New Townsend Center gift honors visionary founder

The Jacobsons named the new fund for Paul Alpers, a respected English professor who taught at UC Berkeley for 38 years. Alpers was an expert in pastoral poetry whose approachable instruction, respect for student scholarship, and ability to thoughtfully challenge others earned him a Distinguished Teaching Award. In 1983, he helped launch Representations, a journal that publishes scholarly articles that cross disciplinary boundaries. Many of his Representations co-founders joined forces again in 1987 to launch the Townsend Center, solidifying UC Berkeley’s intellectual leadership in the humanities.

As the Townsend Center’s first director from 1987 to 1991, Alpers helped establish many of its core programs, including the annual Avenali Lecture and the Townsend Fellowship Program, which convenes graduate students and professors weekly to discuss each other’s work. 

Alpers retired from UC Berkeley in 2002, when his wife and colleague, Carol Christ, accepted a job as president of Smith College. 

“I’m deeply moved by Matt and Margaret Jacobson's gift,” said Christ, who served as UC Berkeley’s chancellor from 2017 to 2024. “Paul said that creating the Townsend Center was the best job he ever had, and I'm delighted that many of the features he created are still core programs of the center today.”

Alpers passed away in 2013. Representations published a memorial where Alpers’ peers remembered his friendship, sincerity, and “unbreakable trust in the truth-telling power and intelligence of poetry.”

“Alpers was a literary scholar with both deep classical learning and remarkable curiosity about different cultures and critical methodologies,” said Timothy Hampton, a comparative literature professor and former Townsend Center director. “Thus, he was the perfect person to be the first director of the Townsend Center, which has always been characterized by its openness to the arts and humanities community, regardless of disciplinary focus or methodology. He did a superb job, and it's perfectly fitting that this new fund should be named after him.”

Matt Jacobson’s father, Norman, was a Berkeley professor at the same time as Alpers. Students enjoyed Norman’s interdisciplinary take on teaching. He would recruit composers, cinematographers, and drama students to augment his political science courses. 

When Norman passed away in 2007, his family and friends created the Norman Jacobson Memorial Teaching Award. The award provides one Townsend Fellow graduate student with funding to support innovative teaching; it also enables an annual seminar where the fellow presents their work.

Matt and Margaret loved hearing from the Jacobson Fellows and, over time, became enamored with the Art of Writing program as well, supporting the expansion of its undergraduate writing workshops. While preparing to give a speech at an Art of Writing event, Matt researched the Townsend Center’s history. Matt found that two faculty members he trusted — Anthony Cascardi and George Breslauer — held Alpers in high esteem. He thought the center’s founders were kindred spirits with the Jacobsons in their interdisciplinary approach to scholarship. 

However, while the Townsend Center’s name acknowledges Doreen Townsend’s contributions, Alpers lacked that institutional recognition. Matt — a 1979 Berkeley alum — wanted to do something to honor Alpers’ significance.

“As the first director of the Townsend Center, he appears to have set the tone for the future that helped make the center what it is today,” said Matt. “As always, Margaret and I love to give credit where credit is due with the hope that the past offers some inspiration in the present and future.”

The Townsend Center is in the midst of an exciting fall season. Students, alums, and community members are welcome to attend the center’s signature events. Visit townsendcenter.berkeley.edu/events to view upcoming lectures and discussions.