-Hanks is a professor of demography and sociology. She is a cultural demographer with interests in fertility and family, epistemology, and the history of population thought. Her publications include the books Uncertain Honor: Modern Motherhood in an African Crisis; Understanding Family Change and Variation: Structure, Conjuncture, and Action; and a forthcoming book, How We Count: Why Quantitative Social Science Matters. Johnson-Hanks served as Chair of the Committee on Academic Planning and Resource Allocation and as Chair of the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate. She received her undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Northwestern University, all in anthropology.
Aileen Liu
Director of Curricular Engagement Initiatives, L&S Division of Undergraduate Studies
Aileen Liu is the Director of Curricular Engagement Initiatives. In this role, she oversees several campus-wide undergraduate programs, including On the Same Page, Big Ideas Courses, L&S Discovery Courses, Freshman and Sophomore Seminars, and L&S 1: Exploring the Liberal Arts. Her favorite places on campus are Morrison Library, the Dwinelle benches, the top of the Campanile (she learned to play the bells through the Carillon DeCal as a grad student), and Noon Concerts at Hertz Hall. She earned her BA in English from Duke University, and her PhD in English with a Designated Emphasis in Renaissance and Early Modern Studies from UC Berkeley.
Heather Mäkiharju
Academic Engagement Policy Analyst, L&S Division of Undergraduate Studies
Heather Mäkiharju is the Academic Engagement Policy Analyst. In this role she oversees student program coordination and administration as well as curriculum planning and assessment. She has over a decade of experience working in higher education. Prior to joining the University of California, Berkeley, Heather held positions in the College of Engineering and the Medical School at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. In her free time, she enjoys running and indoor cycling. Heather earned her BA in Psychology & History from Mount Holyoke College and her MA in Higher Education Administration with a concentration in Academic Affairs & Student Development from the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor.
Land Acknowledgment
UC Berkeley sits on the territory of xučyun (Huichin), the ancestral and unceded land of the Chochenyo speaking Ohlone people, the successors of the sovereign Verona Band of Alameda County.