International House Berkeley

2 International House Times Executive Director's Message Hans C. Giesecke, Ph.D. Board Transitions Every academic year, some 600 students and scholars come to I-House Berkeley to share a common legacy with over 60,000 living alumni around the world. International House's primary task is ensuring that the needs, comfort, and safety of our residents are met, continually evaluated, and improved wherever and whenever necessary to provide the best possible experience. We monitor this regularly as we seek a broadly diverse population of residents representing a variety of countries, cultures, and academic disciplines. With so many different individuals coming from so many different places in residence at any given time, this can be a daunting task. Nevertheless, we always strive to meet and expand this vision of multiplicity as it has an enormous impact on the overall residential experience here. Meeting this primary goal is the continual focus of the Policy & Performance Team (i.e., senior management group) which meets regularly to review how we are doing on this service dimension. I believe that we have made very positive strides over the last two years in ensuring that the needs, comfort, and safety of I-House residents are more readily addressed in an effective and expeditious manner. e integrated student services approach that we are now implementing should make our efforts along these lines even more responsive and impactful. Much of what we are trying to do in this arena revolves around integration of our resident services. e I-House Student Services Group incorporates our offices of Admissions, Events and Rentals, Programs, Physical Operations, and Resident Support Services. If these offices do not function together in a seamless fashion, we are unable to deliver on what our residents are expecting from their time here. Accordingly, we have brought these offices together under the leadership of our new Chief of Operations, Jason Patent, so that there will be a stronger sense of working together to achieve the goal of integrated, high-quality resident services. To accomplish these service related goals, the I-House team must strive to create an awareness and appreciation for the special "sense of place" among residents from their first day and instill in them the belief that there is no other place like I-House when it comes to an accepting, inspiring, and supportive global community environment in a university setting. Of course, seeing is believing and so we cultivate an experience here that will prove to our current residents and alumni that we live up to the standards for intercultural learning, sharing, and dialogue that we always talk about. On the admissions front, we are developing an admission policy and outreach strategy to ensure even greater global and academic diversity among our residential body. We believe that I-House will be an even more inter-culturally stimulating and provocative environment if it is even more diverse than it is today. Given that we have some 70 countries represented during each academic year and about 85 academic disciplines among our residential body, it is a tall task to raise the diversity bar even higher, but we mean to do just that. anks to you – our alumni, friends and supporters – we are able to foster the ideals of lifetime friendship, peer support, and networking that are such key ingredients of the I-House experience. When these attributes are gleaned from someone from a completely different cultural and national background, they take on more meaning and impact than ever before, and that is precisely what makes the magic of I-House so special. n Hans C. Giesecke, Executive Director International House at UC Berkeley We are pleased to offer an update to the I-House Board of Directors leadership. Joyce Hicks is now serving as the Vice Chair of the Board. Hicks, an alumna of UC Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law, where she received her Juris Doctorate, is the Executive Director of the Office of Citizen Complaints of the San Francisco Police Commission. Another long-time Board Member, Jamy Faulhaber (IH 1969- 1971), is now serving as Board Treasurer. Faulhaber received her Masters Degree in Spanish language and literature from UC Berkeley. She manages a farming operation in the San Joaquin Valley. I-House is also welcoming one new and one returning member to the I-House Board. Christina Janssen, an alumna of UC Davis law school and mother of a UC Berkeley graduate, is currently an attorney at Janssen & Janssen LLP and Chair Emerita of UC Berkeley's Cal Parents Board. Returning to the Board is Jawahar Gidwani (IH 1973-76) an alumnus of UC Berkeley. He is a former resident of I-House where he met his wife, Catherina. Gidwani is Founding Chairman and CEO of QuSwami, Inc. A Sense of Integration – Resident Services at I-House Berkeley

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