ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT AWARDEE: ROSE CARMEN GOLDBERG CLASS OF 1998 Congratulations Rose! What did you enjoy most about your time at EB and why? I attended EB all the way through, from Pre-K to eight grade. So there are many enjoyable experiences to pick from. For one, I enjoyed the deep immersion in a different language and culture. (I still dream in French, so clearly the immersion is deep!) It has given me a more expansive view of the world and my role in it. Indeed, my time at EB meant much more than learning a language in a technical sense. At EB, students are treated as the intellectual equivalent of adults. Thanks to this pedagogical philosophy, the EB curriculum exposed me to foundational questions about identity, morality, and mortality through French literature and poetry. It’s rare for schools to have young students grapple with deep life questions, but it’s so important. My EB experience is precious to me because of more than academics, though. I made lifelong friends, and am still very close with a group of women from my year. We’re more like sisters, really. EB friends are the ones you call when you lose a parent, and the friends you Zoom with to meet new babies during a pandemic. Please describe your current work. I wear two professional hats. First, I’m a Deputy Attorney General in the Office of the California Attorney General’s Public Rights Division. I conduct investigations and file lawsuits to protect Californians, with a focus on veterans and
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servicemembers, preventing gun violence, protecting individuals with disabilities, and holding the federal government accountable for following the law. I litigate in both state and federal court, and collaborate with state attorneys general offices across the country. Having a big impact as an individual on communities across my native California is very fulfilling. Second, I’m a Lecturer at UC Berkeley School of Law. I teach Veterans Law, a specialization I developed over years of representing homeless and low-income veterans in San Francisco. Following equal rights icon Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s vision of the military as a key battleground for social justice, my Veterans Law course focuses on some of the most pressing issues of our time, including sexual assault, racism, and discrimination against LGBTQ individuals. I also teach Legal Research and Writing to international Master of Law students. Teaching such accomplished and diverse students is exciting and humbling. I’m constantly learning from them. How do you feel EB has influenced you or led you towards your choice of profession? Going to school in Berkeley teaches you to recognize inequities and to understand your responsibility to try to combat them. And the EB curriculum feeds into this, teaching students to be aware of the world around them, near and far, in all its diversity, and to embrace it. EB also gave me an early love of reading and writing, which helped lay the
“The EB curriculum… teach[es], students to be aware of the world around them, near and far, in all its diversity, and to embrace it.” groundwork for my law practice and teaching. EB pushes students to pay close attention to language, to its many layers and meanings. This passion for language—so quintessentially French—is critical to my success as a lawyer. Moreover, learning the law is like learning a new language, and my EB education gave me a comfort and thirst for this process of growth. What would you say to parents just starting out at EB? Take advantage of it, too! Both my sister and I went to EB. My dad spoke fluent French before we enrolled, having lived in France and Switzerland for many years, and having his daughters at EB gave him a home in a francophone community. He found friends in
