University of California, Santa Cruz

University of California, Santa Cruz
Motto	Fiat Lux (Let There Be Light)
Tagline	• Thinking at the Edge • Fiat Slug (unofficial)
Established	1965
Type	Public, Land- and Space-Grant research university
Endowment	US $97 million (June 30, 2006)[1]
Chancellor	George Blumenthal
Provost	David Kliger
Faculty	812[3]
Staff	3,209[2]
Undergraduates	13,941[4]
Postgraduates	1,419[4]
Alumni	>60,000
Location	Santa Cruz, California
Address	University of California 1156 High Street Santa Cruz, CA 95064
Campus	Suburban/Sylvan 2,001 acres (8.1 km²)
Colors	UCSC Blue & UCSC Gold[5]
Nickname	Banana Slugs
Mascot	Sammy the Slug
Athletics	NCAA Division III
Affiliations	University of California WASC
Website	www.ucsc.edu

The University of California, Santa Cruz, also known as UC Santa Cruz or UCSC, is a public, collegiate university, one of the ten campuses of the University of California. Located 75 miles (120 km) south of San Francisco at the edge of the coastal community of Santa Cruz, the campus lies on 2,001 acres (8.1 km²)^[6] of gently rolling, forested hills overlooking the Pacific Ocean and Monterey Bay. Founded in 1965 along with the University of California, Irvine^[7], UC Santa Cruz was the newest campus of the University of California system—until the recent opening of the University of California, Merced, the tenth campus. It is currently ranked as the 79^th Best University in the U.S. by US News.^[8]

History

Although some of the original founders had already outlined plans for an institution like UCSC as early as the 1930s, the opportunity to realize their vision did not present itself 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 process of the Santa Cruz campus began in the late 1950s, culminating in the Long Range Development Plan of 1963.^[9] Construction had started by 1964, and the University was able to accommodate its first students (albeit living in trailers on what is now the East Field athletic area) in 1965. The campus was intended to be a showcase for contemporary architecture, progressive teaching methods, and undergraduate research.^[10]

When UCSC opened, student protests on college campuses across the United States were becoming increasingly common.^[11] According to a popular campus myth, the campus was therefore designed on a decentralized plan, in order that there would be no central quadrangle or central administrative buildings to serve as rallying points for protests. However, the architectural plans and layout for the campus were already completed by the early 1960s, so there should be no truth to this supposition. According to founding chancellor Dean McHenry, the purpose of the college system was to combine the benefits of a major research university with the intimacy of a smaller college. ^[12]

McHenry Library

Roads on campus were named after UC Regents who voted in favor of building the campus. Kerr Hall, which houses UCSC's top-level administrative offices, was named after then-UC President Clark Kerr, who had long shared a passion with former Stanford roommate McHenry to build a university modeled as "several Swarthmores" (i.e., small liberal arts colleges) in close proximity to each other.^[13]

One of the first University structures on campus to be completed was the Hahn Student Services Building. In April 1971, a fire gutted the building, which then had to be completely rebuilt inside the only part of the original building still standing - its burned-out concrete shell. The catastrophe, exacerbated by the length of time it took the Santa Cruz Fire Department to respond from its stations in town to the conflagration in the center of the relatively remote campus, led directly to the establishment of the UC Santa Cruz Fire Department, one of only two campus fire departments in the University of California system.^[14]

For most of its history, UCSC employed a unique student evaluation system. The only grades assigned were "pass" and "no pass", supplemented with narrative evaluations. Beginning in 1997, UCSC switched to a conventional letter grading system, but course grades are still supplemented with evaluations. The "pass-no pass" system is still available, but many academic programs limit or even forbid pass-no pass grading. Overall, students may now earn no more than 25% of their UCSC credits on a "pass-no pass" basis. ^[15]

A large and growing population of politically liberal UCSC alumni in Santa Cruz has helped to change the electorate of the town from predominantly Republican ^[16] to markedly left-leaning, voting nearly three to one for Democrat John Kerry over Republican George W. Bush in the 2004 U.S. presidential election. ^[17] Mike Rotkin, UCSC alumnus, lecturer in Community Studies, and self-described 'socialist-feminist,' has been elected Mayor of Santa Cruz several times, and the City Council of Santa Cruz recently issued a proclamation opposing the USA PATRIOT Act.^[18]

In January 2006, UCSC was the subject of an article in The New York Times discussing the school's opposition to military recruiters and allegations that the federal governemnt was spying on Students Against War, a major, on-campus antiwar group. ^[19]

On June 24, 2006, Denice Denton, UCSC's ninth Chancellor, committed suicide by jumping from the rooftop deck of The Paramount high-rise apartment complex in San Francisco where her partner lived. ^[20] She had been criticized for spending approximately $600,000 to remodel her campus residence. She had also been criticized for accepting her chancellorship with the understanding that her life partner would be given a position as well, although such arrangements are not uncommon when universities recruit faculty and administrators. She was also criticized in the ongoing fight for control of the campus between the UC Office of the President and the local faculty. She had however been widely lauded at UCSC for her response to Harvard President Larry Summers's remarks at an academic symposium regarding the reasons behind gender disparity in careers in science and mathematics.^[20]

Campus

The Great Meadow

A view of the western side of the UCSC campus, with College Eight to the left and Family Student Housing to the right.

Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton east of San Jose

Engineering Two Building

The 2,001 acre (8.1 km²) UCSC campus is located 75 miles (120 km) south of San Francisco. Elevation varies from 285 feet (87 m) at the campus entrance to 1,195 feet (364 m) at the northern boundary, a difference of about 900 feet (275 m). The southern portion of the campus primarily consists of a large, open meadow, locally known as the Great Meadow. To the north of the meadow lie most of the campus' buildings, many of them among redwood groves. The campus is bounded on the south by the city's upper-west-side neighborhoods, on the east by Harvey West Park ^[21] and the Pogonip open space preserve, ^[22] on the north by Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park ^[23] near the town of Felton, and on the west by Gray Whale Ranch, a portion of Wilder Ranch State Park. ^[24] The northern half of the campus property has remained in its undeveloped, forested state apart from hiking and bicycle trails. The heavily-forested area has allowed UC Santa Cruz to operate a recreational vehicle park as a form of student housing. ^[25]

Facilities

The McHenry Library houses UCSC's arts and letters collection, with most of the scientific reading at the newer Science and Engineering Library. In addition, the colleges host smaller libraries, which serve as quiet places to study. The McHenry Special Collections Library includes the archives of Robert A. Heinlein, the mycology book collection of composer John Cage, the Hayden White collection of 16th century Italian printing, a photography collection with nearly half a million items, and the Mary Lea Shane Archive. The latter contains an extensive collection of photographs, letters, and other documents related to Lick Observatory dating back to 1870. ^[26] As of 2006, a renovation and expansion program is underway at McHenry, scheduled for completion in 2009. The library will remain open during construction, with brief closures as needed. ^[27]

Off-campus facilities maintained by UCSC include the Lick and Keck Observatories and the Long Marine Laboratory.

Geology

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 still standing at the campus' main entrance, or "base", as is the stonehouse which served as the paymaster's house. The stonehouse was home to the campus newspaper, City on a Hill Press, from the 1970s to the mid-1990s. Many of the other original ranch buildings have been renovated into comfortable modern offices.

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. There is an amphitheater in this quarry that is used for most of the large gatherings on campus. The original campus plan included a stadium in the Lower Quarry, but this was never realized. 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 the kilns are fenced off, they are visible in several locations on and around campus and in Pogonip.

Creeks traverse the UCSC campus within several ravines. Footbridges span those ravines on pedestrian paths linking various areas of campus. The footbridges make it possible to walk to any part of campus within 20 minutes in spite of the campus being built on a mountainside with varying elevations. At night, fog shrouds the ends of the bridges, so that one can be in the center without being able to see either end or the bottom of the ravine below. Only the orange lights along the path twisting away into the woods provide any sense of place.

There are a number of caves on the UCSC grounds, some of which have challenging passages. ^[28]

The combination of porous limestone bedrock with torrential coastal winter rains can lead to sinkholes; there are two such 'bottomless' pits across from the Science Hill complex. The Jack Baskin Engineering Building, formerly known as the Applied Sciences Building, began sinking shortly after it was built; in the late 1970's, hundreds of tons of concrete were poured underneath its foundation to prevent it from sinking.^{[citation needed]}

The UCSC campus is also one of the few homes to Mima Mounds in the United States. They are extremely rare in the United States, and, indeed, in the world in general.

Organization

The university offers 61 undergraduate majors and 31 minors, with graduate programs in 32 fields.

^[29] Popular undergraduate majors include Art, Business Management Economics, Molecular and Cell Biology, and Psychology. ^[30] Interdisciplinary programs, such as Feminist Studies, Community Studies, American Studies, Environmental Studies, and the unique History of Consciousness Department are also hosted alongside UCSC's more traditional academic departments.

The undergraduate program, with only the partial exception of those majors run through the University's School of Engineering, is still based on the version of the "residential college system" outlined by Clark Kerr and Dean McHenry at the inception of their original plans for the campus (see History, above). Upon admission, all undergraduate students join one of ten colleges, with which they usually stay affiliated for their entire undergraduate careers.^[31] Almost all faculty members are affiliated with a college as well.^[31] The individual colleges provide housing and dining services, while the university as a whole offers courses and majors to the general student community.^[31] Other universities with similar college systems include Rice University and the University of California, San Diego. The ten colleges are, in order of establishment:

• Cowell College
• Stevenson College
• Crown College
• Merrill College
• Porter College (formerly College Five or "College V")
• Kresge College
• Oakes College
• College Eight
• College Nine
• College Ten

Each of the colleges has its own, distinctive architectural style and a resident faculty provost, who is the nominal head of his or her college.^[31] An incoming first-year student will take a mandatory "core course" within his or her respective college, with a curriculum and central theme unique that college.^[31] College resident populations vary from about 750 to 1,550 students, with roughly half of undergraduates living on campus within their college community or in smaller, intramural campus communities such as the International Living Center, the Trailer Park, and the Village.^[31] Coursework, academic majors and general areas of study are not limited by college membership, although colleges host the offices of many academic departments. Graduate students are not affiliated with a residential college, though a large portion of their offices, too, have historically tended to be based in the colleges.

Students and faculty

In the Fall 2006 semester, UCSC enrolled 13,941 undergraduates and 1,419 graduate and postgraduate students, for a student body total of 15,360. ^[4]

Cowell College

Oakes College

College Eight

Merrill College

The following table shows the ethnic breakdown of the student body:^[4]

Econo-political demographics

According to a 2002 study of first year students, most students come from mass affluent backgrounds and are more likely to identify as liberal than the national average. The majority came from the households in the upper income quartile. The median household income UCSC students reported for their families of origin was $80,600, roughly 87.5% above the national average in 2002. In terms of political orientation, the student body was far more liberal than the general U.S. population, but more centrist than the national average for professors. The majority of respodents, 59%, identified as liberal, 34% as "Middle of the Road" and 8% as conservative.^[33] A 2004 survey among full-time faculty members across the U.S. found 72% of professors identifying as liberal, with 15% identifying as conservative.^{[[#wp-_note-Kurtz, H. (29 March, 2005). College Faculties A Most Liberal Lot, Study Finds. The Washington Post.|[34]]]}

Though UCSC students come from throughout the United States and the world, a large majority are from California. The hometowns of UCSC undergraduates include:^[4]

In general, graduation and retention rates are above national averages but below the mean among UC campuses. Among students who entered in 1999, 70% graduated within six years, ten percentage points below the UC average. Earlier statistics show that the six-year graduation rate is above the mean for both NCAA Division I schools and a sample of major universities throughout the United States. ^[35] About half of graduates pursue further education, and 13 percent proceed to advanced degree programs within six months of graduation. ^[36]

As of 2006, UCSC's faculty included two members of the Institute of Medicine, 21 members of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, and eleven members of the National Academy of Sciences.^[7] The young Baskin School of Engineering, UCSC's first professional school, and the Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering are gaining recognition, as has the work UCSC researchers have done on the Human Genome Project. UCSC administers the National Science Foundation's Center for Adaptive Optics.

According to a 2005 report by SCI-BYTES magazine, UCSC ranked second in the United States for academic research impact in the field of space sciences between 1999 and 2003, behind Princeton University. ^[37] A report in 2002 had ranked UCSC first for research impact in the space sciences and second in physics. ^[38] In the last National Research Council rankings of graduate programs, published in 1995, Astronomy and Astrophysics and Linguistics both ranked in the top ten. ^[39] In its survey of more than 300 research universities, econphd.net, an online resource for graduate students, ranked the UCSC Economics Department ninth in the world in the field of international finance. ^[40] Of all the UC campuses, UC Santa Cruz has had the highest percentage of upper-division students participating in UC’s Education Abroad Program for the last five years.^{[citation needed]}

In September 2003, a ten-year task order contract valued at more than $330 million was awarded by NASA Ames Research Center to the University of California to establish and operate a University Affiliated Research System (UARC). UCSC manages the UARC for the University of California. ^[41]

Athletics and student traditions

UCSC competes in Division III of the NCAA as an Independent member. There are fourteen varsity sports (men's and women's basketball, soccer, water polo, volleyball, swimming and diving, women's golf, and women's cross country). UCSC teams are nationally ranked in tennis, soccer, water polo and swimming. They have won six men's tennis team championships, and are the current defending national champions after defeating Emory to win the 2007 National Championship. The Banana Slugs were also runners-up in men's soccer in 2004. In the 2006 season, the men's water polo team won the Division III championship, as well as an overall ranking of 19th in the nation. UCSC is one of the largest NCAA Division III members.

In addition to its NCAA sports, UCSC maintains a number of successful club sides including its women's rugby team, which won the Division II National Collegiate Championship during its 05-06 season.[1]

UCSC's mascot is the banana slug (specifically, Ariolimax dolichophallus^[42]). In 1981, when the university began participating in NCAA intercollegiate sports, the then-chancellor and some student athletes declared the mascot to be the "sea lions." Most students disliked the new mascot and offered an alternative mascot, the banana slug. In 1986, students voted via referendum to declare the banana slug the official mascot of UCSC—a vote the chancellor refused to honor, arguing that only athletes should choose the mascot. When a poll of athletes showed that they, too, wanted to be "Slugs," the chancellor relented. A sea lion statue can still be seen in front of the Thimann Hall lecture building, and a sea lion is still painted on the floor of the basketball court used for league play.^[43]

UC Santa Cruz is well known for its marijuana culture. On April 20, 2007, approximately 2000 UCSC students gathered at Porter Meadow to celebrate the annual "420 day." Students and others openly smoked marijuana while campus police stood by. ^[44]

Another well known tradition is what is known as "The Porter Run" or "First Rain". Students run around campus naked or nearly naked to celebrate the school year's first night of rain. The run starts at Porter and proceeds to travel to the other colleges.^{[citation needed]}

Pulp Fiction

In Quentin Tarantino's film Pulp Fiction, characters Jules and Vincent (John Travolta) must change into new clothes. Vincent wears a UCSC "Fiat Slug" ash t-shirt (with the school's mascot Sammy the Slug on it). The shirt, which was designed by students, is still sold in UCSC's bookstore and is available for Internet purchase.^[45]

Student media

• City on a Hill Press, a weekly publication that serves as the traditional campus newspaper.
• Fish Rap Live!, the alternative, comedic paper
• TWANAS, the Third World and Native American Student Press Collective publishes issues about every quarter for various communities of color at UCSC. It's peak years were during the 70s, 80s and 90s.
• Student Cable Television (SCTV), Student run channel 28 [2]
• The Moxie Production Group, which produces content on a quarterly basis.
• The Project, a quarterly paper, for UCSC's radical community
• The Disorientation Guide, published on sporadic years, introduces new students to UCSC's radical history and various political issues that face the campus and community
• Rapt Magazine, a quarterly literary and arts magazine (formerly known as the Kresge Town Krier)
• The Leviathan, a Jewish student life publication
• Chinquapin, an open-ended creative journal sponsored by the creative writing department [3]
• Turnstile, a poetry journal
• Red Wheelbarrow, a "literary arts" journal [4]
• Matchbox Magazine, an annual humanities publication, started at UCSC, that operates across many UC campuses.
• KZSC, the student-run campus radio station
• Santa Cruz Indymedia, a local activist resource with a lot of UCSC content

See also

• List of University of California, Santa Cruz people
• Santa Cruz, California
• UC Santa Cruz Fire Department
• University of California
• Regents of the University of California
• University of California, Santa Cruz, Arboretum

Notes and references

External links

• University of California, Santa Cruz
• 2005 Long Range Development Plan
• The Campus Guide: A Tour of the Natural Environment and Point of Historical Interest, written by Elizabeth Spedding Calciano and Ray Collett, 1973
• History of the Cowell family and Cowell ranch

• Maps and aerial photos for 37°00′N 122°′W / 37.00, -122.06Coordinates: 37°00′N 122°′W / 37.00, -122.06
  • Maps from WikiMapia, Google Maps, Live Search Maps, Yahoo! Maps, or MapQuest
  • Topographic maps from TopoZone or TerraServer-USA

University of California, Santa Cruz Santa Cruz, California
	Colleges & Schools	Cowell College · Stevenson College · Crown College · Merrill College · Porter College · Kresge College · Oakes College College Eight · College Nine · College Ten · Jack Baskin School of Engineering
	Research & Services	Lick Observatory · W. M. Keck Observatory · Arboretum · NASA Ames Research Center UARC · Silicon Valley Initiatives Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics (SCIPP) · Center for Adaptive Optics · Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering Dickens Project · Long Marine Laboratory · Shakespeare Santa Cruz · New Teacher Center · UC Police Department UCSC Fire Department · UCSA · Women of Color Film Festival · History of Consciousness · McHenry Library
	Media	City on a Hill Press · Fish Rap Live! · KZSC

The University of California Regents of the University of California
	Campuses	Berkeley · Davis · Hastings · Irvine · Los Angeles · Merced · Riverside · San Diego · San Francisco · Santa Barbara · Santa Cruz
	Hospitals	UC Davis Medical Center · UC Irvine Medical Center · UCLA Medical Center · UCSD Medical Center · UCSF Medical Center
	Research	Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory · Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory · Los Alamos National Laboratory W. M. Keck Observatory · James Lick Observatory

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