IGS home page Donate to IGS

Tribe v. Pilon Debate Health Care Reform

As the litigation on health care reform percolates up towards the US Supreme Court, IGS, in partnership with the Commonwealth Club of California, sponsored a public debate over the constitutionality of President Obama's controversial new health care reform law. Featuring two stellar legal experts, Laurence Tribe (Harvard Law School) and Roger Pilon (Cato Institute), this event marked the finale of the Institute's year long series of activities called Making Health Care Reform Work (sponsored by the Blue Shield Foundation of California and Kaiser Permanente). The webcast of this debate can be found here.

California's Redistricting Process Under the Microscope

IGS organized a major conference this fall on California's citizen commission centered redistricting process. Over 200 attendees gathered for a one-day event entitled: A Brave New World? California's Redistricting Experiment, to analyze how redistricting reform turned out. The iTunes podcast audio recording of this event can be found here.

Judy Woodruff Headlines at IGS Salon Gala

Journalist Judy Woodruff delivered the keynote talk at the 2011 IGS Salon Gala event held on April 28 in San Francisco. Woodruff, senior correspondent on the PBS television program The NewsHour, spoke on "Divided Government in the Age of Obama" to 180 guests assembled to raise support for IGS student programs. As always, the Salon also featured two award recipients: former California Supreme Court Justice Ronald M. George received the IGS Distinguished Service Award and health care venture capitalist Lisa M. Suennen ('86, '87 MA) received the Bill & Patrice Brandt Alumni Leadership Award.

Former Congressman Mike Oxley delivers Matsui Lecture

The Honorable Michael G. Oxley delivered the third Matsui Lecture on April 6, 2011 to 300 attendees at the Berkeley Law School. Oxley, the co-author of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, spoke about the twin fiscal crashes this past decade that began with the collapse of the dot-com bubble and ended with the meltdown of the American financial markets and its recession. Oxley, a Republican who served in the US Congress from 1981 through 2006, spent one week at Berkeley giving lectures and meeting with students. You can see the webcast of this lecture here.

Electing the Governor, 2010

IGS held its quadrennial California Governor's Race conference last January in downtown Berkeley that featured two full days of speakers. This public event marked its 20th year as the most popular gathering of California's political elites and pundits interested in learning about the race for governor. The keynote address was given by California State Treasurer Bill Lockyer.
The entire event's webcast can be found here.

Robert T. Matsui Center Expands Its Reach

The Robert T. Matsui Center on Politics & Public Service, established at IGS in 2008, was the beneficiary of two recent gifts that will finance its renovation and expansion of student programs. The main gift came from the Robert T. Matsui Foundation based in Washington, DC and it will allow the Center to create a new home in Moses Hall that better serves Cal undergraduates interested in public service.

The Center offers Berkeley students opportunities to become interns in Washington, DC, Sacramento, and in local agencies. Its Cal-in-Sacramento program for the last 40 years has been sending interns to the state capitol to learn about practical politics and public policy. Each year 30 students are competitively selected to spend the summer working in the State Legislature, executive agencies, and for public interest organizations. Since its inception, this program has sponsored over 500 Berkeley students seeking to explore careers in public service. To learn more about how student benefit from these programs watch the video called The Voices of Tomorrow.

Building Resilient Regions

IGS is home to many innovative faculty-led research initiatives. One such example is called Building Resilient Regions (BRR), under the leadership of Professor Margaret Weir (Sociology & Political Science) which is being funded by a $4M grant from the MacArthur Foundation. BRR is a national network of scholars seeking to examine the power of metropolitan regions to respond to local and national challenges. This interdisciplinary network of leading urban experts are investigating topics ranging from the impact of poverty and housing foreclosues on cities to measuring how fast growing regions respond to transportation and water supply demands. You can learn more about the network and its findings here.

Percy-Synar Awards for Student Research

Two key components of the IGS mission -- students and research -- come together each year when the Institute awards its Charles H. Percy and Mike Synar grants. Named for two deceased distinguished public servants -- former US Senator Charles H. Percy (Rep.) of Illinois and former US Congressman Mike Synar (Dem.) of Oklahoma -- these two programs reward students in conducting innovative research in American politics and public policy topic. Both are made possible through a generous donation from IGS National Advisory Council member Bill Brandt and Patrice Bugelas-Brandt. Each year twelve graduate and undergraduate students compete for cash awards to fund their dissertations and senior honors theses. The winning abstracts can be found here.

John Gardner Public Service Fellowships

For the last 26 years, each spring semester three of Berkeley's top graduating seniors are selected to receive Gardner Fellowships from IGS, allowing them to work for a year post-graduation in any public service position they choose. This competitive program is a joint Berkeley-Stanford fellowship and it gives recipients a stipend and placement under a mentor in the public sector to shadow a leading government or non-profit executive for one year upon graduation. For example, Pedro Spivakovsky-Gonzalez ('10) worked under Austan Goolsbee at the White House's Council of Economic Advisers. Gifts to support this valuable student program can be made here.

Eugene C. Lee, 1924-2011

Professor Emeritus Gene Lee died peacefully at his home in Sonoma on April 27, 2011 at the age of 86. Gene Lee served as the IGS Director from 1967 until 1988 and had a brilliant career as a public servant, distinguished scholar, and UC executive. Gene was born in Berkeley and joined the faculty of the UC Berkeley Political Science Department in 1955 after a brief career in city management. He worked for University President Clark Kerr and served a brief stint as UC Vice President. He had a tremendous impact on hundreds of students and colleagues during his teaching career at Cal and will be missed by many. Donations can be made in his memory to IGS here.

Demystifying China's Economy

Justin Yifu Lin, Vice President of the World Bank, gave a talk sponsored by IGS on his forthcoming book on "Demystifying the Chinese Economy" to a large audience in November. Dr. Lin is an international leading expert on Asian economies.

You can see the webcast here.

California Journal of Politics & Policy (CJPP)

Launched in 2008, IGS publishes an electronic journal on California state and local government, electoral politics, and selected public policy topics. The current issue is devoted to President Obama's health care reforms from a California perspective. Past special issues have focused on political, constitutional, and budgetary reforms in California and in other Western states. The journal has been partially supported by generous charitable contributions from both Chevron and the Koret Foundation. You can access the journal here.

Online Giving to IGS is Easy and Quick

Did you know that IGS now offers you the ability to make secure gift transactions online using a major credit card? You can now make your tax-deductible charitable contribution conveniently from your home, phone, office, or laptop at any time of the day or night. There is still time this holiday season to make a year-end gift to support the Institute's student leadership training programs and build the IGS Endowment. All gifts are tax-deductible as allowable by federal and state laws. Click here to make a gift today!

Join IGS on Facebook.

Read about IGS people, events, news and happenings on its new blog -- the IGS Zipline.