From a hard-scrabble pioneer apple farm in Boulder Creek, California, nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains, Carla and Renata Hesse’s great-aunts planted the seeds for their family’s extensive ties to UC Berkeley. Spanning four generations and more than 100 years, 10 members of the Hesse family have earned degrees from Berkeley, including eight in the College of Letters & Science.
Today, Carla is the Peder Sather Professor in the History Department after serving as executive dean of the College of Letters & Science from 2014 to 2019 and dean of the Division of Social Sciences from 2009 to 2019. After graduating from Berkeley Law in 1990, Renata is now a law partner at Sullivan and Cromwell LLP in Washington, D.C. In 2023, Carla and Renata endowed the Hesse Family Fund for the College of Letters & Science with their combined gifts totaling $250,000 to provide enrichment support for the undergraduate academic experience.
Carla (l) and Renata Hesse (r) with Renata's two children
“The university has been very important to our family,” said Renata, who also gave to honor Carla’s multi-decade impact at Berkeley. “I've always thought of Cal as the quintessential public university for our family in particular and probably for many others. It gave our parents a leg up and an opportunity to get an amazing education, even though they didn't have any money.”
“I've always thought of Cal as the quintessential public university for our family in particular and probably for many others," shared Renata Hesse.
Carla and Renata’s parents met in the 1940s while attending UC Berkeley. Their mother, Sarah Hazan Hesse, earned her undergraduate degree in English in 1950, and their father, Siegfried Hesse, received his law degree the same year. Together, they raised their children — Carla, Renata, Erik, and Andrea — in Berkeley. Erik obtained his Berkeley undergraduate degree in psychology in 1981 and later taught that discipline at the university. In 2018, Andrea’s daughter, Sophia, completed her political science studies to become the Hesses’ fourth generation and 10th family member to earn a Berkeley degree.