We want to document the very strong community opposition to UC Berkeley’s intention to destroy the three landmarked Anna Head School buildings and to build a massive student residence. Supporters of the Save Anna Head School Campaign have written to express their opposition. The comments are representative of the more than 350 community members who have expressed their dismay about the destruction of the landmarked Anna Head buildings and the school’s and University’s culture and legacy, about the failure of the University to develop the alternative plan for an 850-student residence that would save Channing Hall proposed by their own Hanbury consultants, and about the negative impact on the environment of a project that well exceeds the size of comparable student residences in the area. The comments underscore the effort of the Campaign over six years to save Channing Hall and at the same time to support the University’s vital need for housing, a position endorsed by the entire 2023 Berkeley City Council and Mayor and the Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Commission in 2025. A large and broad cross-section of the community asks that UC Berkeley save Channing Hall and adopt a more appropriate plan for student housing on the Anna Head School site.
• I write with the hope that the university will reconsider its decision to demolish the historic Channing Hall, former site of the Anna Head School. I recognize, as does any resident of Berkeley (as I am) and the East Bay more broadly, the pressure Cal is under to amend its serious lack of housing for students. However, there are alternatives as well as ways to build that are sensitive to the university's straightforward need for dorm rooms with the fact that its history is part of what makes Cal desirable for students. If Cal no longer is attentive both to its aesthetic sense, as well as its own history, the university will lose some of the market niche so essential to making it a world class destination. It seems, in addition, that Cal's own consultants suggested alternatives that would allow Channing Hall to survive. Finally, I note that the new plans will not be in keeping with scope and architectural consistency within the larger neighborhood.
• I write to add my voice against the planned demolition of the historic Ann Head School buildings on Channing Way….I know first-hand of the character, beauty, and history of the buildings making up Anna Head School. UC Berkeley should be cherishing and restoring, not demolishing, the Anna Head buildings, as it continues to do with the small number of other UC structures on the National Historic Register. I realize that the campus needs new spaces to house students, but there are options for doing so without destroying this landmark and building a massive and towering residence hall on the site. Your own consultants and planning documents have laid out such alternatives. If more funds are needed to restore the Anna Head facilities, then we need to get to work on raising them. Shame on UC Berkeley if the demolition of the Anna Head school goes ahead.
• I was very disappointed to read the UCB official's comments about reaching a compromise on Channing Hall. "A university is not a museum" rings like something a Trump official might say about the preservation of the White House. We see with our own eyes how preeminent universities throughout the world have preserved historic buildings that honor the legacy of students like Anna Head. Given the reasonable alternatives set forth by your own consultants and the historical significance of the Anna Head site, please do the right thing---save the history of your graduates!
• I am writing you concerning UC Berkeley’s decision to destroy the Anna Head School buildings. As an alum of UCB, I remember when south of campus was a village-like community, warm and welcoming. Although there were already Units 1, 2, and 3 dorms that did not fit into the landscape, nevertheless there were many buildings of historical distinction. The decision to destroy Anna Head and build yet another massive, cookie-cutter building that will dwarf the surrounding environment, continues UCB’s path of destroying historical landmarks and ignoring its own consultants who provided a feasible alternative to destruction. As someone who fell in love with Berkeley’s brown shingle buildings as an undergrad, the architectural decisions that UCB is making, turning the larger campus community into what looks like a corporate office park, I cannot see myself making any further donations to the University in light of these ill-considered decisions. I therefore request that the decision to destroy Anna Head be reconsidered.
• I am very sorry to learn this. The university has now altered the entire area around campus with its excessive student housing. In the evenings it is impossible to drive or even walk near campus because it is flooded with students from the dorms. More housing that demolishes Anna Head is simply unnecessary especially given demographic trends, but the university marches according to its own drummer.
• Erasure alert! University of California, Berkeley: You don’t get to celebrate women’s history while demolishing it! On March 17—during Women’s History Month—the University moved forward with plans to raze the Anna Head School (AHS), an architectural gem of the Shingle Style and monument to women's education. Let’s be clear: this decision is a top-down unilateral directive that ignores preservation experts, community advocacy, and viable adaptive reuse…The Anna Head School has been on the National Register of Historic Places for decades. Founded in 1887 by women, for women, it represents a rare and irreplaceable legacy of female leadership. And yet, demolition is being framed as the only path forward? For shame!...This is a familiar pattern of abuse at the heart of the national historic preservation crisis: 1. Deferred maintenance used as justification for demolition, 2. Public input minimized through accelerated timelines, 3. Decisions driven by corporate logic, not public stewardship. But UC Berkeley is not a corporation. It is a public institution with a responsibility to protect history, not erase it. So let’s ask directly: Why was adaptive reuse rejected? Why is demolition the only option on the table? Why is public engagement being compressed into the busiest weeks of the year? And why, in 2026, is a university still failing at gender equality choosing to demolish UC women’s history? We are overwhelmed with crisis. Thanks for adding to the burden.
• You and your committee colleagues deserved better, as did the memory of Anna Head School…it sounded like the old “run around” was the University’s game plan all along.
• The University is determined to do this, and by letting the facility degrade over the years it makes it easier for them to simply demolish it.
• This is sad news indeed. So, so, sad...I am scared indeed to see "the scope of the plan" for Berkeley.
• Ugh.