Carol Tecla Christ

Contributions and Distinctions

Carol Christ served as the 11th and first female Chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley from July 1, 2017 to June 28, 2024. In recognition of her distinguished service, she was awarded the Academic Senate’s Clark Kerr Award in 2024.

Biographical Sketch  

Carol Christ received her B.A. (1966) from Douglass College at Rutgers University, and her M.Ph. (1969) and Ph.D. (1970) from Yale University. Immediately following her PhD studies, she joined the Berkeley English faculty. At the time of her appointment, women constituted 1% of all Senate ladder-rank faculty. When she retired as Chancellor in June 2024, that number had risen to 36%

A celebrated scholar of Victorian Literature, she published two books, The Finer Optic: The Aesthetic of Particularity in Victorian Poetry (Yale University Press, 1975) and Victorian and Modern Poetics (University of Chicago Press 1994), and has edited or co-edited several others, including The Norton Anthology of English Literature. She was elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004 and the American Philosophical Society in 2013. In recognition of her distinguished leadership in higher education, she was awarded the Clark Kerr Medal in 2024. 

She served as Chair of the Department of English from 1985-1988, Dean of the Division of the Humanities in the College of Letters and Science, and, from 1994 until 2000, as the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost (EVCP). She left Berkeley in 2002 to serve as the 10th President of Smith College from 2002 to 2013. Returning to Berkeley in 2015 to lead the Center for Studies in Higher Education, she was later appointed interim EVCP in April 2016 and named Chancellor in March 2017. 

Chancellor Christ’s seven year tenure was highlighted by the record-setting Light the Way Campaign that succeeded in raising $7.37 billion for the campus. Notable gifts to the campus included the Helen Diller Anchor House, the Bakar Bioingenuity Hub, and a $232 million donation for the Gateway Building. To help address a chronic shortage of student housing, she made the decision to construct student housing on People’s Park: Judith E. Heumann House is scheduled to open in Fall of 2027 with accommodations for over 1,100 students. Her steadfast leadership enabled the campus to successfully navigate the COVID-19 pandemic.