University of California, Santa Cruz

University of California, Santa Cruz

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Academics

After UC Merced, UCSC is the second youngest (with UC Irvine) and has the smallest enrollment of the University of California campuses. Majors and graduate degrees are offered in a broad range of academic fields, with the Baskin School of Engineering being its professional school of engineering.

The undergraduate program is organized around a residential college system. The ten colleges—Cowell College, Stevenson College, Crown College, Merrill College, Porter College, Kresge College, Oakes College, College Eight, College Nine, and College Ten—provide services such as housing, academic assistance, activities and a selection of college-related coursework. Each college has its own theme, architectural style, and student and faculty housing. Each provides a mandatory "core course," centering on the college's theme, that is taken by incoming freshmen. College sizes vary, but roughly a third of students live on campus within their college community. Coursework, academic majors and general areas of study are not limited by college membership, though colleges "host" the offices of various departments and faculty. Until recently, most classes used written evaluations instead of letter grades. Mandatory grades are now given, as at other UC campuses, but grades are still sometimes supplemented with evaluations.

In recent years, UCSC's academic prominence has significantly increased. As of 2004, UCSC's faculty includes two members of the Institute of Medicine, twenty members of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, eleven members of the National Academy of Sciences, and one MacArthur Fellow. The University spent $54 million on research for the 2002-2003 academic year, and holds claim to 79 active inventions and 18 patents (2002). The young Baskin School of Engineering and the Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering are garnering recognition, as has the work UCSC researchers have done on the Human Genome Project. UCSC's most prestigious science departments are in Astronomy/Astrophysics and Ocean Sciences, as UCSC administers Lick and Keck Observatories as well as the Long Marine Laboratory. Furthermore, according to a 2003 ISI report, UCSC ranked 1st in the nation for academic research impact in the field of space sciences. UCSC also ranked first in the nation for its academic research on physics and second in the world for most influential research institution in the physical sciences, according to two 2001 ISI reports.

Some 80% of UCSC undergraduates are accepted into the graduate or professional school of their choice, and the percentage that go on to earn doctorate degrees is among the highest in the nation.

In September 2003, the NASA Ames Research Center took a bold step towards increasing the science output, safety, and effectiveness of NASA's missions through the infusion of new technologies and scientific techniques. A ten-year task order contract valued at more than $330 million was awarded to the University of California (UC) to establish and operate a University Affiliated Research System (UARC) [1]. The UC Santa Cruz manages the UARC for the University.

Setting

The 2000 acre (8 km²) UCSC campus is located 75 miles (120 km) south of San Francisco and has an elevation change of about 900 feet (275 m) from the base of campus at 285 feet (87 m) to the upper boundary at 1,195 feet (364 m). The lower portion of the campus primarily consists of the Great Meadow, and most of the upper campus is within a redwood forest. The campus is bounded on the south by the city's upper-west-side neighborhoods, on the east by Harvey West Park [2] and the Pogonip [3] [4], on the north by Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park [5] [6] [7] in the town of Felton, and on the west by Gray Whale Ranch, a portion of Wilder Ranch State Park [8] [9]. The northern half of the campus, while originally intended to house ten colleges in addition to the ten that currently exist, has remained in its undeveloped, forested state aside from hiking and bicycle trails. Students forgoing the expenses of an apartment or dorm room are not an uncommon sight in the denser parts of the woods living in semi-permanent tent communities, despite restrictions against camping on campus and in the surrounding state parks.

History

Although the original founders had outlined their plans for the University in the 1930s, the opportunity did not present itself to build such a unique educational experiment until the City of Santa Cruz made a bid to the University of California Regents in the mid-1950s to build a campus in the mountains outside town. The formal design of the Santa Cruz campus begun in the late 1950s and construction started in the early 1960s. The campus was originally intended to be a showcase for contemporary architecture as well as a place for learning. The first building on campus to be completed was Hahn Central Services. Not long after opening, Hahn Central Services was subject to a devastating fire that gutted the building. It was then rebuilt using the undamaged concrete structure.

Until recently, most of the buildings on campus have been named after people of great worth: educators, writers, philosophers, and alternative thinkers. This tradition has slowed recently in favor of selling naming rights to buildings and colleges (e.g. Kresge College of the Kresge K-Mart fame). The roads on campus are named after the UC Regents who voted in favor of building the campus. Clark Kerr Hall is named after the then-President of the University of California, who imagined building a university as several Swarthmores (i.e., small liberal arts colleges) in close proximity to each other. (As such, each college was originally intended to be primarily educationally self-sustaining.)

UCSC opened during a time of civil unrest when student protests on college campuses across the United States were common. According to popular myth, incoming students are sometimes told that the campus was designed on a decentralized plan, with no central quadrangle or central administrative buildings to serve as rallying points for protests. However, the campus opened in 1965 and was designed several years prior, so this story is relegated to folklore, as the original protests in question didn't begin until the mid-1960s.

Geology

The geology and history of the campus are closely tied. The campus is built on a portion of the Cowell Family ranch, which was given as a gift to the University of California. The original living quarters for ranch employees are mostly still standing at the base of campus, as is the stonehouse which served as the paymaster's house. The stonehouse was home to the campus newspaper, City on a Hill, from the 1970s to the mid-1990s. Many of the other original ranch buildings have been renovated to be comfortable modern offices despite their antiquated appearance.

The Cowell Ranch was a part of the Henry Cowell Lime and Cement Company. The limestone that runs under most of campus was pulled from one of several quarries, the most notable being the Upper Quarry, which is popular with students that wish to smoke cannabis away from the patrolled colleges despite its central location. There is an amphitheater in this quarry that is used for most of the large gatherings on campus. The original campus plan indicated a stadium in the Lower Quarry, but this plan never was realized. (Indeed, the Lower Quarry is now home to The Village, a student housing community, ending any forseeable possibility of a stadium there.) Once the limestone was quarried, lime was extracted by burning it in limekilns adjacent to the quarries. The fires were fueled by the redwood trees that were logged from adjacent land. Although most of these kilns are fenced off, they are still visible in several locations on and around campus.

Another interesting feature of UCSC are the creeks traversing the campus within several ravines. Footbridges span these ravines on pedestrian paths linking various areas of campus. These footbridges make it possible to walk to any part of campus within 20 minutes despite the campus being built on a mountainside with varying elevations. At night fog shrouds the ends of these bridges, so that one can be in the center without being able to see either end or the bottom of the ravine below, with only the orange lights along the path twisting away into the woods providing any sense of place.

Athletics and student traditions

UCSC competes in Division III of the NCAA as a member of the NAIA's California Pacific Conference.

UCSC's mascot is the banana slug, elected by popular vote after the administration attempted to name the athletic teams the "sea lions" in 1980. A favorite trick played on new students is to claim that banana slugs actually smell like bananas (they don't). Another is to convince them to lick a slug (the slime contains a mild anesthetic). Although some students claim the slugs are hard to find, and even go their entire college career without seeing one, during the wet early spring they are hard to avoid just a little ways out in the surrounding woods.

A noteworthy annual tradition on campus is known as First Rain. Traditionally, during the first autumn rain, students strip down and run the span of the campus nude (nearly a mile), gathering more participants as they pass through each residential college. The run usually begins at Porter College and ends there once again with students congregating in a drum circle.

Another campus tradition is the full moon drum circle. On the eve of every full moon, students congregate in the Upper Meadow to drum or simply relax.

Notable alumni

• Kathryn D. Sullivan, BS 1973 - astronaut, first American woman to walk in space
• Julie Packard, BA 1974 - executive director, Monterey Bay Aquarium
• Kent Nagano, BA 1974 - conductor of the Los Angeles Opera and the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal
• Victor Davis Hanson, BA 1975 - classicist & neoconservative thinker
• Laurie Garrett, BA 1975 - Newsday science reporter and author
• Steven Hawley, PhD 1977 - astronaut
• Alexander Gonzalez, PhD 1979 - California State University, San Marcos President
• Dana Priest, BA 1981 - Washington Post reporter and author
• Geoffrey Marcy, PhD 1982 - Professor of Astronomy at UC Berkeley and planet finder
• Joe Palca, PhD 1982 - National Public Radio science reporter
• Gillian Welch, BA 1990 - singer and songwriter
• Maya Rudolph, BA 1995 - comedian, musician, SNL cast member

External links

• Official website
• The Campus Guide: A Tour of the Natural Environment and Point of Historical Interest, written by Elizabeth Spedding Calciano and Ray Collett, 1973
• Henry Cowell history website
• Baskin School of Engineering website
• Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering website
• UCSC Genome Bioinformatics
• Information on the UCSC Banana Slug

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