EECS Vision and Mission Statement

Berkeley EECS will be the most exciting place in the country to perform high impact research and to learn about the latest developments in the rapidly developing field of electrical engineering and computer science.

We will become the best joint Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, by the first decade of the 21st Century, as measured by:

• the quality and impact of our research;
• the excellent preparation of our graduates for leadership in the profession;
• the exceptional value of our service to the State of California and the Nation;
• the dedication of our departmental staff to outstanding service, and our commitment to recognize everyone's contribution to our success.

We will achieve this by:

• Leveraging our unique ability to collaborate on high impact research across the traditional boundaries of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Information Management, and related Science and Engineering Departments at the #1 ranked research university in the nation;
• Exploiting our close proximity to one of the World's greatest concentration of high technology industry and our position on the Pacific Rim to encourage the transfer to and influence of our research products on effective industrial practice;
• Hiring and nurturing outstanding and energetic young faculty who strengthen our existing expertise, while positioning us to lead in the important emerging research areas of the discipline in the 21st Century;
• Retaining high selectivity within our graduate program, choosing students with the potential to be leaders in the field as determined by their evidence both of academic achievement and diversity of life experiences;
• Continuing to attract the most academically accomplished undergraduate students on the Berkeley campus, while continuously reinvigorating our undergraduate program with the latest developments in the field;
• Encouraging a work environment that is oriented towards service quality and which appreciates the contributions of all members of the EECS/ERL staff family.

Glossary

We

Each and every one of us. Working together without regard to disciplinary boundaries. We are all united in our mission. We all influence the result.

Best

We always do it better than anyone else. We dominate in the national rankings and in the thinking of our peers. We are widely recognized for the intellectual accomplishments of our faculty, the quality and uniqueness of our facilities, and the strength of and commitment to our instructional programs.

Quality

We hold ourselves to the highest academic standards in all of our pursuits. We adhere to high standards of academic integrity, honesty, and ethics in everything that we do.

Impact

Our work shifts the status quo. It is of such import that others cannot ignore it, and must build upon it to achieve their own success.

Preparation

We educate our students for their future profession, through a combination of fundamental knowledge and skill in its application. Communications and teaming skills are as important as technical expertise.

Leadership

We do not follow, we lead. We do not accept the status quo, we continue to innovate. Others build on our work, be it in research or instructional development. We write the textbooks that other universities use.

Value

We add worth in all that we do. The work that we do is important, it has merit, it is useful.

Service

We aid and assist the communities to which we belong, be they professional or political, both locally and nationally.

Guiding Principles

Excellence and Diversity

We recognize that not all of the desirable qualities in our students can be measured on quantitative test scores. Not every research project need be large scale and multi-investigator. Excellence and the potential for impact are our goals. Tolerance of and respect for a diversity of modalities for achieving excellence is a strength.

Mutual Respect

We understand and cherish the value of the different approaches to research that are pursued in our community. Research should be performed with the highest commitments to quality, be the efforts theoretical investigations that reveal the fundamental underlying structure of our field or rigorous engineering efforts that seek to demonstrate dramatic new capabilities by combining new and existing technologies in innovative ways. The quality of the research is measured in terms of its impact: has it so influenced others that they must base their own outcome for success on our work?

Continuous Evolution

EECS is a rapidly evolving field—we should not be chained to outdated disciplinary divisions. We should capitalize on emerging opportunities, especially in our unique competencies at the intersection of computing and electronics technology: information technology.

Shared Success

We all share in each others successes. Truly outstanding departments (and organizations in general) are more than the sum of outstanding individuals. We work in partnership with each other, as a team, respecting the value and contribution of each individual.