Last week, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded two UC Berkeley faculty members the honor of a Nobel Prize. However, the laureates took home something rarer than a gold medal and their share of the $1 million award — a free reserved parking space on campus.
With five Nobel Prize winners, the University of California broke the record for the most Nobels going to one institution in one year. Two of the laureates are current campus professors, Omar Yaghi of the chemistry department and John Clarke of the physics department.
In receiving the parking spot, Yaghi expressed great gratitude in an interview with The Daily Californian, saying that the parking spot “has a reputation around the world.” He noted that everyone he met at a conference he attended after the announcement of his Nobel Prize told him, “Ah, you’re going to get a free parking spot at Berkeley.”
This tradition dates back more than 40 years, when former campus professor Czesław Miłosz, who won a Nobel Prize in Literature in the 1980s, requested a parking space.
“The Administration took the playful suggestion seriously, and the first official NL (Nobel Laureate) parking space was introduced in 1983 and issued to Professor Gérard Debreu, following his Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences,” said campus spokesperson Kyle Gibson in an email. “It became, and remains today, the ultimate, light-hearted status symbol on the Berkeley campus.”
Without the Nobel laureate spaces, a parking spot on central campus would cost faculty up to $1,908 every year, according to the campus Parking and Transportation website.
UC Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons held the honor of bestowing these special parking spots to the laureates. At a campus celebration for Yaghi on Monday, Lyons spoke about the tradition in an interview with the Daily Cal.
“(NL parking spots have) just become part of the lore, part of the fun,” Lyons said. “When we have families and prospective applicants visiting, we often point it out.”
The NL parking spaces are situated across campus, primarily near the laureates’ offices and labs, with most located on University Drive near Campbell Hall, according to Gibson.
With the upcoming addition of two more spots following Yaghi and Clarke’s Nobel Prizes, there will be 13 total, Gibson said.
“It’s sort of a recognition,” Lyons said. “I could just imagine pulling into a parking spot with an NL on it would feel kind of good every morning.”
However, Yaghi told the Daily Cal that he had already purchased a parking spot before winning his prize. He wondered whether he would receive a refund for his current permit. After the Daily Cal asked this question to Lyons, the chancellor said, “I think the answer is yes, we are going to reimburse him.”