Election Section

This Saturday on the UC campus bells will ring, bands will play, dancers will dance, football players will scrimmage and choruses will sing. In building after building, faculty, students, and staff will throw open the doors of laboratories, classrooms, libraries, museums, and lecture halls. It’s Cal Day, the annual campus open house for the community. 

For many local residents, the university is a part of Berkeley but also apart. If you haven’t been on campus for months or years, or if your view of the university has narrowed to the commuter traffic passing your front door, Saturday is your day to re-acquaint yourself with the remarkably complex and interesting institution in our midst. The campus is yours to explore from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

Places that usually charge admission will be open for free. Places that are almost never open to the public will welcome the casual visitor. Faculty luminaries will speak and there will be plenty of activities to entertain both kids and adults. 

Race a robot car by remote control. Buy a handcrafted pot at the ASUC Art Studio sale. Learn what fossil rat droppings say about the past. Imagine the future through computer animation. Play carnival games. See the campus cannon. Ride a motorized cable car. Wave a Cal flag. Attend the International House “Festival of Cultures.” Get a free massage. Ascend the Campanile for free. Touch a real brain (really). See inside some of the most advanced research laboratories in the world.  

There are hundreds of things to do on Cal Day. As a preview, here’s a short selection of intriguing activities: 

• Did you know a satellite passes over Berkeley every day? But it’s not spying on locals for the CIA. Cal operates a research satellite from—where else—the Silver Space Sciences Laboratory on the ridgeline above the Lawrence Hall of Science. Visit the control center where data is downloaded (sessions limited to 30 people). 10 a.m.–2 p.m. 

• Have a student expert analyze your diet, based on your description of what you typically eat. 10 a.m.–3 p.m., 120 Morgan Hall.  

• Meet the parents of Cal students at the Cal Parents tent. Maybe ask them why their children who live in that apartment building next door to you were so noisy last night. No, seriously, it’s a good opportunity for parents of college-bound kids to talk with other parents. 9 a.m.–4 p.m., Dwinelle Plaza.  

• Rappel down the south façade of Wheeler Hall, assisted by student Army ROTC cadets. This is always a big draw for both participants and spectators. South entrance of Wheeler Hall. 9 a.m.-3 p.m. 

• Students at the College of Engineering build solar cars and mysterious “super-mileage vehicles” for competitions. View the vehicles and meet their designers and operators. 10 a.m.–4 p.m., Memorial Glade (west of Evans Hall, northeast of Doe Library). Oh, and there’s Bearkelium, the latest edition of the ever-popular concrete canoe (O’Brien Hall breezeway, 10:30 a.m.–2 p.m.), AND robot car racing on a 100-meter course (10 a.m.–noon, Cory Hall courtyard).  

• Cal’s “Castle on the Hill” is the oldest public college residence hall in California. Bowles Hall proudly celebrates its 75th anniversary with an open house, tours, and a historical slide show. 11 a.m.–1 p.m. 

• “Ask the Mathematician.” Experts from the Math Department will answer your math questions, simple or convoluted. (9 a.m.–4 p.m., Evans Hall west entrance).  

Other opportunities to keep in mind: 

Campus museums have collections that make up a veritable Smithsonian of the West. On Cal Day most are open for free, including some that have amazing collections but no regular public exhibit galleries.  

Over at the Paleontology Museum in the Valley Life Sciences Building there’s a special exhibit of fossils found here in the East Bay and a number of activities, including free behind-the-scenes, tours from 10 a.m.–4 p.m. And in the same building the spectacular but rarely seen Museum of Vertebrate Zoology and University and Jepson Herbaria are open for tours much of the day. 

The Botanical Garden in Strawberry Canyon opens its gates from 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m.,, and the Essing Museum of Entomology exhibits “beautiful and bizarre” specimens of arachnids and insects from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (second floor hallway, Wellman Hall). You can also bring spiders and insects—and “bug riddled plants”—to the same place, for identification.  

The Berkeley Art Museum (11 a.m.–5 p.m.) and Lawrence Hall of Science (9 a.m.–5 p.m.) are also open for free. And the Pacific Film Archive is screening “exciting new works by filmmakers from around the globe”, free from 3-6 p.m.. 

In addition to exhibits and open facilities, professors and staff offer a medley of lectures throughout the day. Some of the more enticing topics include: “The Physics of Bicycle Riding” (Professor Joel Fajans, 11 a.m., 4 LeConte Hall); “Why Does Good Health Care Feel So Bad?” (Professor Alan Steinbach, 10 a.m., 130 Wheeler Hall); “Bear In Mind: The California Grizzly Bear” (author Susan Snyder, Bancroft Library, 10 a.m.); “What’s the Good of the Liberal Arts?” (Professor and Dean Steven Botterill, 10 a.m., 155 Dwinelle Hall). 

You can find out about these events at www.urel.berkeley.edu/calday/ or by visiting one of the information centers located just inside the campus’ major entrances. ˇ