News/Research

The Berkeley Center for New Media to Join the College of Engineering

27 Apr, 2020

The Berkeley Center for New Media to Join the College of Engineering

The Berkeley Center for New Media (BCNM) is thrilled to share that the College of Engineering (COE) will become our new administrative home on July 1, 2020.

After reporting to the Division of Academic Planning for over 10 years, BCNM has decided that COE will be an excellent base for the Center at this time because of key academic and intellectual resonances between the two units. For example, COE already houses the Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation (which BCNM Executive Committee members have helped to found and lead), and COE is prioritizing the intersection of technological research with issues of equity, inclusivity, and diversity in its curricular and extracurricular offerings (areas in that have always been a focus and strength for BCNM). Research and teaching collaborations between COE and BCNM faculty and students have been among the most fruitful and impactful in the Center’s history, resulting in award-winning co-authored conference papers and publications, artistic performances, public lectures and conferences, and highly-rated courses. In addition, COE can support BCNM with an experienced management and operations team to help BCNM grow.

BCNM affirms its commitment to serving the entire UC Berkeley campus and the public as an interdisciplinary research center that studies and shapes media transition and emergence from diverse perspectives. Our partnership with COE will help us to maintain and expand our robust offerings: graduate and undergraduate courses; the Designated Emphasis in New Media and two Certificates in New Media; free lectures, symposia, and conferences; funding opportunities; working groups; and forums for research collaboration.

In the past, BCNM has worked particularly closely with the Division of Arts and Humanities, the Division of Social Sciences, and the Division of Computing, Data Science, and Society, and we look forward to strengthening these relationships and building new ones with additional divisions and units on the campus.

We thank Dean Tsu-Jae King Liu, Vice Provost Lisa Alvarez-Cohen, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Paul Alivisatos, and their staff members, for making possible BCNM’s transition into COE, and for the guidance and assistance they have given, and continue to give, to BCNM.