Recognizing Martha Chavez

GSPP’s beloved Senior Assistant Dean for Academic Programs and Dean of Students, Martha Chavez, is moving on from her remarkable tenure at GSPP to accept an Associate Chief of Staff position at the Office of UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ. Over her thirteen-year career at GSPP, Martha has made fundamental and enduring contributions to the Goldman School. Her achievements have included:

• Building a strong student services staff and helping over a thousand students through the MPP program. Martha’s availability at all times of the day and night is legendary, and her compassion and good sense have benefitted every student whom she has mentored. 
• Helping to promote diversity through the strengthening of the Public Policy and International Affairs (PPIA) program (of which she was a national leader), the hiring of an Assistant Director for Diversity Initiatives and Recruitment, and her ongoing championing of diversity and inclusion.
• Acting as a primary architect of the Masters of Public Affairs program as it was being designed, and ensuring that it was a success. Martha made sure that the biggest innovation that GSPP undertook in decades was well-thought out and successful.  
• Creating a new concurrent degree program between GSPP and the Energy and Resources Group and working with Jane Mauldon to create a new concurrent degree program between GSPP and the School of Social Welfare.
• Expanding and supporting student clubs so that they have become an important educational, service, and advocacy force within GSPP.  
• Contributing to the plans for a third building by ensuring that it contained flexible and useful space for teaching.
• Helping to develop better and more generous financial aid models and advocating for more generous financial aid.
• Keeping admissions, student recruitment, course scheduling, student advising, career services, and alumni relations on track and strengthening them through new and innovative approaches and procedures. 

In every way, Martha has an extraordinary record of excellence and achievement.  She has been a keystone as GSPP has developed new programs, grown bigger, become more diverse, and navigated successfully during a difficult time (starting with the recession of 2008) in higher education and in the history of UC Berkeley.   

It is a mark of her excellence that while she was here at GSPP, Martha won two exceptional awards.  In 2016 she was recognized with the PPIA Reverend Clementa C. Pinckney Achievement Award for her transformative contributions and long-standing service to PPIA by helping to expand diversity programs nationwide and by inspiring students of color to pursue graduate school. In 2017 Martha was recognized with the Gloria Hobson Nordin Social Equity Award from the American Society for Public Administration for her work and commitment to diversity and social equity. Although she will be missed here at GSPP,  in her new role in the Chancellor’s office, Martha will continue to move the campus forward to become more diverse, more caring, more student-centered, and much stronger.