News

Comparative literature student Frank Cahill competed in the Scripps National Spelling Bee as an eighth grader. This year, on May 28 and 29, he’ll be on the other side of the stage.

There’s a word UC Berkeley comparative literature Ph.D. student Frank Cahill will never forget. He misspelled it as an eighth grader in the second round of the live televised Scripps National Spelling Bee finals. 

Porwigle. Yes, you read that correctly. The word was p-o-r-w-i-g-l-e, pronounced por·​wi·​gle. 

Leah Binkovitz (History of Art, ‘10), a senior editorial writer at the Houston Chronicle, has been awarded the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing as part of the Chronicle’s editorial board.

This I’m a Berkeleyan was written as a first-person narrative from a UC Berkeley News interview with student Emily Thompson, who’s graduating this May with a major in film and media and a minor in Scandinavian studies.  

“I grew up one of five kids in a very conservative, Mormon family in a small town in Utah. My ancestors were all Mormon pioneers going all the way back to the beginning of the church. It was the culture we lived in. 

When UC Berkeley junior history major Chloe Zitsow saw that the Center for Jewish Studies (CJS) offered courses in the Yiddish language, she leapt at the opportunity to learn the language her grandparents spoke at home.

“I found the language to be a great way to connect with both my culture and grandparents,” says Zitsow, a Jewish Studies minor from Los Angeles. “When my Bubbie and Zayde found out I could converse with them in Yiddish, they were so thrilled!”

Héctor Muñoz-Guzmán is a first-year MFA student from South Berkeley. Captivated by art at an early age, he strives to represent his immigrant family and community in the world of fine art. UC Berkeley writer Alexander Rony interviewed Muñoz-Guzmán at an open studio event where he displayed his paintings from the past year.