The explosion of student interest in addressing global poverty was celebrated by luminaries — including former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and His Holiness the Dalai Lama — visiting campus last month to honor the Richard C. Blum Center for Developing Economies .

In just three years since its inception, the new center has inspired more than 1,500 students to participate in its classes and programs and has created Berkeley’s fastest-growing minor: global poverty and practice. On April 23, the center held a groundbreaking for its new home, which includes a restoration of the historic Naval Architecture Building and a new wing that is beginning construction later this year.

A happy and hopeful moment

Gore is a longtime friend of Richard Blum ’58, M.B.A. ’59, chair of the UC Board of Regents whose gifts financed both the creation of the center and the construction of the new facility. Hundreds of students, faculty, and other members of the Cal community gathered at the future site to mark the occasion. Calling the groundbreaking “a happy and hopeful moment,” Gore commended the students for their extraordinary commitment to fighting global poverty.

“It is amazing to see how you have flocked to learn what is available to be learned in this center already,” Gore said. “I will predict for you that this will quickly become a center of global importance.”

Gore, who shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his tireless work to educate the world on climate change, spoke movingly about the critical connection between climate change and global poverty. It is frequently predicted that the world’s poorest will feel the effects of climate change the most, yet are least likely to be able to deal with them.

“One of the barriers to building a global agreement that will finally solve the climate crisis is bridging the divide between the wealthy countries and the poor countries,” he said. The Blum Center will be a “key place for solving that piece of the puzzle, and where it is fitted in as the capstone of the arch.”

At the end of Gore’s remarks, Chancellor Robert Birgeneau bestowed him with the Berkeley Medal, the campus’s highest honor. “Through his values and actions, Vice President Gore embodies the highest ideals to which Berkeley aspires,” said Birgeneau.

Peace through compassion

Just two days later, Tenzin Gyatso — the 14th Dalai Lama who has also received the Nobel Peace Prize and is an honorary trustee of the Blum Center — addressed a sold-out crowd of more than 7,000 students, faculty, and others at the Hearst Greek Theatre. When tickets to the event went on sale in April, many students in the audience camped out overnight to obtain the highly sought-after tickets.

Following glowing introductions from actor Sharon Stone — a board member of the American Himalayan Foundation, which cosponsored the event along with the Blum Center — and others, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet sat cross-legged as he spoke from an armchair at the center of the stage. Addressing students of the Blum Center and other young people in the crowd, he said, “Whether this century is happy or troubled remains in your hands. You are a source of hope.”

Speaking for about an hour, the Dalai Lama sometimes referred to his interpreter for the correct English word as he addressed the theme “Peace Through Compassion,” describing his teachings of perception versus reality and various levels of compassion, and punctuating his speech with amusing vignettes about people and animals.

When asked for advice for graduating students, the Dalai Lama replied, “You must prepare in your mind that life has many problems. … Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.”

Before exiting, the Dalai Lama elicited a huge round of applause — and a standing ovation — when he placed a blue and gold Cal visor, a parting gift from the University, atop his shaved head.

Chancellor Birgeneau also used the occasion to present Richard Blum with the Berkeley Medal to acknowledge his vision and commitment to the campus. Accepting the medal, Blum described the moment as “a merger of the two things I care most about: UC and the Tibetan people and their plight.”

The perfect place

The Blum Center initiatives, which combine classroom studies with fieldwork, already have allowed students to work in 25 countries. Whether turning cell phone cameras into clinical-quality microscopes, increasing access to safe water in slums, or developing fuel-efficient stoves, students at the Blum Center are becoming the next generation of leaders in the fight against global poverty.

“UC Berkeley’s always been a place of activism, of new ideas, of compassion and wanting to help people… And I have encountered nothing but enthusiasm from the faculty, from the people putting this center together,” says Blum.

The new facility will also house a number of colleagues from the College of Engineering who work closely with the Blum Center on manufacturing and marketing efficient technologies that address global poverty.

“I believe UC Berkeley can have a singular effect in the fight to alleviate human suffering,” says Blum.