University of California
The University of California (UC) is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three system public higher education plan, which also includes the California State University system and the California Community Colleges System.
As of spring 2015, the University of California has 10 campuses, a combined student body of 238,700 students, 19,700 faculty members, 135,900 staff members and over 1.6 million living alumni.
Its first campus, UC Berkeley, was founded in 1868, while its tenth and newest campus, UC Merced, opened for classes in fall 2005. Nine campuses enroll both undergraduate and graduate students; one campus, UC San Francisco, enrolls only graduate and professional students in the medical and health sciences. In addition, the independently administered UC Hastings is located in San Francisco but is not part of the UCSF campus.
The University of California's campuses boast large numbers of distinguished faculty in almost every field and it is widely regarded as one of the top university systems in the world. Seven of its undergraduate campuses are ranked among the top 100, six among the top 50, and two among the top 25 U.S. national universities for 2015, public or private, by U.S. News & World Report. Among public schools, two of its undergraduate campuses are ranked in the top 5 (UC Berkeley at 1 and UCLA at 2), five in the top 10 (UC San Diego at 8, UC Davis at 9, and UC Santa Barbara at 10), and all except the newly opened UC Merced in the top 100 (UC Irvine at 11, UC Santa Cruz at 35, UC Riverside at 55, U.S. News & World Report Rankings 2015[5]). UC Berkeley is ranked third worldwide among public and private universities and two others—UCLA and UC San Diego—are ranked among the top 15 by the Academic Ranking of World Universities.
History
Berkeley (1868)
San Francisco (1873)
Los Angeles (1919)
Santa Barbara (1944)
Riverside (1954)
Davis (1959)
San Diego (1960)
Irvine (1965)
Santa Cruz (1965)
Merced (2005)
UC Office of the President in Oakland
In 1849, the state of California ratified its first constitution, which contained the express objective of creating a complete educational system including a state university. Taking advantage of the Morrill Land Grant Act, the California Legislature established an Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts College in 1866. Meanwhile, Congregational minister Henry Durant, an alumnus of Yale, had established the private Contra Costa Academy, on June 20, 1853, in Oakland, California. The initial site was bounded by Twelfth and Fourteenth Streets and Harrison and Franklin Streets in downtown Oakland. In turn, the Trustees of the Contra Costa Academy were granted a charter on April 13, 1855, for a College of California. State Historical Plaque No. 45 marks the site of the College of California at the northeast corner of Thirteenth and Franklin Streets in Oakland. Hoping both to expand and raise funds, the College of California's trustees formed the College Homestead Association and purchased 160 acres (650,000 m²) of land in what is now Berkeley in 1866. But sales of new homesteads fell short.
The University of California's second president, Daniel Coit Gilman, opened the Berkeley campus in September 1873. Earlier that year, Toland Medical College in San Francisco had agreed to become the University's "Medical Department"; it later evolved into UCSF. In 1878, the University established Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco as its first law school. The California Constitution was amended to designate Hastings as the "Law Department" of the University of California in consideration of a $100,000 gift from Serranus Clinton Hastings. It is now known as Hastings College of the Law. UC Hastings is the only University of California campus which is not governed by the Regents of the University of California.
In August 1882, a southern branch campus of the California State Normal School opened in Los Angeles. The southern branch campus would remain under administrative control of the San Jose State University (California's oldest public university campus, established in 1857) until 1919, when by act of the California state legislature the school merged with the University of California in Berkeley, California, and was renamed the Southern Branch of the University of California. This Southern Branch became UCLA in 1927. In 1944, the former Santa Barbara State College—renamed UC Santa Barbara—became the third general-education campus of the University of California system.
In 1905, the Legislature established a "University Farm School" at Davis and in 1907 a "Citrus Experiment Station" at Riverside as adjuncts to the College of Agriculture at Berkeley. In 1959, the Legislature promoted the "Farm" and "Experiment Station" to the rank of general campus, creating, respectively, UC Davis and UC Riverside.
In 1932, Will Keith Kellogg donated his Arabian horse ranch in Pomona, California, to the University of California system. However, the land remained largely unused and ownership was transferred to the California State University system in 1949. Kellogg's old ranch became the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.
The San Diego campus was founded as a marine station in 1912 and, in 1959, became UCSD. UC established additional general campuses at Santa Cruz and Irvine in 1965. UC Merced opened in fall 2005.
The California Master Plan for Higher Education of 1960 established that UC must admit undergraduates from the top 12.5% (one-eighth) of graduating high school seniors in California. Prior to the promulgation of the Master Plan, UC was to admit undergraduates from the top 15%. The University does not currently adhere to all tenets of the original Master Plan, such as the directive that no campus was to exceed total enrollment of 27,500 students in order to ensure quality. Three campuses, Berkeley, Davis, and Los Angeles, all currently enroll over 30,000.
Academics
The University of California and most of its campuses are members of the Association of American Universities (AAU). Collectively, the system counts among its faculty (as of 2002):
389 members of the Academy of Arts and Sciences
5 Fields Medal recipients
19 Fulbright Scholars
254 members of the National Academy of Sciences
91 members of the National Academy of Engineering
13 National Medal of Science Laureates
38 Nobel laureates.
106 members of the Institute of Medicine
Eight campuses operate on the quarter system, while Berkeley and Merced are on the semester system. However, the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and all UC law schools operate on the semester system.
UC Libraries
Main article: University of California Libraries
At 34 million items, the University of California library system contains one of the largest collections in the world. Each campus maintains its own library catalog and also participates in the systemwide union catalog, MELVYL. Besides on-campus libraries, the UC system also maintains two regional library facilities (one each for Northern and Southern California), which each accept older items from all UC campus libraries in their respective region. As of 2007, Northern Regional Library Facility is home to 4.7 million volumes, while SRLF is home to 5.7 million.
Research
The University of California did famous research on the SAT exam. They found that after controlling for familial income and parental education, so-called achievement tests known as the SAT II had ten times more predictive ability of college aptitude than the SAT I (AKA the SAT math and verbal sections).
All University of California campuses except Hastings College of the Law are governed by the Regents of the University of California as required by the current Constitution of the State of California. Eighteen regents are appointed by the governor for 12-year terms. One member is a student appointed for a one-year term. There are also seven ex officio members—the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Speaker of the Assembly, Superintendent of Public Instruction, president and vice president of the Alumni Associations of UC, and the UC President. The Academic Senate, made up of faculty members, is empowered by the Regents to set academic policies. In addition, the system-wide faculty chair and vice-chair sit on the Board of Regents as non-voting members.
Originally, the President was directly in charge of the first campus, Berkeley, and in turn, all other UC locations (with the exception of Hastings College of the Law) were controlled by the Berkeley campus. In 1952, the system was reorganized so that day-to-day "chief executive officer" functions for each campus were transferred to Chancellors who were entrusted with a high degree of autonomy. In turn, all Chancellors (again, with the exception of Hastings) report as equals to the UC President. Today, the UC Office of the President and the Office of the Secretary of the Regents of the University of California share an office building in downtown Oakland that serves as the UC system's headquarters.
UC Presidents
Janet Napolitano, current UC President and former United States Secretary of Homeland Security.
On August 13, 2007, President Dynes announced that he would step down effective June 2008, or until his replacement was selected. However, he also announced that Provost Wyatt (Rory) Hume would take over as the system's chief operating officer, effective immediately. Three state lawmakers had publicly demanded his resignation for his handling of the executive pay compensation scandal that stemmed from UC system Provost M. R. C. Greenwood's violation of UC conflict-of-interest rules. (She had created a management job at UC headquarters for a friend with whom she owned rental property, and a subordinate, Winston Doby, improperly helped create a year-long internship for her son at UC Merced.
Incoming President Mark Yudof took over on June 16, 2008. In January 2013, Yudof announced his plan to resign as president of the University of California, effective August 31, 2013. Yudof was succeeded by Homeland Security Secretary and former Governor of Arizona Janet Napolitano, the first woman to hold the office of UC President.
Finances
Main article: University of California finances
The state of California currently spends US$2.56 billion or 2% of its annual budget (2011–12) on the UC system, down from US$3.04 billion or 3.8% of its annual budget in 2000-01. In May 2004, UC President Robert C. Dynes and CSU Chancellor Charles B. Reed struck a private deal, called the "Higher Education Compact", with Governor Schwarzenegger. They agreed to slash spending by about a billion dollars (about a third of the University's core budget for academic operations) in exchange for a funding formula lasting until 2011. The agreement calls for modest annual increases in state funds (but not enough to replace the loss in state funds Dynes and Schwarzenegger agreed to), private fundraising to help pay for basic programs, and large student fee hikes, especially for graduate and professional students. A detailed analysis of the Compact by the Academic Senate "Futures Report" indicated, despite the large fee increases, the University core budget did not recover to 2000 levels. Undergraduate student fees have risen 90% from 2003 to 2007. In 2011, for the first time in UC's history, student fees exceeded contributions from the State of California.
The First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco recently ruled that the University of California owed nearly $40 million in refunds to about 40,000 students who were promised that their tuition fees would remain steady, but were hit with increases when the state ran short of money in 200.
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