University of California, Santa Cruz

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) of gently rolling, forested hills overlooking the Pacific Ocean and Monterey Bay. Since its founding in 1965, UC Santa Cruz has evolved from its origins as a showcase for progressive, cross-disciplinary undergraduate education into a modern research university with a wide variety of both undergraduate and graduate programs. It is currently ranked as the 79^th Best University in the U.S. by US News and 76^th best by The Washington Monthly.

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 just outside town, in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The formal design process of the Santa Cruz campus began in the late 1950s, culminating in the Long Range Development Plan of 1963. 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. According to founding chancellor Dean McHenry, the purpose of the distributed college system was to combine the benefits of a major research university with the intimacy of a smaller college.

Although the city of Santa Cruz already exhibited a strong conservation ethic before the founding of the university, the coincidental rise of the counterculture of the 1960s with the university's establishment fundamentally altered its subsequent development. Early student and faculty activism at UCSC pioneered an approach to environmentalism that greatly impacted the industrial development of the surrounding area. The lowering of the voting age to 18 in 1971 lead to the emergence of a powerful student-voting bloc. A large and growing population of politically liberal UCSC alumni changed the electorate of the town from predominantly Republican to markedly left-leaning, consistently voting against expansion measures on the part of both town and gown. Mike Rotkin, UCSC alumnus, lecturer in Community Studies, and self-described 'socialist-feminist,' has been elected Mayor of Santa Cruz several times. In 2005, a Pentagon surveillance program deemed student opposition to military recruiters on campus a "credible threat," the only campus antiwar action to receive the designation. In February 2006, Chancellor Denice Denton got the designation removed.

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 bar:Leaders width:25 mark:(line,white) align:left fontsize:S

 from:1961 till:1974 shift:($dx,-3) color:Invested text:Dean McHenry

 from:1974 till:1976 shift:($dx,-3) color:Invested text:Mark Christensen

 from:1976 till:1977 shift:($dx,-3) color:Invested text:Angus Taylor

 from:1977 till:1987 shift:($dx,-3) color:Invested text:Robert Sinsheimer

 from:1987 till:1991 shift:($dx,-3) color:Invested text:Robert Stevens

 from:1991 till:1996 shift:($dx,-3) color:Invested text:Karl Pister

 from:1996 till:2004 shift:($dx,-5) color:Invested text:M.R.C. Greenwood

 from:2004 till:2005 shift:($dx,-5) color:Acting text:Martin Chemers

 from:2005 till:2006 shift:($dx,-5) color:Invested text:Denice Denton †

 from:2006 till:end shift:($dx,+1) color:Invested text:George Blumenthal

Plans for increasing enrollment over the next 14 years to 19,500 students, adding 1,500 faculty and staff, and, secondarily the anticipated environmental impacts of such action have encountered opposition from the city, the local community, and the student body. George Blumenthal, UCSC's tenth Chancellor, largely to allay community concerns, intends to mitigate growth constraints in Santa Cruz and further extend UCSC's influence by developing off-campus sites in Silicon Valley. Over the past year, UCSC added summer school classes at its Moffett Field campus near Mountain View. The NASA Ames Research Center campus is planned to ultimately hold 2,000 UCSC students - about 10% of the entire university's future student body as envisioned for 2020.

Campus environment

The 2,001 acre (8.1 km²) UCSC campus is located 75 miles (120 km) south of San Francisco, in the Ben Lomond Mountain ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains. 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 and the Pogonip open space preserve, on the north by Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park near the town of Felton, and on the west by Gray Whale Ranch, a portion of Wilder Ranch State Park. The northern half of the campus property has remained in its undeveloped, forested state apart from fire roads and 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.

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.

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 as the only part left standing was the outer 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.

The campus is built on a portion of the Cowell Family ranch, which was purchased by the University of California in 1961. 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 university's Women's Center is hosted at the Cardiff House. In 2007, the entire site was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

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.

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.

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.

Academics

The university offers 61 undergraduate majors and 31 minors, with graduate programs in 32 fields. Popular undergraduate majors include Art, Business Management Economics, Molecular and Cell Biology, and Psychology. 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. Almost all faculty members are affiliated with a college as well. The individual colleges provide housing and dining services, while the university as a whole offers courses and majors to the general student community. Other universities with similar college systems include Rice University and the University of California, San Diego.

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. An incoming first-year student will take a mandatory "core course" within his or her respective college, with a curriculum and central theme unique to that college. 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. 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. The ten colleges are, in order of establishment:

Grading

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 allowed students the option of selecting letter grade evaluations, but course grades were still optional until 2000, when faculty voted to require students receive letter grades. 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. Although the default grading option for almost all courses offered is now "graded", most course grades are still accompanied by written evalutations.

Research

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. 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's organic farm and garden program is the oldest in the county, and pioneered organic horticulture techniques internationally. 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. A report in 2002 had ranked UCSC first for research impact in the space sciences and second in physics. In the last National Research Council rankings of graduate programs, published in 1995, Astronomy and Astrophysics and Linguistics both ranked in the top ten. 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. 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.

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

Library

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. 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.

Student demographics

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.

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. 25% of admitted students receive federal Pell grants. 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 respondents, 59%, identified as liberal, 34% as "Middle of the Road" and 8% as conservative. A 2004 survey among full-time faculty members across the U.S. found 72% of professors identifying as liberal, with 15% identifying as conservative. Though UCSC students come from throughout the United States and the world, a large majority are from California. The following tables show the ethnic and regional breakdown of the student body:

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. About half of graduates pursue further education, and 13 percent proceed to advanced degree programs within six months of graduation.

Athletics

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. After defeating Emory to win the 2007 National Championship in men's tennis, UCSC has won six men's tennis team championships, and have been defending champions in tennis for two of the past three years. 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 but one of the least funded 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. Although UCSC never had a track, the residential colleges regularly competed in an improvised "Slug Run" every spring from 1967 to 1982. Approximately 25% of the student population participates in intramural athletics, which tend to be better funded than the intercollegiate athletic programs.

UCSC's mascot is the banana slug (specifically, Ariolimax dolichophallus). 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. The "Fiat Slug" logo prominently featured on campus is a trademark of UCSC owned by the Regents. It was developed by two students during the mascot controversy, who later incorporated as "Oxford West" and licensed their design from the Regents to produce clothing inspired by the university.

Student life

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.

Another well known tradition is what is known as "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.

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. Its peak years were during the '70s, '80s and '90s.
• ''Student Cable Television (SCTV), Student run channel 28
• 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
• The Leviathan, a Jewish student life publication
• Chinquapin, an open-ended creative journal sponsored by the creative writing department
• Turnstile, a poetry journal
• Red Wheelbarrow, a "literary arts" journal
• 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
• Shakespeare Santa Cruz

Notes and references

External links

• University of California, Santa Cruz
• 2005 Long Range Development Plan
• An LRDP Primer: a student-written analysis of the LRDP published by the City on the Hill Press
• 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

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