Alejandro Leyva: [00:00:00] (Berkeley Brainwaves Theme Music) You are listening to KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM University and listener- supported Freeform Community Radio. I’m Alejandro, and this is Berkeley Brainwaves, a 30 Minute Public Affairs show about the going ons in the Berkeley community.
Stella Robinson-Rosendorff: Today we’re talking about Berkeley Decals. What are they? DECAL stands for, “democratic education [00:01:00] at Cal” and refers to classes that are created and facilitated by students.
In some years, it may have meant something a little bit different, but Cal students probably remember learning about decals on their campus tour because the guides never forgot to tell you that the Campanile Bell Tower is run by a student decal. I haven’t forgotten because every time I hear the wretched dissonant indiscernible tunes, which happen every single hour, I think: the decal program.
Alejandro Leyva: Seem to exist in, I totally (inaudible) that, but seem to exist in some form since the free speech movement in the 1960s. There have been so many decals, from swing dancing to poker, to psychedelic science to Harry Potter, to March Madness. The variety of topics is wide and always changing.
Stella Robinson-Rosendorff: Wait, so Alejandro, so how is it-
is it all students, like, does the university play any role in these classes?
Alejandro Leyva: Yeah, you need to have a faculty [00:02:00] sponsor and lots of approval from the school to run a decal, but it hasn’t always been like that. Actually, decals didn’t really have that much university oversight for the better part of 50 years until… the incident.
After the turn of the century, the decal program seemed to be doing well. There was a Tupac decal started soon after his death. There were decals on programming and these newfangled cellular devices, but in 2002, things got more interesting. The women’s studies department sponsored a decal on male sexuality akin to the female sexuality decal, which examines portrayals of women in the media, female sexuality and self pleasure.
Part of the motivation was to create a societal dialogue about sexuality. The male sexuality class created the most dialogue. [00:03:00] The Daily Californian broke the story. The male sexuality class had gone awry. Students alleged that they attended an orgy outside of class at the instructor’s home. Part of this event was an activity to get the students acquainted, which involved taking Polaroid pictures of their genitalia and guessing which photo belonged to which person.
The same class had a report that the final project involved going to a strip club and watching the facilitator engage in sexual activity on stage. Although a campus investigation said that these accounts contained some distortions, it caused enough alarm to almost shut down the entire decal program.
Instead, the campus decided to add more bureaucracy to the decal program. A six- person advisory board was put in place along with a permanent staff position in the division of undergraduate education to help course organizers. The female sexuality decal is still offered.
Stella Robinson-Rosendorff: With the new management post- [00:04:00] 2002, decals have stuck around. Another important moment in Berkeley activism and decal history is in 2016 with the history of Palestine decal. UC Berkeley senior Paul Hadweh designed a course on the history of Palestine in order to spark discussion about his family’s homeland under Israeli occupation. To think critically about Palestine through the lens of settle of colonialism was the idea, but, after only one day of class, pro-Israel groups claimed the course was “indoctrinating students against the Jewish state,” and according to an Israeli TV station, the Association of University heads in Israel had covertly tried to stop the course at the Berkeley campus.
Then campus officials reversed gears Monday, reinstating the course after students, faculty, free speech advocates, and Palestinian rights groups issued letters and circulated petitions denouncing the suspension as a violation of academic freedom. [00:05:00] Paul Hadweh had to say after it all ” it’s inspiring to see how truly faculty at the university and around the world really cherish the principle of academic freedom and did not allow the administration to get away with allowing outside pressure to dictate what can and can’t be spoken about on campus.”
And the history of Palestine decal is still offered today, though with minor changes in its syllabus. There’s around 150 other decals being offered this semester, like usual, and a given semester has over 4,000 enrolled students.
Alejandro Leyva: To get more perspective on the decals of today, we are joined with Yonah and Dylan, the student facilitators of two different decals that have occurred here at Cal.
Stella Robinson-Rosendorff: And in this conversation with Yonah and Dylan is our co-producer, Isabelle.
She has the flu. Everyone send love to her and healing.
Alejandro Leyva: You are listening to KALX Berkeley, [00:06:00] 90.7 FM. This is Berkeley Brainwaves. I am here today with two facilitators of two different decals. Do you guys wanna introduce yourselves really quickly?
Yonah: Yeah. Um, hi, I’m Yonah. I’m a sophomore Urban Studies student, and I ran a DeCal about the LA wildfires.
Dylan: My name is Dylan. I’m a junior studying mechanical engineering here at Cal, and I teach the intro to Backpacking Decal, uh, through Chaos the Club.
And I’ve been teaching it now for four semesters as well as the intermediate level. Um, and yeah.
Alejandro Leyva: What does, uh, what does chaos stand for?
Dylan: Cal Hiking Outdoor Society.
Alejandro Leyva: So really quick, um, can you guys give us a overview of what your decal covers and what kind of topics are covered, how it functions, how work is assigned, what type of work the students have to do.
Yonah: Yeah. Um, my decal was more focused on like guest lectures. Almost [00:07:00] every week. We brought in a guest lecturer, um, and then the students were expected to also read, we had readings every week and they were expected to write reading responses pertaining to the lectures and the readings, and then, throughout the decal, they were taking notes and thinking about the fires and what we were learning about.
And then they were- and then they did like a cumulative project at the end where they like creatively expressed like, their relationship to the fires and like, what they thought about design and how we should recover in the face of the Palisades and Eaton fires.
Um, we focus a lot on like the ecology and like fires in general and how disasters, like impact people and impact cities and how they have like faced those challenges. And then also from like a urban planning lens of like, how do we plan policy that makes it so it’s like less i-, less impactful and. That it doesn’t happen again, as severely. [00:08:00]
Alejandro Leyva: Nice. How about for backpacking?
Dylan: Yeah. The intro to backpacking decal is aimed to kind of, um, help any student, um, go into the outdoors.
Anybody looking to connect with nature, uh, this is to people that have had a ton of experience or people that have never really been able to, uh, do anything outside or in the wilderness. Um, we kind of go through workshops and lectures. Uh, we try to get outside as much as possible and really hands-on with a lot of outdoor skills.
Uh, we get the gear out, we get to work with it, kinda learn how to use it, and it’s also a big social component of meeting other people that want to, uh, work outside and kind of explore nature in California and this beautiful state that we’re in. And that’s kind of the focus of the decal.
Alejandro Leyva: What’s your favorite lesson that you have that you facilitate in the class?
Yonah: Mm. Well, I, I led one lecture that was about like the insurance policy around fires in California and around the US because it’s interesting to me about [00:09:00] how, like we think about it economically and the incentives around about, around disasters and like, who should be paying for it? Should it be the people that are, like facing the fires or should it be like a collective responsibility to help? Um, so that, that was a, that was a good lecture that I gave.
Dylan: My two favorite, one would be focused on outdoor gear. So we kind of get tents out, we get the backpacks out, um, people and students get to learn how to pack the backpack properly, what to do, how to set up a tent efficiently, as well as like, if we’re in the rain in different situations.
We also learn how to do bear hangs. So we get to actually go to trees on campus and kind of throw ropes over branches, um, and kind of hoist up like food bags, uh, which is a really important skill to know in California when you’re backpacking. Um, so the gear, gear workshop’s always really fun.
As well as me personally, I’m really into navigation, outdoor navigation and that skills, uh, those skills required there. Um, so we do like a kind of navigation workshop and then we have [00:10:00] a, like an adventure race, uh, where students will go into little groups, um, and they’ll get kind of a map that’s a map of campus, but there’s a lot of things redacted and it doesn’t quite line up to like what real life is.
Um, and then students have to use a map, the map and then a compass that they have and take different bearings and kind of navigate them, um, through this like kind of adventurous scavenger hunt course.
Um, and it just really works on like outdoor navigation skills that you can then apply to like a place you don’t know as well as campus.
Alejandro Leyva: For both of you guys, what was the big inspiration that led you to start to facilitate the class and like take that responsibility?
Stella Robinson-Rosendorff: Um, I also was wondering, like decal is a pretty specific format, right?
And so I was wondering like, what makes, what makes, um, what you’re able to do or how are you able to maybe like infuse, I don’t know if it is creativity or what it is, but you can tell me, in this form of decal as opposed to like, oh, I don’t know, like a club or like, [00:11:00] you know, a not student -run class or, if there’s literally no difference, like, I, I just wanna know your guys’ experience.
Yonah: Um, I think starting with the first question, for me, the inspiration was like. The, it was coming off right off the back of the Palisades and Eaton fire and the all, and I mean, among other smaller fires and like just fire in general in California, and these were two huge destructive fires. And so we were, me and a group of other people were thinking about like, what can we do?
Like it, it feels so big and it feels also like nothing’s happening, like nothing’s gonna change. And so we’re like, can we think about ways of changing it? And then we’re like, well, we don’t know a lot. And so that goes to your question about the decal. And I think running a decal is kind of a way to like almost legitimize like what you’re doing.
Like club clubs are legitimate, but also, but like it sounds, it’s like a little more official. And we have advice from like an advising professor. And so that helped us then bring in [00:12:00] other outside professors. And again, that’s what I was saying about how we had like guest lecturers and so I think it was like helpful to have that.
As an official decal.
Dylan: Yeah. My inspiration for teaching this course, um, I spent, or I, I’ve dedicated a lot of my summers to outdoor education, um, in high school and kind of just in college as well. Um, it’s something I’ve always really been passionate about and I think it’s really powerful to bring people to nature that have never really had that experience before. Um, and both it’s kind of immediate to have people find themselves, but also connect and make really good friends.
Um, I think the decal program itself is like a really unique opportunity, um, because it just makes students that are, whatever they’re passionate about, they’re able to then share it with others and then give this kind of like official, uh, framework around it, which really helps, one other students see it and be like, okay, I can take this and it’s gonna be a good class, but also, like you said, finding professors or- or different guest lecturers as well as, um, [00:13:00] kind of you can reach out for resources through this program.
Alejandro Leyva: So, Jonah, you helped create the decal. What was the process of creating a whole new class instead of just, taking over an already established decal.
Yonah: Yeah, it wasn’t super easy. I mean, we, like we met, like, we kind of like started thinking about the idea of it and then like we started meeting with like a decent sized group of us. I mean, it was probably like, Six people, eight people, depending on the day. We’d like meet like once a week and like try to just like brainstorm like what we could do, so we started off with what, what we could do, like what the format might be. And then we started like narrowing down like, okay, maybe we can do this.
And then we also, we were able to get in contact. I mean I’m part of the College of Environmental Design, which is a smaller college. So we were able to like get on a Zoom meeting with the dean and with her assistants and like we were able to like find out more, very specifically like what we were actually able to do. Like could we bring in people from outside? Like how would that work? Do we have to pay for them? Do we [00:14:00] have to like, fly them in? How does that work with security wise? So we had to like figure out all these things, and then, also like go through the process of like, through the website, like submitting like our proposal.
And then we had to like go back and forth on the syllabus ’cause there were a few issues with it. And we also met with our advising professor and he like kind of guided us through like more thinking about like what the content of a- what we wanted to teach was. So it was definitely difficult and we, and a lot of components, but we ended up making it happen.
Alejandro Leyva: Then Dylan, what’s it like to kind of take over a decal that’s already been established?
Dylan: Yeah, so I think the intro to Backpacking Decal has been going on for years. Um, and there’s been new, uh, instructors kind of every year and it’s always like changed a little bit with that. Um, so I had to apply to become an instructor, um, and then I just kind of came in.
I got a bunch of resources for the curriculum, um, and different things that we could do, but overall I was given a lot of freedom um, to kind of shape my section. Focus [00:15:00] on the things I thought were important for backpacking. Um, and so each semester then I’ve kind of reiterated and, and kind of improved my curriculum and what we do.
Um, learned from previous mistakes or previous things and lessons and what students really want and what they want to take out of the class. Um, and every semester just gets a little bit better and I’m able to also share that with other people or the other instructors that teach the other sections. And then from there, um, really just every year get the class better and better.
Alejandro Leyva: Yonah, was last fall, the first semester of the fire decal.
Yonah: Yeah. Uh, that was a, yeah, that was the first semester. Yeah.
Alejandro Leyva: How does that experience, how is that gonna make you kind of shift the fire decal going forward? Or if you teach another decal, how is that experience going to influence you?
Yonah: Yeah. Um, so currently we’re not running the decal.
Um, and it’s up in the air if we will continue it. Um, but I think if, I mean, if I did run another decal, I think it definitely [00:16:00] is now very helpful to have run one already and know about like, okay, like these are the things that are probably good and these are the things that are bad.
I think definitely, more on like the student engagement side. I feel like we could have done a better job with that, and like figuring out ways to like have the students like do more rather than just like listening to another lecture. Um, even though I thought, I thought the guest lectures were still very interesting. Um, so yeah, I think that could like change how I would run it in the future.
Isabelle Risha: I have a bit of a follow-up question for both of you. Um, it sounds like this is a lot of work. You have to plan, you have to teach, you have to, you know, in Dylan’s case, get familiar with the material and I’m wondering what is in it for you both. Like, do you get credit? Are you just glad to get the experience?
Do you feel like you also learned about the topic? What were your experiences around that?
Yonah: Um, I. Really wanted to learn more about it. That was like my main thing, like that’s [00:17:00] why I was excited to do like, have guest lectures. ’cause I just like getting like lots of different opinions from like really smart people was like really interesting to me.
I think also just being able to like. Share about it was also, and like, just have that experience like standing in front of a class and like, teaching and like compiling a lecture and stuff like that. Um, yeah, we don’t, like lecturers don’t get, or facilitators don’t get course credit for it, even though students do.
Um, but yeah.
Dylan: Yeah. I, I also don’t get course credit. Um, but I don’t think that’s the reason any facilitators is doing this.
Alejandro Leyva: For those of you just joining us, this is Berkeley Brainwaves on 90.7 FM, KALX Berkeley. We are currently talking with two facilitators of decal courses here at Cal.
Isabelle Risha: Sometimes it’s hard for people to get courses and I know decals can be kind of an easy fix to get units.
So, did you find that [00:18:00] most of the people who joined your decal were like truly excited about the subject? Maybe they were from the areas affected by the fires in your case, Yonah. Um, or did you find there was kind of maybe a mix? Some people are like, I need extra units. Uh, what was, ’cause I know I’ve definitely been there before, but what was your experience?
Yonah: There’s definitely a mix. Um, but I, I, yeah, almost, I wanna say almost every student in there was from the LA area. Um, like we, at the beginning we asked them like, where are you from? And like, almost everyone had like some personal connection to the fires.
Isabelle Risha: Wow.
Speaker 3: I think there still was some of like, you just need units.
But I think people in the decal, I think were like actually interested in what they were taking. And I think like also with decals in general, there’s so many options. So even if you are taking it for units, I feel like you still are choosing something that you’re at least mildly interested in, which I think does help.
Isabelle Risha: Yeah. Yeah, that’s great.
Dylan: I think in the backpacking decal, I kind of get three groups of students. Uh, the first [00:19:00] being. Students that are looking for one extra unit, um, and just looking for something fun to do.
Um, the second was people that have a lot of experience in the outdoors. Uh, they’ve maybe done backpacking before hiking, and now they’re looking for a community or other people that are also interested in that.
And then third is people that are interested in this but have never really had an opportunity to go outside or go hiking and don’t, and don’t know where to start. Um, and I think kind of on the first day of class, I kind of always ask them what they’re, what they want to get outta class and kind of figure out, okay, these are the people that wanna do this and here are the people that wanna do that.
And I actually like the people that want the one unit the most, um, because it’s always really fun to kind of just say, Hey, this is something fun you wanna do and we’re gonna make it. Um, educational and also just give you a good experience outta this one unit class for you.
Isabelle Risha: That’s awesome. Thank you.
Stella Robinson-Rosendorff: Totally. I would prefer that too. I’d wanna, because it’s more fun to try and like convince people that this is actually sick.
Alejandro Leyva: Did you guys have to do a teaching workshop or anything? How was that?
Yonah: It was, I mean, it [00:20:00] was slightly informative. Um, it, it wasn’t, it, it wasn’t like the most helpful thing. It was like, make sure you, like, listen to your students and, like don’t talk over them.
Like be open to questions. I don’t know if you have.
Dylan: Yeah, mine was pretty similar. I took a lot of- a few workshops on syllabus crafting and kind of like full curriculum. I guess kind of creation there, um, which I found a little bit more interesting than just, uh, like yeah, the listening to your students kind of thing.
Um, but that was helpful for me to be able to see how, how to connect few lessons together and like kind of make like a full course rather than just like a series of different things.
Alejandro Leyva: What was your guys’ biggest surprise while teaching?
Yonah: I feel like. I feel like a, like a surprising challenge, which I guess maybe I expected a little, but was it just like gave me like perspective of like what it’s like to like- I mean, I wouldn’t, I’m not a professor- but like to like, be like a professor, stand in front of a class, [00:21:00] like be teaching, just like I feel like it’s like a little empathy of like, oh, this is what it’s like when, like if people are like not paying attention or like stuff like that.
Um, I think it was. It was also exci- it was like also exciting. I was surprised about how interested people were in, like what we had to say and what our guest lecturer, like, people like really genuinely wanted to be there. And that was like actually like surpri- a little surprising. Interesting. ’cause I expected it to be like mostly people who just wanted a unit.
Dylan: A big thing for me. So one of the things we do in the class is we go on a trip, um, over the semester. Um, it’s usually a weekend, two or three days. Um, we’ve gone kind of all over California now. Um, we’ve gone to the Sierras up in Desolation Wilderness. We’ve gone down the coast, uh, a kind of Big Sur, Ventana Wilderness.
Um, last spring we had an awesome trip. We went all the way north, almost to the Oregon border. On the lost coast of California. Um, and a big kind of, I guess a principle of the course is this trip is no barriers and, and CHAOS supports a [00:22:00] lot of that, um, which is really great. And every semester there’s always two or three people that come on the trip that have never gone on like a single hike or maybe anything past just, their town park.
Um. And giving them this experience where they can get the gear, they can be outside for three days straight, a lot of times in a place with no service as well. Um, and afterwards they come out with just like a really good group of friends that all want to go backpacking again. And also just a really profound experience and usually some beautiful stuff and wildlife, mountains, views.
Um, and that’s always really powerful to me. Um, just kind of seeing how. I was able to kind of teach something to them and give them a a few basic skills that they’re able to have these experiences and then are gonna want to have more of them.
Alejandro Leyva: If someone is out there right now listening to this, and they have this thing that they’re passionate about, that they want to spread to others, and they wanna start a decal on it, what would be one piece of advice that you give them?
Yonah: I feel like, [00:23:00] I feel like maybe, advice I would have would be like find other like-minded people. Like Berkeley is such a big place. There’s so many perspectives. There’s so many different, like diverse backgrounds. I feel like you can find other people who think similarly and I think it’s helpful to have like a group of people to be like, working towards the goal of like teaching a decal.
Dylan: This might be a little bit cliche, but I would say it’s, it’s easier than you think it is. Um, and as soon as you kind of just like go head first into the paperwork, which is not that much by the way, um, and you’re gonna find a professor that’s also like, wants to support you and is also passionate on whatever your topic is. And then they’re just like immediately a perfect person to be able to talk to about it.
And then once you actually get into the actual teaching and you have students in front of you, you’ll also notice that everyone in your class, or at least most of them, are like, also know something or wanna learn more. And you always learn something from the students and they get you because they’re a student as well.
Alejandro Leyva: Yonah, I know you said it’s kind of up in the air if the [00:24:00] fire decal is gonna be offered again, but if people want more information about that, where’s a good place for them to look?
Speaker 3: Our our email is, uh, firesdecal@gmail.com. All one word.
Alejandro Leyva: Alright. And Dylan, if people want more information on the backpacking decal, where’s a good resource for them?
Dylan: You could also email me at dmpearson@berkeley.edu. Um, but this is something that CHAOS offers every single semester. Um, and on their website, they have stuff for the decal.
Uh, that you can find it. It’s always offered through GEOG 1 98. Um, and then find a section in a time that works for you and just enroll. I think they’re all full for this spring. Um, but if you’re looking to maybe possibly get in, reach out to us and we can see if we can do anything.
Alejandro Leyva: Um, this was Yonah from the Fires decal and Dylan from the backpacking Dec.
Thank you guys so much for coming.
Yonah: Thank you for having us.
Dylan: Thank you.
Isabelle Risha: Thank you guys.
Stella Robinson-Rosendorff: Thank you. Yay.
Alejandro Leyva: Thank you again to Yonah and Dylan for coming on the air with us. It was very insightful, what they [00:25:00] said. Really interesting stuff. Make sure that you sign up for a decal, whether for this spring or this fall later this year.
There’s always so many great options and if you don’t like any of them, you can run your own class. Thank you again for listening to Berkeley Brainwaves. I am Alejandro.
Stella Robinson-Rosendorff: I’m Stella. And we miss you, Isabelle, everyone get your flu shot.
Alejandro Leyva: Yes, have a great day.
Stella Robinson-Rosendorff: Happy Tuesday.
Alejandro Leyva: Thank you for [00:26:00] listening.
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