History of the University of California, Riverside
Encyclopedia
This article is a comprehensive history of the University of California, Riverside
, or UCR. UCR began its life in 1907 as the University's Citrus Experiment Station; by the 1950s, the University had established a teaching-focused liberal arts curriculum at the site, in the spirit of a small liberal arts college, but California's rapidly growing population made it necessary for the Riverside campus to become a full-fledged general campus of the UC system, and was so designated in 1959.
"citrus belt" first emerged in the 1870s, and within two decades stretched eastward from Pasadena to Redlands beneath the foothills of the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains. It originated from experimental navel orange
plantings first conducted in Riverside
, from cuttings introduced from Brazil
. John Henry Reed, a retired school superintendent and dry goods merchant from Ohio
turned citrus grower, is credited with first proposing the establishment of a scientific experiment station specifically for citrus research in Southern California, and organized a vigorous lobbying effort of the local citrus industry
towards that end. As founding member and chair of the Riverside Horticultural Club's experimental committee, he also pioneered a collaborative approach to conducting experimental plantings, and published more than 150 semitechnical and popular papers on citrus and other subjects between 1895 and 1915.
Riverside California State Assembly
member Miguel Estudillo worked with Reed and a committee of the Riverside Chamber of Commerce
to draft Assembly Bill 552, which provided for a pathological laboratory and branch experiment station in Southern California. On March 18, 1905, a legislative board of commissioners was appropriated $30,000 to select the site and implement the measure. On February 14, 1907, the University of California Board of Regents established the UC Citrus Experiment Station on 23 acres (93,077.8 m²) of land on the east slope of Mt. Rubidoux in Riverside. However, the University's decision to concentrate on the development of the University Farm in Davis lead to only two initial staff being assigned to the CES, only one of whom, Ralph E. Smith, a plant pathologist from Berkeley, was a scientist. Dubbed the Rubidoux Laboratory, the initial purpose of the station was to concentrate on various soil management problems such as fertilization, irrigation, improvement of crops.
, recently opened for settlement by the 1914 completion of the Owens Valley aqueduct, lobbied intensively for the CES to be relocated there. Herbert John Webber, a professor of plant breeding from Cornell University and newly appointed director of the Citrus Experiment Station, considered various site proposals but ultimately worked with the Riverside Chamber of Commerce, city officials, and local growers to assist in drafting and endorsing a proposal for the CES to be relocated to its current site on 475 acres (1.9 km²) of land 2.5 miles (4 km) from downtown Riverside, adjacent to the Box Springs Mountain
s. On December 14, 1914 the UC Regents approved the selection, news of which caused jubilation in downtown Riverside: "The entire city turned into the streets, the steam whistle on the electrical plant blew for 15 minutes, and the Mission Inn
bells were rung in celebration." It was, according to Reed as quoted in the Riverside Daily Press: "...the most important day that has occurred in all the history of Riverside."
The new station was to be governed autonomously under Webber's direction. He spent the next few years personally recruiting the founding research team, eleven scientists organized into six divisions of agricultural chemistry
, plant physiology
, plant pathology, entomology
, plant breeding
, and orchard
management. Webber also initiated the development of the Citrus Variety Collection on 5 acres (20,234.3 m²) planted with approximately 500 species of citrus from around the world, which grew to become the greatest such variety collection internationally. He also planted hundreds of other subtropical crops, including 70 varieties of avocado
, imported from Mexico
, that produced more than 45,000 hybrids through controlled pollination. (He also helped found the California Avocado Association in 1914 and served as its president for two years, and organized the annual citrus institute of the National Orange Show in San Bernardino
and the Date Growers Institute of Coachella Valley
.)
style suggesting the Spanish colonial heritage of Southern California. The site, which became the early nucleus of the UCR campus, eventually opened in 1917, although the Division of Agricultural Chemistry continued to occupy lab space at the Rubidoux site.
After the 1945 passage of the GI Bill, a massive influx of former servicemen began to enter college and strained the capacities of many state public university systems. While this wave was expected to subside by the early 1950s, state and federal statistics released in the late forties all projected a massive demand for access to higher education in California in the near future. The UC system was then composed only of established campuses at Berkeley and Los Angeles, (Santa Barbara State
had just entered the UC system in 1944) which were already operating near capacity. In 1947, the Regents and an Education Committee of the State Legislature appointed a large-scale study of California's needs, dubbed the Strayer Committee (after its chair, George D. Strayer, professor emeritus of Teachers College, Columbia University
). As the Strayer Committee was empowered to make recommendations regarding the establishment of any new state campuses, a group of Riverside citrus growers and civic leaders, including many Cal (Berkeley) alumni, formed the Citizens University Committee (CUC) to lobby for a small liberal arts college attached to the UC Citrus Experiment Station. After diligent lobbying by the CUC, which sent gifts of oranges and grapefruit to every member of the Legislature, the Strayer committee recommended that Riverside become the location for the fourth UC undergraduate campus. (It also recommended that the existing Agricultural College at Davis be expanded to serve undergraduates.) Riverside State Assemblyman John Babbage drafted Senate Bill 512, which allocated $6 million for the construction of the new college. Governor Earl Warren
signed the bill approving the establishment of the College of Letters and Science in Riverside in 1949, after reducing its initial allocation for construction to $4 million.
That same year, the Regents appointed a 13 member faculty committee to plan the expansion of the existing campuses at Davis and Riverside, headed by Harry B. Walker of the Agricultural College at Davis. Though it was decided that the new college at Riverside would be a separate institution from the CES, with no undergraduate work in agriculture planned, it was also decided that the Riverside provost
would report to the president of the UC through the Vice-president of the statewide College of Agriculture, to whom the director of the CES also reported. Gordon S. Watkins, then dean of the College of Letters and Science at UCLA, was a member of this initial planning committee, and UC President Sproul requested him to oversee the organization of the College of Letters and Science at Riverside. Watkins accepted the job and started five years of planning, faculty recruitment, and building construction. The onset of the Korean war
delayed construction, and the CUC continued to lobby for basic resources such as steel
and concrete
to build the new campus. Anticipating an initial enrollment of 1000, Watkins ordered the initial campus built for a maximum capacity of 1500 students. Not anticipating the need for graduate work, Watkins focused on recruiting many young, new Ph.D.s into junior faculty positions, rather than already established researchers. He became provost of the Riverside campus and presided at its opening with 65 faculty and 131 students in February 1954, remarking "Never have so few been taught by so many."
When the university opened in February 1954, many students wanted a bear symbol in keeping with the traditional ursine mascots at UC Berkeley and UCLA. The founding editors initially named the student newspaper "The Cub", and out of a total of 67 names entered in a contest to pick the mascot, "Cubs" was the most popular; however, many felt that this name would permanently denigrate the campus as a "little brother" of UCLA and Berkeley. In November 1954, the men's basketball team championed freshman Donna Lewis' suggestion of "Hylanders" as a write-in candidate in a run-off between "Cubs" and "Grizzlies." The corrected name won easily, as Provost Watkins was noted for speaking with a Welsh
accent, and the UCR campus was located at the highest elevation among all UC schools. Also, the Box Springs Mountains were known as the Highlands.
By the time Clark Kerr
became president of the UC system in 1958, UCR was in its fifth year of operation and comprised 1087 students. Kerr articulated a vision of the UC as "one university, many campuses" and so Riverside, Santa Barbara, Davis and San Diego were all designated general campuses of the UC system by 1959. The Regents tasked biologist Herman Theodore Spieth, then-provost after Watkins retired in 1956, with increasing UCR's enrollment capacity to 5000 students and administering UCR's development towards full university status. As UCR's first chancellor, Spieth was to combine the College of Letters and Science and the Citrus Research Center under a single academic and administrative entity, as well as oversee the planning and development of UCR's graduate division, in accord with the provisions of the developing California Master Plan for Higher Education
. UCR started accepting graduate students in 1961; UCR's College of Agriculture, Air Pollution Research Center and the Dry-Lands Research Institute were also established during Spieth's administration.
In accordance with the Kerr directives, which also affected speakers on campus, in 1962 Spieth refused to let Nobel chemist Linus Pauling
speak on disarmament
because the subject was outside his academic field of expertise. The same year he also refused Dorothy Healy, former chair of the Southern California Communist Party, from speaking on campus. Six UCR students sued the Regents over Spieth's ruling against Healy, and the case was still pending when the Regents voted 15/2 to remove the outright ban on communist speakers in 1963.
had begun in Berkeley. Hinderaker, who was photographed at his own inauguration carrying a placard borrowed from a student protester that said, ‘The University is not a Sandbox,” cooperated with student activists that first year to develop such projects as the KUCR
radio station, a campus child-care center, a political debate union, social events, fine arts workshops, and a few of his own projects such as Greek chapters and grants for student athletes. He negotiated a confrontation with student activists in ASUCR by suggesting the student council would be vacated if they did not rescind a resolution, which demanded President Lyndon B. Johnson
support the right of African American
s to vote in Selma, Alabama
. Five ASUCR officers, including the council president, resigned in protest of Hinderaker's position, and the remaining council members complied with his request. At a later protest against campus recruiting by Dow Chemicals, organized by Students for a Democratic Society
, student activists camped inside the administration building were served coffee
and donut
s by Norm Better, the dean of Letters and Science.
It fell to Hinderaker to complete the task of turning UCR into a full fledged research university. In doing this, he had to confront the early faculty Watkins had recruited on the premise that UCR Letters and Science would be a small liberal arts institution dedicated to teaching undergraduates. Many of UCR’s early L&S faculty had achieved tenure
d positions without having to do extensive research, and saw themselves primarily as teachers. As Professor Charles Adrian, former Chair of UCR’s Political Science Department, summarized the faculty situation:
All Hinderaker could do to that effect was wait for this early faculty to retire in order to appoint new faculty on a research basis.
Through the 1960s, UCR's enrollment had risen to a plateau of approximately 5000 students. In 1973, Riverside’s Mayor Lewis requested Governor Ronald Reagan
declare the South Coast Air Basin
a disaster area
. This caused Riverside to become famous for its air pollution
and had disastrous effects on student enrollment and faculty recruitment at UCR. According to Hinderaker:
Rumors circulated that the campus would close; Gov. Jerry Brown proposed a merger with Cal State San Bernardino. Hinderaker developed UCR’s competitive Biomedical Program and popular Business Administration Program partly as means of assuaging the enrollment problems created by Riverside's air quality. He also established UCR’s graduate schools of education and administration, streamlined UCR’s departmental structure, and presided over the establishment of the UCR/California Museum of Photography during this period.
s, Hinderaker terminated UCR’s two-time Division II state championship football team in 1975. As a result of the 1978 passing of California Proposition 13
, which drastically reduced the state’s ability to fund higher education, another set of budgetary problems developed for UCR as well as for all the public education institutions in California. After Hinderacker retired in 1979, a series of chancellors served short appointments as UCR’s chief executive through the 80s. While enrollment began to make modest but sustained annual gains in 1984, more than doubling by 1991, no single chancellor at Riverside was ever in office long enough to strategically direct UCR’s overall development. Tomas Rivera
, the UC’s first minority chancellor and the first Latino leader of a major research university in the United States, dismantled UCR’s Black and Chicano Studies interdepartmental programs in response to the budget crisis. He died of a heart attack while in office in 1984. Daniel Aldrich served a one year interim appointment as Chancellor before being replaced by Theodore L. Hullar
, who began the push for more professional schools and locally supported development practices that would characterize later administrations. UC President Gardner reassigned him to the chancellorship at Davis in 1987 and appointed Rosemary S.J. Schraer
as the UC system’s first female chancellor at Riverside, in both cases without a formal committee reviewed search process. Due to the enrollment gains through the 1980, Schraer was able to appoint 200 new faculty members. She died while in office in 1992, but not before completing a formal, peer-reviewed search process for her successor, Raymond Orbach, who would further steer UCR’s development during the 1990s.
There are Native American student programs and outreach services as well as high school recruitment at the nearby Sherman Indian School. These programs both recruit and aid Native American students.
generation born in the post-World War II
era). To help the UC system accommodate this growth, planners targeted UCR for an annual growth rate of 6.3%, the fastest in the UC system, and anticipated 19,900 students enrolled at UCR by 2010.
As enrollment increased, so did the ethnic diversity of the student body. By 1995, fully 30% of UCR students were members of non-Caucasian groups, the highest proportion of any campus in the UC system at the time. The 1997 implementation of Proposition 209 — which banned the use of race and ethnicity as criteria for admissions, hiring, promotions and contracting by state agencies (including the University of California) — had the effect of further increasing ethnic diversity at UCR while reducing it at the most selective campuses in the system. By 2007, fully 69% of undergraduates were members of non-Caucasian groups. Faculty diversity statistics, however, remained relatively constant. 9.1% of UCR faculty were members of underrepresented minority groups in 1997, only 2% higher than the UC average. This percentage dropped to the UC average of 7.3% in 2002, but was back up to 9% in 2006, making it the third-most diverse faculty in the UC system behind Merced and Santa Cruz. Still, given the diversity of the student body and within the surrounding area, this relative lack of diversity at the faculty level remains controversial.
With UCR scheduled for dramatic population growth, efforts have been made to increase its popular and academic recognition. The students voted to increase fees to move UCR athletics into NCAA Division I standing in 1998. Proposals to establish a law school, a medical school, and a school of public policy at UCR have been in development since the 90s. In June 2006, UCR received its largest gift, 15.5 million from two local couples, in trust towards building its medical school. The Regents formally approved UCR’s medical school proposal in November 2006, but Chancellor Cordova
's subsequent resignation to assume the leadership of Purdue University
lead to a temporary suspension of the search for the med school dean until a search for a new chancellor could be completed.
University of California, Riverside
The University of California, Riverside, commonly known as UCR or UC Riverside, is a public research university and one of the ten general campuses of the University of California system. UCR is consistently ranked as one of the most ethnically and economically diverse universities in the United...
, or UCR. UCR began its life in 1907 as the University's Citrus Experiment Station; by the 1950s, the University had established a teaching-focused liberal arts curriculum at the site, in the spirit of a small liberal arts college, but California's rapidly growing population made it necessary for the Riverside campus to become a full-fledged general campus of the UC system, and was so designated in 1959.
The Rubidoux Laboratory
The Southern CaliforniaSouthern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
"citrus belt" first emerged in the 1870s, and within two decades stretched eastward from Pasadena to Redlands beneath the foothills of the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains. It originated from experimental navel orange
Orange (fruit)
An orange—specifically, the sweet orange—is the citrus Citrus × sinensis and its fruit. It is the most commonly grown tree fruit in the world....
plantings first conducted in Riverside
Riverside, California
Riverside is a city in Riverside County, California, United States, and the county seat of the eponymous county. Named for its location beside the Santa Ana River, it is the largest city in the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metropolitan area of Southern California, 4th largest inland California...
, from cuttings introduced from Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
. John Henry Reed, a retired school superintendent and dry goods merchant from Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
turned citrus grower, is credited with first proposing the establishment of a scientific experiment station specifically for citrus research in Southern California, and organized a vigorous lobbying effort of the local citrus industry
Agribusiness
In agriculture, agribusiness is a generic term for the various businesses involved in food production, including farming and contract farming, seed supply, agrichemicals, farm machinery, wholesale and distribution, processing, marketing, and retail sales....
towards that end. As founding member and chair of the Riverside Horticultural Club's experimental committee, he also pioneered a collaborative approach to conducting experimental plantings, and published more than 150 semitechnical and popular papers on citrus and other subjects between 1895 and 1915.
Riverside California State Assembly
California State Assembly
The California State Assembly is the lower house of the California State Legislature. There are 80 members in the Assembly, representing an approximately equal number of constituents, with each district having a population of at least 420,000...
member Miguel Estudillo worked with Reed and a committee of the Riverside Chamber of Commerce
Chamber of commerce
A chamber of commerce is a form of business network, e.g., a local organization of businesses whose goal is to further the interests of businesses. Business owners in towns and cities form these local societies to advocate on behalf of the business community...
to draft Assembly Bill 552, which provided for a pathological laboratory and branch experiment station in Southern California. On March 18, 1905, a legislative board of commissioners was appropriated $30,000 to select the site and implement the measure. On February 14, 1907, the University of California Board of Regents established the UC Citrus Experiment Station on 23 acres (93,077.8 m²) of land on the east slope of Mt. Rubidoux in Riverside. However, the University's decision to concentrate on the development of the University Farm in Davis lead to only two initial staff being assigned to the CES, only one of whom, Ralph E. Smith, a plant pathologist from Berkeley, was a scientist. Dubbed the Rubidoux Laboratory, the initial purpose of the station was to concentrate on various soil management problems such as fertilization, irrigation, improvement of crops.
Expansion and relocation to Box Springs
In 1913, a record killing freeze in Southern California caused a panic throughout the 175 million citrus industry, which demanded more state-funded agricultural research. Three acts of the California Legislature in 1913 provided 185,000 to fund an enlarged CES to be located in one of the eight southern counties. Developers of the San Fernando ValleySan Fernando Valley
The San Fernando Valley is an urbanized valley located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of southern California, United States, defined by the dramatic mountains of the Transverse Ranges circling it...
, recently opened for settlement by the 1914 completion of the Owens Valley aqueduct, lobbied intensively for the CES to be relocated there. Herbert John Webber, a professor of plant breeding from Cornell University and newly appointed director of the Citrus Experiment Station, considered various site proposals but ultimately worked with the Riverside Chamber of Commerce, city officials, and local growers to assist in drafting and endorsing a proposal for the CES to be relocated to its current site on 475 acres (1.9 km²) of land 2.5 miles (4 km) from downtown Riverside, adjacent to the Box Springs Mountain
Box Springs Mountain
Box Springs Mountain, at about , is the highest peak in the Box Springs Mountains range in north-west Riverside County, California, United States. The mountain is east of downtown Riverside, and north-west of Moreno Valley, a partial border between the two large cities...
s. On December 14, 1914 the UC Regents approved the selection, news of which caused jubilation in downtown Riverside: "The entire city turned into the streets, the steam whistle on the electrical plant blew for 15 minutes, and the Mission Inn
Mission Inn
The Mission Inn, now known as The Mission Inn Hotel & Spa, is a historic landmark hotel in downtown Riverside, California. Although a composite of many architectural styles, it is generally considered the largest Mission Revival Style building in the United States.-History:The property began as a...
bells were rung in celebration." It was, according to Reed as quoted in the Riverside Daily Press: "...the most important day that has occurred in all the history of Riverside."
The new station was to be governed autonomously under Webber's direction. He spent the next few years personally recruiting the founding research team, eleven scientists organized into six divisions of agricultural chemistry
Agricultural chemistry
Agricultural chemistry is the study of both chemistry and biochemistry which are important in agricultural production, the processing of raw products into foods and beverages, and in environmental monitoring and remediation...
, plant physiology
Plant physiology
Plant physiology is a subdiscipline of botany concerned with the functioning, or physiology, of plants. Closely related fields include plant morphology , plant ecology , phytochemistry , cell biology, and molecular biology.Fundamental processes such as photosynthesis, respiration, plant nutrition,...
, plant pathology, entomology
Entomology
Entomology is the scientific study of insects, a branch of arthropodology...
, plant breeding
Plant breeding
Plant breeding is the art and science of changing the genetics of plants in order to produce desired characteristics. Plant breeding can be accomplished through many different techniques ranging from simply selecting plants with desirable characteristics for propagation, to more complex molecular...
, and orchard
Orchard
An orchard is an intentional planting of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit or nut-producing trees which are grown for commercial production. Orchards are also sometimes a feature of large gardens, where they serve an aesthetic as well as a productive...
management. Webber also initiated the development of the Citrus Variety Collection on 5 acres (20,234.3 m²) planted with approximately 500 species of citrus from around the world, which grew to become the greatest such variety collection internationally. He also planted hundreds of other subtropical crops, including 70 varieties of avocado
Avocado
The avocado is a tree native to Central Mexico, classified in the flowering plant family Lauraceae along with cinnamon, camphor and bay laurel...
, imported from Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, that produced more than 45,000 hybrids through controlled pollination. (He also helped found the California Avocado Association in 1914 and served as its president for two years, and organized the annual citrus institute of the National Orange Show in San Bernardino
San Bernardino, California
San Bernardino is a city located in the Riverside-San Bernardino metropolitan area , and serves as the county seat of San Bernardino County, California, United States...
and the Date Growers Institute of Coachella Valley
Coachella Valley
Coachella Valley is a large valley landform in Southern California. The valley extends for approximately 45 miles in Riverside County southeast from the San Bernardino Mountains to the saltwater Salton Sea, the largest lake in California...
.)
Early architecture
The original laboratory, farm, and residence buildings on the Box Springs site was designed by Lester H. Hibbard of Los Angeles, a graduate of the University of California School of Architecture, in association with a colleague, H.B. Cody. Built at a cost of $165,000, the architecture followed the Mission RevivalMission Revival Style architecture
The Mission Revival Style was an architectural movement that began in the late 19th century for a colonial style's revivalism and reinterpretation, which drew inspiration from the late 18th and early 19th century Spanish missions in California....
style suggesting the Spanish colonial heritage of Southern California. The site, which became the early nucleus of the UCR campus, eventually opened in 1917, although the Division of Agricultural Chemistry continued to occupy lab space at the Rubidoux site.
The early years
| Chancellors of UC Riverside | Years as Chancellor | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gordon S. Watkins | 1949–1956 (provost) |
| 2 | Herman Spieth Herman Spieth Herman Spieth was an American zoologist and university administrator. He was the first chancellor of the University of California, Riverside from 1956 to 1964. Originally hired as a professor in the Life Sciences Department, he was responsible for administering UCR's change from a liberal arts... |
1956–1964 |
| 3 | Ivan Hinderaker Ivan Hinderaker Ivan Hinderaker was chancellor of the University of California, Riverside from 1964 to 1979. He was the longest-serving chancellor of any UC campus. Hinderaker Hall at UCR is named after him.... |
1964–1979 |
| 4 | Tomás Rivera Tomás Rivera Tomás Rivera was a Chicano author, poet, and educator. He was born in Texas to migrant farm workers, and worked in the fields as a young boy... |
1979–1984 (first minority UC Chancellor) |
| 5 | Daniel G. Aldrich Daniel G. Aldrich Daniel G. Aldrich, Jr. was chancellor of UC Irvine from 1962 to 1984 and then continued as Acting Chancellor at the University of California, Riverside from 1984 to 1985, and Action Chancellor at the University of California, Santa Barbara from 1986 to 1987.... |
1984–1985 (acting) |
| 6 | Theodore L. Hullar Theodore L. Hullar Theodore L. Hullar was Chancellor of the University of California, Riverside from 1985 to 1987 and Chancellor of the University of California, Davis from 1987 to 1994. A biochemist by training, he was one developer of the Hanessian–Hullar reaction.... |
1985–1987 |
| 7 | Rosemary S.J. Schraer Rosemary S.J. Schraer Rosemary S.J. Schraer was the fifth chancellor of the University of California, Riverside from 1987 - 1992. She, along with UC Santa Barbara Chancellor Barbara Uehling were the first female chancellors in the history of the University of California.-Personal:Schraer was born near Utica in upstate... |
1987–1992 (first female UC Chancellor) |
| 8 | Raymond L. Orbach Raymond L. Orbach Raymond Lee Orbach is an American physicist and administrator. He served as Under Secretary for Science in the United States Department of Energy from 2006 until 2009, when he was replaced by Steven E. Koonin... |
1992–2002 |
| 9 | France A. Córdova France A. Córdova France Anne Córdova is a Mexican-American astrophysicist, researcher and university administrator. She is the eleventh President of Purdue University. On July 1, 2011, she announced her decision to retire at the end of her 5-year term.... |
2002–2007 |
| 10 | Robert D. Grey Robert D. Grey Robert D. Grey is a long-time academic administrator and researcher and educator in the field of cellular and molecular biology. He has spent the majority of his career in positions in the University of California system, including interim provost of the UC system, acting chancellor at UC Riverside... |
2007–2009 |
| 11 | Timothy P. White Timothy P. White Timothy P. White is the eighth chancellor of the University of California, Riverside. He was appointed in May 2008 and he started work in mid-July 2008... |
2009–present |
After the 1945 passage of the GI Bill, a massive influx of former servicemen began to enter college and strained the capacities of many state public university systems. While this wave was expected to subside by the early 1950s, state and federal statistics released in the late forties all projected a massive demand for access to higher education in California in the near future. The UC system was then composed only of established campuses at Berkeley and Los Angeles, (Santa Barbara State
University of California, Santa Barbara
The University of California, Santa Barbara, commonly known as UCSB or UC Santa Barbara, is a public research university and one of the 10 general campuses of the University of California system. The main campus is located on a site in Goleta, California, from Santa Barbara and northwest of Los...
had just entered the UC system in 1944) which were already operating near capacity. In 1947, the Regents and an Education Committee of the State Legislature appointed a large-scale study of California's needs, dubbed the Strayer Committee (after its chair, George D. Strayer, professor emeritus of Teachers College, Columbia University
Teachers College, Columbia University
Teachers College, Columbia University is a graduate school of education located in New York City, New York...
). As the Strayer Committee was empowered to make recommendations regarding the establishment of any new state campuses, a group of Riverside citrus growers and civic leaders, including many Cal (Berkeley) alumni, formed the Citizens University Committee (CUC) to lobby for a small liberal arts college attached to the UC Citrus Experiment Station. After diligent lobbying by the CUC, which sent gifts of oranges and grapefruit to every member of the Legislature, the Strayer committee recommended that Riverside become the location for the fourth UC undergraduate campus. (It also recommended that the existing Agricultural College at Davis be expanded to serve undergraduates.) Riverside State Assemblyman John Babbage drafted Senate Bill 512, which allocated $6 million for the construction of the new college. Governor Earl Warren
Earl Warren
Earl Warren was the 14th Chief Justice of the United States.He is known for the sweeping decisions of the Warren Court, which ended school segregation and transformed many areas of American law, especially regarding the rights of the accused, ending public-school-sponsored prayer, and requiring...
signed the bill approving the establishment of the College of Letters and Science in Riverside in 1949, after reducing its initial allocation for construction to $4 million.
That same year, the Regents appointed a 13 member faculty committee to plan the expansion of the existing campuses at Davis and Riverside, headed by Harry B. Walker of the Agricultural College at Davis. Though it was decided that the new college at Riverside would be a separate institution from the CES, with no undergraduate work in agriculture planned, it was also decided that the Riverside provost
Provost (education)
A provost is the senior academic administrator at many institutions of higher education in the United States, Canada and Australia, the equivalent of a pro-vice-chancellor at some institutions in the United Kingdom and Ireland....
would report to the president of the UC through the Vice-president of the statewide College of Agriculture, to whom the director of the CES also reported. Gordon S. Watkins, then dean of the College of Letters and Science at UCLA, was a member of this initial planning committee, and UC President Sproul requested him to oversee the organization of the College of Letters and Science at Riverside. Watkins accepted the job and started five years of planning, faculty recruitment, and building construction. The onset of the Korean war
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
delayed construction, and the CUC continued to lobby for basic resources such as steel
Steel
Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...
and concrete
Concrete
Concrete is a composite construction material, composed of cement and other cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag cement, aggregate , water and chemical admixtures.The word concrete comes from the Latin word...
to build the new campus. Anticipating an initial enrollment of 1000, Watkins ordered the initial campus built for a maximum capacity of 1500 students. Not anticipating the need for graduate work, Watkins focused on recruiting many young, new Ph.D.s into junior faculty positions, rather than already established researchers. He became provost of the Riverside campus and presided at its opening with 65 faculty and 131 students in February 1954, remarking "Never have so few been taught by so many."
Mascot history
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
accent, and the UCR campus was located at the highest elevation among all UC schools. Also, the Box Springs Mountains were known as the Highlands.
Designation as a General UC Campus
The Regents at the time of the Strayer Report did not believe California could afford multiple high quality public universities, so they initially sought to respectively specialize the various new campuses. Riverside was designed to provide a high quality liberal arts education, but not graduate-level research. However, continually increasing enrollment demands at Berkeley and Los Angeles required continual expansion at all levels, so the liberal arts college model, implemented by the Regents as a way of saving money, was ultimately deemed too small and costly in light of the growing needs of California.By the time Clark Kerr
Clark Kerr
Clark Kerr was an American professor of economics and academic administrator. He was the first chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley and twelfth president of the University of California.- Early years :...
became president of the UC system in 1958, UCR was in its fifth year of operation and comprised 1087 students. Kerr articulated a vision of the UC as "one university, many campuses" and so Riverside, Santa Barbara, Davis and San Diego were all designated general campuses of the UC system by 1959. The Regents tasked biologist Herman Theodore Spieth, then-provost after Watkins retired in 1956, with increasing UCR's enrollment capacity to 5000 students and administering UCR's development towards full university status. As UCR's first chancellor, Spieth was to combine the College of Letters and Science and the Citrus Research Center under a single academic and administrative entity, as well as oversee the planning and development of UCR's graduate division, in accord with the provisions of the developing California Master Plan for Higher Education
California Master Plan for Higher Education
The California Master Plan for Higher Education of 1960 was developed by a survey team appointed by the UC Regents and the State Board of Education during the administration of Governor Pat Brown. Clark Kerr, then the President of UC, was a key figure in its development...
. UCR started accepting graduate students in 1961; UCR's College of Agriculture, Air Pollution Research Center and the Dry-Lands Research Institute were also established during Spieth's administration.
The Kerr directives
In October 1959, President Kerr prohibited the student governments on all UC campuses from taking positions on off-campus political issues without the expressed permission of their resident chancellors. Students at Riverside picketed Spieth's office in protest, and student newspaper editors at Berkeley, Riverside and Santa Barbara signed a joint editorial condemning them. As the editor of the UCR Highlander summed up the opposition:- It appears that Riverside has been one of the leaders against the original directives, with Berkeley naturally taking a considerable role. Santa Barbara's newspaper opposed the directives from the beginning also, although little more than that was done. The Los Angeles campus was exceptionally slow in deciding anything, which some cynics have suggested as being quite typical of anything there. The Highlander, December 2, 1959.
In accordance with the Kerr directives, which also affected speakers on campus, in 1962 Spieth refused to let Nobel chemist Linus Pauling
Linus Pauling
Linus Carl Pauling was an American chemist, biochemist, peace activist, author, and educator. He was one of the most influential chemists in history and ranks among the most important scientists of the 20th century...
speak on disarmament
Disarmament
Disarmament is the act of reducing, limiting, or abolishing weapons. Disarmament generally refers to a country's military or specific type of weaponry. Disarmament is often taken to mean total elimination of weapons of mass destruction, such as nuclear arms...
because the subject was outside his academic field of expertise. The same year he also refused Dorothy Healy, former chair of the Southern California Communist Party, from speaking on campus. Six UCR students sued the Regents over Spieth's ruling against Healy, and the case was still pending when the Regents voted 15/2 to remove the outright ban on communist speakers in 1963.
The Hinderaker Administration, from 1960s and 1970s
By the time UCR’s second Chancellor, Ivan Hinderaker, was inaugurated on September 29, 1964, the free speech movementFree Speech Movement
The Free Speech Movement was a student protest which took place during the 1964–1965 academic year on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley under the informal leadership of students Mario Savio, Brian Turner, Bettina Aptheker, Steve Weissman, Art Goldberg, Jackie Goldberg, and...
had begun in Berkeley. Hinderaker, who was photographed at his own inauguration carrying a placard borrowed from a student protester that said, ‘The University is not a Sandbox,” cooperated with student activists that first year to develop such projects as the KUCR
KUCR
KUCR is a non-commercial radio station located in Riverside, California, broadcasting on 88.3 FM. KUCR airs college radio programming similar to other college radio stations across the country. The programming is divided into blocks by music genre: Underground, reggae, classical, Americana, world,...
radio station, a campus child-care center, a political debate union, social events, fine arts workshops, and a few of his own projects such as Greek chapters and grants for student athletes. He negotiated a confrontation with student activists in ASUCR by suggesting the student council would be vacated if they did not rescind a resolution, which demanded President Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
support the right of African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
s to vote in Selma, Alabama
Selma, Alabama
Selma is a city in and the county seat of Dallas County, Alabama, United States, located on the banks of the Alabama River. The population was 20,512 at the 2000 census....
. Five ASUCR officers, including the council president, resigned in protest of Hinderaker's position, and the remaining council members complied with his request. At a later protest against campus recruiting by Dow Chemicals, organized by Students for a Democratic Society
Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)
Students for a Democratic Society was a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main iconic representations of the country's New Left. The organization developed and expanded rapidly in the mid-1960s before dissolving at its last convention in 1969...
, student activists camped inside the administration building were served coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
and donut
DONUT
DONUT was an experiment at Fermilab dedicated to the search for tau neutrino interactions. Even though the detector operated only during a few months in the summer of 1997, it was largely successful. By detecting the tau neutrino, it confirmed the existence of the last lepton predicted by the...
s by Norm Better, the dean of Letters and Science.
It fell to Hinderaker to complete the task of turning UCR into a full fledged research university. In doing this, he had to confront the early faculty Watkins had recruited on the premise that UCR Letters and Science would be a small liberal arts institution dedicated to teaching undergraduates. Many of UCR’s early L&S faculty had achieved tenure
Tenure
Tenure commonly refers to life tenure in a job and specifically to a senior academic's contractual right not to have his or her position terminated without just cause.-19th century:...
d positions without having to do extensive research, and saw themselves primarily as teachers. As Professor Charles Adrian, former Chair of UCR’s Political Science Department, summarized the faculty situation:
- "It sort of was Ivan Hinderaker vs. the ‘old UCR.’ There was talk of the old UCR as if it were some kind of an organization. But it didn’t exist as such. It simply was the original faculty members and some who were hired shortly thereafter vs. the fact that Hinderaker was sent here to change that and make this a regular part of the university system... The resistance would be one thing if it were a minority, a smaller group of the whole faculty. But it was the dominant group that was hired here primarily to teach and who didn’t want to do research ... and he was supposed to change this."
All Hinderaker could do to that effect was wait for this early faculty to retire in order to appoint new faculty on a research basis.
Through the 1960s, UCR's enrollment had risen to a plateau of approximately 5000 students. In 1973, Riverside’s Mayor Lewis requested Governor Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
declare the South Coast Air Basin
South Coast Air Basin
The South Coast Air Basin is one of several geopolitical areas designated by the state of California, U.S., for the purpose of air quality management. An air basin is associated with a ring or partial ring of mountains that in the absence of winds holds air and smog within the area...
a disaster area
Disaster area
A disaster area is a region or a locale heavily damaged by either natural hazards, such as tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, earthquakes, technological hazards including nuclear and radiation accidents, or sociological hazards like riots, terrorism or war. The population living there often...
. This caused Riverside to become famous for its air pollution
Air pollution
Air pollution is the introduction of chemicals, particulate matter, or biological materials that cause harm or discomfort to humans or other living organisms, or cause damage to the natural environment or built environment, into the atmosphere....
and had disastrous effects on student enrollment and faculty recruitment at UCR. According to Hinderaker:
- “...Irvine didn’t have smog. It’s hard to realize what a tremendous problem that was. Your budget is related to enrollment, so what effect did smog have?... UCR in 1971-2 was 5,576 [students]... By ’78-’79, we had twenty five percent fewer students than we did in ’71-’72. In terms of faculty positions, we had taken away from us in ’72-’73 twelve, ’73-’74 ten, ’74-’75 twenty positions.”
Rumors circulated that the campus would close; Gov. Jerry Brown proposed a merger with Cal State San Bernardino. Hinderaker developed UCR’s competitive Biomedical Program and popular Business Administration Program partly as means of assuaging the enrollment problems created by Riverside's air quality. He also established UCR’s graduate schools of education and administration, streamlined UCR’s departmental structure, and presided over the establishment of the UCR/California Museum of Photography during this period.
The 1980s
Due to poor receiptReceipt
A receipt is a written acknowledgment that a specified article or sum of money has been received as an exchange for goods or services. The receipt is evidence of purchase of the property or service obtained in the exchange.-Printed:...
s, Hinderaker terminated UCR’s two-time Division II state championship football team in 1975. As a result of the 1978 passing of California Proposition 13
California Proposition 13 (1978)
Proposition 13 was an amendment of the Constitution of California enacted during 1978, by means of the initiative process. It was approved by California voters on June 6, 1978. It was declared constitutional by the United States Supreme Court in the case of Nordlinger v. Hahn,...
, which drastically reduced the state’s ability to fund higher education, another set of budgetary problems developed for UCR as well as for all the public education institutions in California. After Hinderacker retired in 1979, a series of chancellors served short appointments as UCR’s chief executive through the 80s. While enrollment began to make modest but sustained annual gains in 1984, more than doubling by 1991, no single chancellor at Riverside was ever in office long enough to strategically direct UCR’s overall development. Tomas Rivera
Tomás Rivera
Tomás Rivera was a Chicano author, poet, and educator. He was born in Texas to migrant farm workers, and worked in the fields as a young boy...
, the UC’s first minority chancellor and the first Latino leader of a major research university in the United States, dismantled UCR’s Black and Chicano Studies interdepartmental programs in response to the budget crisis. He died of a heart attack while in office in 1984. Daniel Aldrich served a one year interim appointment as Chancellor before being replaced by Theodore L. Hullar
Theodore L. Hullar
Theodore L. Hullar was Chancellor of the University of California, Riverside from 1985 to 1987 and Chancellor of the University of California, Davis from 1987 to 1994. A biochemist by training, he was one developer of the Hanessian–Hullar reaction....
, who began the push for more professional schools and locally supported development practices that would characterize later administrations. UC President Gardner reassigned him to the chancellorship at Davis in 1987 and appointed Rosemary S.J. Schraer
Rosemary S.J. Schraer
Rosemary S.J. Schraer was the fifth chancellor of the University of California, Riverside from 1987 - 1992. She, along with UC Santa Barbara Chancellor Barbara Uehling were the first female chancellors in the history of the University of California.-Personal:Schraer was born near Utica in upstate...
as the UC system’s first female chancellor at Riverside, in both cases without a formal committee reviewed search process. Due to the enrollment gains through the 1980, Schraer was able to appoint 200 new faculty members. She died while in office in 1992, but not before completing a formal, peer-reviewed search process for her successor, Raymond Orbach, who would further steer UCR’s development during the 1990s.
Costo Archive
UCR has long been the recipient of significant support from members of the California Indian community. In 1986, Rupert and Jean Costo, who took part in the CUC campaign to found the university at Riverside, established the Costo Chair of American Indian Affairs at UCR, the first endowed chair of American Indian Studies in the United States and the first academic chair ever endowed at Riverside. They also bequeathed UCR their vast collections, establishing the Costo Library of the American Indian and Costo Archive.There are Native American student programs and outreach services as well as high school recruitment at the nearby Sherman Indian School. These programs both recruit and aid Native American students.
From 1990s to present: Riding Tidal Wave II
With the improvement of the economy in 1994, the UC campuses began receiving more applications than anticipated. This surge became known as "Tidal Wave II" (the first "tidal wave" of students having been the Baby BoomBaby boom
A baby boom is any period marked by a greatly increased birth rate. This demographic phenomenon is usually ascribed within certain geographical bounds and when the number of annual births exceeds 2 per 100 women...
generation born in the post-World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
era). To help the UC system accommodate this growth, planners targeted UCR for an annual growth rate of 6.3%, the fastest in the UC system, and anticipated 19,900 students enrolled at UCR by 2010.
As enrollment increased, so did the ethnic diversity of the student body. By 1995, fully 30% of UCR students were members of non-Caucasian groups, the highest proportion of any campus in the UC system at the time. The 1997 implementation of Proposition 209 — which banned the use of race and ethnicity as criteria for admissions, hiring, promotions and contracting by state agencies (including the University of California) — had the effect of further increasing ethnic diversity at UCR while reducing it at the most selective campuses in the system. By 2007, fully 69% of undergraduates were members of non-Caucasian groups. Faculty diversity statistics, however, remained relatively constant. 9.1% of UCR faculty were members of underrepresented minority groups in 1997, only 2% higher than the UC average. This percentage dropped to the UC average of 7.3% in 2002, but was back up to 9% in 2006, making it the third-most diverse faculty in the UC system behind Merced and Santa Cruz. Still, given the diversity of the student body and within the surrounding area, this relative lack of diversity at the faculty level remains controversial.
With UCR scheduled for dramatic population growth, efforts have been made to increase its popular and academic recognition. The students voted to increase fees to move UCR athletics into NCAA Division I standing in 1998. Proposals to establish a law school, a medical school, and a school of public policy at UCR have been in development since the 90s. In June 2006, UCR received its largest gift, 15.5 million from two local couples, in trust towards building its medical school. The Regents formally approved UCR’s medical school proposal in November 2006, but Chancellor Cordova
France A. Córdova
France Anne Córdova is a Mexican-American astrophysicist, researcher and university administrator. She is the eleventh President of Purdue University. On July 1, 2011, she announced her decision to retire at the end of her 5-year term....
's subsequent resignation to assume the leadership of Purdue University
Purdue University
Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six-campus Purdue University system. Purdue was founded on May 6, 1869, as a land-grant university when the Indiana General Assembly, taking advantage of the Morrill Act, accepted a donation of land and...
lead to a temporary suspension of the search for the med school dean until a search for a new chancellor could be completed.