Anne Bown-Crawford, executive director of the California Arts Council on the arts as an economic driver. 

California’s public universities will get an infusion of cash to increase enrollment, smooth students’ progress toward graduation and repair aging buildings under a state budget agreement reached Friday by Gov. Jerry Brown and legislative leaders.

The message popped into UC Berkeley sophomore Varsha Sarveshwar’s inbox a few days before the start of her Introduction to General Astronomy course in the fall of her freshman year. It contained the usual details about class times and textbooks. But then there was something surprising: a plea from the professor to skip the first day of class.

Samuel Lauderdale grew up as the youngest of three brothers in a single-mother, low-income household. He was always a good student, until high school was on the horizon. He started hanging out with kids that sold drugs and got bad grades, and says he “wasn’t necessarily getting in trouble,” but would “fight a lot.”

In San Joaquin County, elementary and middle school students are running farmers markets at 10 after-school sites. In Yolo County, the Yolo Food Bank runs each market held at local schools, but hundreds of students get to shop weekly for fresh produce. And in Sacramento County, a hybrid approach currently serves five schools.

The dream was always the same, Arthur Chavez says. He was following a bumblebee through a forest, stumbling over puddles and branches. When he caught the bee, he’d find himself onstage, wearing a suit, in front of an applauding crowd.

When an FBI agent asks a roomful of high school juniors, “How many of you watch FBI shows on TV?” nearly every hand goes up. But at the recent Sacramento FBI Teen Academy, held in March, these 41 students soon learn fact — not fiction — about how the bureau works.

Both UCs and CSUs are struggling to find space for qualified residents at overcrowded campuses, and tens of thousands of eligible students will be turned away. If they leave the state for college, and don’t come back, it could be trouble for the state’s economy.

Kelly Gillett, vice president of the Women in Leadership club at UC Davis, and board member of WEAVE’s retail advisory board, offers her insight into attracting more women into leadership roles in both the business and nonprofit world.