We recently welcomed Bank of the West, the official bank of UC Berkeley, and Peet’s Coffee to the University Partnership Program (UPP)in recognition of their overall alignment with the university’s mission and values. The partnerships help fund student programs across campus, and Peet’s and Bank of the West will also provide significant merit- and need-based scholarship funds.
Senior Raj Bhargava, an applied mathematics and economics major, was an undergraduate representative on the UPP Advisory Committee that developed the agreement with Bank of the West. Raj shared that "our philosophy when negotiating campus partnership agreements was identifying critical gaps where urgent student needs were not being met, and using partnerships to supplement campus resources as much as possible. In particular, we felt it was important for the partnership to include scholarship funds as the most direct contribution to individual students and prioritize the scholarship funds for students among Berkeley's most underserved populations.”
Bhargava also felt it was important “to empower as many student voices as possible,” and he looks forward “to seeing how future generations of students are able to harness university-wide partnerships for direct impact."
From our partner’s perspective, Bank of the West explained that “a scholarship for students felt like a natural extension of our deep ties to Cal and the student body.” Bank of the West reinforced that it is a worthwhile investment to make a life-changing difference in students’ lives: “Bank of the West believes in the value of a good education, and would encourage anyone considering support of higher education to do so. The wider benefits are enormous, and anyone pursuing a higher education should feel that members of the community support that effort and initiative. We hope the scholarship is an acknowledgment that those who have received the award have accomplished something to be proud of in their academic careers, and appreciate that recognition from Bank of the West. And we also hope it serves not as a capstone, but as a stepping stone to larger goals, whether those are educational, professional, or personal.”
Students were first awarded Bank of the West Scholarships in spring 2017, and the Peet's scholarships will be awarded in fall 2018.