Bank of the West

As UC Berkeley prepares to return to its first in-person semester since spring 2020, many in-person student services will resume before the fall.

It’s crucial that campus and the university at large put their money where their mouth is and support companies with society’s best interests at heart.

My absolute weakness is free Cal gear. Call it an occupational hazard, given that I have to be decked out in blue and gold for my campus job, but my roots reach back to far earlier than when I was hired.

Following the story in The Daily Californian, “Parent company of UC Berkeley’s official bank invests in ICE-contracted private prison companies,” we wanted to provide some key facts to correct inaccuracies.

BNP Paribas — the parent company of UC Berkeley’s official bank, Bank of the West — owns more than $1 million in shares from two private prison companies that are contracted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, to operate immigration detention facilities.

Representatives of the Hunger Free Campus Program asked for an increase in funding from the California Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Education Finance, aiming to expand programs that currently allow students with food insecurity to have access to food on campus.

UC Berkeley’s University Partnership Program has signed an $8 million contract with Peet’s Coffee & Tea to help fund student programs across campus over the course of 10 years.

A Bank of the West branch will open on the first floor of the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union building next year as part of a 10-year contract between the bank and UC Berkeley that will generate more than $17 million for the campus.

After 16 months of construction, a Berkeley lodge that houses more than 150 low-income seniors will celebrate the finish of its remodeling next week.