University of California, San Diego
Encyclopedia
The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public
research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California
, United States
. UCSD is one of the ten general campuses of the University of California
system and was founded in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography
.
22,048 undergraduate and 5,073 graduate students enrolled in Fall 2007 and the university awarded 6,802 degrees in 2005/06. The university is organized into six undergraduate colleges and six graduate divisions and offers 125 undergraduate majors, 52 masters degrees, 51 doctoral programs, and four professional degrees.
The university is a designated sea
and space grant
institution and has a very high level of research activity. The university operates the UC San Diego Medical Center and is affiliated with several regional research centers, such as the Salk Institute
, the Burnham Institute for Medical Research
, and The Scripps Research Institute
. The university employs 7,566 faculty members including eight Nobel Laureates
, eight MacArthur fellows
, three National Medal of Science
laureates, and one Fields medalist
. The university was admitted to the Association of American Universities
in 1982.
UCSD's undergraduate program ranked 8th among public universities according to the 2012 U.S. News & World Report
college rankings using indicators such as endowment, giving rates, and the prior high school achievement of incoming students as metrics.
The university's 19 intercollegiate sports teams are known as the Tritons and participate in the NCAA's
Division II (DII) level in the California Collegiate Athletic Association
.
When the Regents of the University of California
originally authorized the San Diego campus in 1956, it was planned as first imagined by Roger Revelle
, Director of Scripps, to start as a graduate school of science and engineering comparable in quality to Caltech
. Citizens of San Diego supported the idea, voting the same year to transfer to the university 59 acres (23.9 ha) of mesa land on the coast near the Scripps Institute. The Regents requested an additional gift of 550 acres (222.6 ha) of undeveloped mesa land northeast of Scripps, as well as 500 acres (202.3 ha) on the former site of Camp Matthews
, but Revelle jeopardized the site selection by making public La Jolla's exclusive real estate practices antagonistic to minority racial and religious groups, angering local conservatives as well as UC Regent Edwin W. Pauley
. UC President Clark Kerr
satisfied San Diego city donors by changing the proposed name from University of California, La Jolla, to University of California, San Diego. The city voted in agreement to its part in 1958, and the UC approved construction of the new campus in 1960. Because of the clash with Pauley, Revelle was not made chancellor—Herbert York
, first director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
, was designated instead. York worked out the planning of the main campus according to the "Oxbridge
" model, relying on many of Revelle's ideas.
UCSD was the first general campus of the UC to be designed "from the top down" in terms of research emphasis. John Jay Hopkins
of General Dynamics Corporation
donated one million dollars to be used for recruiting a founding faculty. Harold Urey
, Nobel winner in Chemistry, was an early recruit to the faculty in 1958. (Revelle and Suess
published the first paper on the Greenhouse effect
the year before.) Maria Goeppert-Mayer was appointed professor of physics in 1960; she later won the Nobel Prize in 1963. The graduate division of the school opened in 1960 with 20 faculty in residence; instruction was offered in the fields of physics
, biology
, chemistry
and earth science
. Classes initially met in the Scripps Institute.
By 1963, new facilities on the mesa been finished for the School of Science and Engineering, and new buildings were under construction for Social Sciences and Humanities. Ten additional faculty in those disciplines were hired, and the whole site was designated the First College of the new campus. York resigned as chancellor in 1963 and was replaced by John Semple Galbraith
in 1964. The campus accepted its first undergraduate class of 181 freshman in 1964, and was designated Revelle College the next year. Second College was also organized in 1964, on the land deeded by the federal government. It was renamed John Muir College in April, 1966. UCSD Medical school also accepted its first students in 1966.
Political theorist Herbert Marcuse
joined the faculty in 1965. A champion of the New Left
, he reportedly was the first protestor to occupy the administration building in a demonstration organized by his student, Angela Davis
. The American Legion
offered to buy out the remainder of Marcuse's contract for $20,000; the Regents censured Chancellor McGill for defending Marcuse on the basis of academic freedom
, but further action was averted after local leaders expressed support for Marcuse.
Richard C. Atkinson
, chancellor from 1980 to 1995, strengthened UCSD's ties with the city of San Diego by encouraging technology transfer
with developing companies, transforming San Diego into a world leader in technology-based industries. Private giving rose from $15 million to nearly $50 million annually, faculty expanded by nearly 50%, and enrollment doubled to about 18,000 students during his chancellorship. In 1995, the quality of UCSD's graduate programs was ranked tenth in the nation by the National Research Council.
UCSD is taking out a $40 million dollar loan against itself to offset $84.2 million in state budget cuts in 2009.
research and the discovery of the Keeling Curve
. The widely used computer language, UCSD Pascal
was developed there, (which influenced the design of Java
), as was the Network News Transfer Protocol
(NNTP). Early research activity, notably in the sciences, was integral to shaping the focus and culture of the university.
, decorate the campus. Perhaps the most famous of these is the Sun God
, a large winged creature located near the Faculty Club. Other Stuart Collection art includes a collection of Stonehenge
-like stone blocks, a large coiling snake path, a table by Jenny Holzer
, a building that flashes the names of vices and virtues in bright neon lights, and three metallic Eucalyptus
trees, the Music Tree, the Literary Tree and the Third Tree commonly referred to as the Silent Tree. One of the newest additions to the collection is Tim Hawkinson's giant teddy bear made of six boulders located in between the newly constructed Calit2
buildings. Another notable campus sight are the graffiti tunnels of Mandeville Hall, a series of corridors that have been tagged with graffiti
by generations of students over decades of use. Students in the university's visual arts department also often create temporary public art installations as part of their coursework. The university is also sponsoring a $56,000 performance art
project to develop a sense of community at the sprawling campus.
In 2009, local San Diego artist Mario Torero was invited to create a mural called "Chicano Legacy" based on content suggested by UCSD Chicano students. The mural is a $10,000 digital image on a 15 by canvas mounted on the exterior of Peterson Hall, which includes representations of Cesar Chavez
and Dolores Huerta
as well as the kiosk structure at Chicano Park
.
and public museum, the San Diego Supercomputer Center
, several large shake facilities including the world record holding Large High Performance Outdoor Shake Table, multiple open ocean research vessels, and a sea port.
system which is governed by a publicly appointed 26-member Board of Regents
and administered by a president whose office is located in Oakland
, California
. Mark Yudof
became the 19th president of the University system in June 2008. The board of regents appoint chancellors
to serve as the chief administrative officer of each individual general campus. Marye Anne Fox
became the seventh chancellor of UCSD in 2004, succeeding Robert C. Dynes
who served as President of the UC system from 2003 until 2007. Chancellor Fox's total compensation was $401,091 for 2007–2008. The chancellor has an immediate staff of eight vice chancellors for academic affairs, research, marine sciences, student affairs, planning, external relations, business affairs, and health sciences.
The university operates on an academic quarter system
with three primary academic quarters beginning in late September and ending in mid June.
In 2007, UCSD became the first university in the western region to top $1 billion in their eight-year fundraising campaign.
due to the South African government’s institutionalized system of apartheid. The UC subsequently divested from such holdings later that year, a move Nelson Mandela
later pointed to as a catalyst to ending white-minority rule in the country. Each college has its own student council
as well.
The campus's graduate population is represented by the Graduate Student Association (GSA). The Association's membership comprises representatives from each of the graduate departments. The number of representatives is proportional to the number of graduate students within that particular department. Additionally, graduate students who serve as teaching or research assistants are represented by the UC-wide union of Academic Student Employees, UAW Local 2865.
UCSD is a large, primarily residential research university. The university is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges
. UCSD granted 5,337 bachelors degrees, 894 masters degrees, 488 doctorate degrees, and 125 medical degrees in 2007-2008.
UCSD's comprehensive doctoral program has high undergraduate degree coexistence as well as professional programs in business, medicine, and pharmacy. UCSD's graduate division and professional schools include the Scripps Institution of Oceanography
, School of Medicine, Institute of Engineering in Medicine
, Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies
, Jacobs School of Engineering
, Rady School of Management
, and Skaggs School of Pharmacy
. The university offers 52 masters programs, 51 doctoral programs, 4 professional programs, and 11 joint doctoral programs with San Diego State University
and other UC campuses. UCSD has noted graduate programs in biological sciences and medicine, economics, social and behavioral sciences, and
physics.
. The 2012 edition of U.S. News & World Report
ranked UC San Diego as the 37th best university in the nation, and the 8th best public university in the United States. UCSD is consistently ranked high in other college and university rankings
. In 2010, the university ranked 1st nationally in The Washington Monthly
.
The Washington Monthly ranked UCSD 1st best overall in the nation when incorporating additional societal benefits other than just research impact as a metric, and 8th in the U.S. in terms of research alone. The Graham-Diamond report ranked UCSD 8th overall in the country. UCSD was selected as the "Hottest" science school by Newsweek
in 2006. Human Resources & Labor Review ranked the university 16th worldwide in 2010. In its 2008 report on best values in public colleges, Kiplinger
ranked UCSD 11th in the nation for in-state value and 17th in the nation for out-of-state value.
In 2011, QS World University Rankings
ranked UCSD 77th overall in the world, coming 14th in Life Sciences and Biomedicine. Thomson Reuters
Science Watch ranks UCSD 7th of federally funded U.S. universities, based on the citation impact of their published research in major fields of science and the social sciences and 12th globally by volume of citations.
has ranked UCSD first in the UC system and sixth in the nation in terms of Federal research expenditures. Some 200 San Diego companies have been founded by UCSD faculty and alumni, and over 40% of the people employed in the San Diego biotechnology industry work in UCSD spin-offs. Science Watch ranked UCSD 1st in social psychology
, 2nd in oceanography
, 3rd in international relations
, 5th in molecular biology
and genetics
, 17th in engineering
, and 18th in Neuroscience
and Behavior
using non-survey, quantitative based metrics to determine research impact.
UCSD also counts among its research centers the Scripps Institution of Oceanography
, the San Diego Supercomputer Center
, the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, and the Center for US-Mexican Studies.
s. The system is modeled on the residential systems at Oxford
and Cambridge. They each set their own general-education requirements as well as having their own administrative and advising staff and granting unique degrees and separate commencement ceremonies. In chronological order by date of foundation, the six colleges are:
Students affiliate with a college based upon its particular philosophy and environment as majors are not exclusive to specific colleges. John Muir and Earl Warren enroll the largest number of undergraduate students followed by Thurgood Marshall, Revelle, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Sixth. Each undergraduate college sets the requirements for awarding provost's honors and honors at graduation in addition to departmental honors and Phi Beta Kappa
honors.
established on the UCSD campus in 1999 to provide an intensive college preparatory curriculum for low-income students from the greater San Diego area. The Preuss school has been ranked as one of the top ten best high schools in the United States by US News & World Report.
UCSD received 48,114 freshmen applicants for the Fall 2010, and admitted 38.1%. Admitted students attained a mean weighted high school GPA of 4.07 and average SAT
score of 1980 . The average ACT Composite Score is 29. 31% of admitted students receive federal Pell Grant
s. According to the 2010 U.S News and World Report, students applying to UCSD are also most likely to apply to UC Berkeley, Stanford University
, and Harvard University
for matriculation http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/university-of-californiasan-diego-1317.
The four year, full-time undergraduate program comprises the majority of enrollments at the university. The university offers 125 bachelors degree programs organized into six disciplinary divisions: Arts, Humanities, Engineering, Science/Math, Biological Sciences, and Social Sciences. 38% of undergraduates major in the social sciences, followed by 25% in biological sciences, 18% in engineering, 8% in sciences and math, 4% in humanities, and 3% in the arts. Each undergraduate colleges sets its own general education requirements (GEs) for graduation in addition to the specific requirements of majors set by individual departments and programs.
Graduate admissions are largely centralized through the Office of Graduate Studies. However, the Rady School of Management
, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
, and the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies
(IR/PS) handle their own admissions.
In 2009, UCSD mistakenly sent Admit Day welcome emails to all its 47,000 freshmen applicants, instead of just the 17,000 who had been admitted. However, school officials quickly realized the mistake and sent an apology email within two hours.
The main student hub is the Price Center located in the center of campus, just south of Geisel Library
. The Price Center offers a variety of services, places, and spaces, including restaurants, the central bookstore, movie theater, and various student organizations. In the Spring of 2003, a Student Referendum was passed to expand the Price Center to nearly double the original size. The Price Center East expansion was officially opened to the public on May 19, 2008.
There are also three campus centers that cultivate a sense of community among faculty, staff, and students: the Cross-Cultural
Center, the Women's Center
, and the LGBT
Resource Center. UCSD was the last UC campus to have such centers. All three centers, especially the Cross-Cultural Center that was created first, were founded in the mid-1990s and were the result of student movements that demanded change despite opposition by the campus administration.
There is a music venue on the campus grounds of some fame called the Ché Café
, a collective organization serving multiple functions as an underground music venue, vegan food collective, center for grassroots organizations such as Food Not Bombs
, and similar groups and activities. Prominent local San Diego bands such as The Locust
and Pinback
, and national tours such as Mates of State
and The Dillinger Escape Plan
have given the Ché Café
some fame and praise as a radical vegan collective despite its small size (it fits a few hundred people) and limited sound equipment.
The Associated Students also coordinates a wide variety of concerts and events during the year, including All Campus Dance, Bear Gardens, Loft Events, and the Sun God Festival. The Sun God Festival, named after the statue
created by art
ist Niki de Saint Phalle
, is the best-known of the festivals. The festival has grown in its 28 year history into a 20,000 person event. The day consists of student org booths and performers, as well as an eclectic mix of musical acts across 3 stages.
Two other popular campus events include the Pumpkin Drop and the Watermelon Drop, which take place during Halloween
and at the end of the third (Spring) academic quarter
, respectively. The Watermelon Drop is one of the campus's oldest traditions, famously originating in 1965 from a physics exam question centering on the velocity on impact of a dropped object. A group of intrigued students pursued that line of thought by dropping a watermelon from the top floor of Revelle's Urey Hall to measure the size of the resulting splat. A variety of events surround the Watermelon Drop, including a pageant where an occasionally male but generally female "Watermelon Queen" is elected. In 1979 the Queen rode to Urey Hall in a yellow VW Bug with a cut-off top owned by the winner that year, Bill Clabby. The Pumpkin Drop is a similar event celebrated by the dropping of a large, candy-filled pumpkin from 11-story Tioga Hall, the tallest residential building on the Muir college campus.
. The campus also hosts a small independent radio station, KSDT
, which no longer broadcasts over the airwaves, but still operates online.
One of the more controversial aspects of student life at UCSD is the student-run comedy paper, The Koala
, a satirical paper often criticized for its provocative articles and drawings, which is also funded by the A.S. In 2005, the student government made national news over a controversy regarding pornography
broadcast over the A.S.-funded television
station, SRTV, by members of The Koala. More controversy was generated by the program Live Hot Puppet Chat
, a midnight sex-advice puppet show also broadcast on SRTV.
In February 2010, members of The Koala
, on their Student Run Television program "Koala TV" publicly supported the "Compton Cookout", a controversial off-campus party mocking Black History Month that included UCSD fraternity members among the organizers.
UCSD offers student participation in a wide range of sports including swimming
, water polo
, soccer, volleyball
, crew
, track and field athletics, fencing
, basketball
, golf
, cross country
, softball
, baseball
, and tennis
. UCSD participates at the NCAA's
Division II (DII) level in the California Collegiate Athletic Association
, although water polo, fencing, and men's volleyball compete at the Division I level. Before joining DII in 2000, the school participated at the Division III level and won numerous national championships.
UCSD does not have an NCAA football team.
Until the 2007-2008 school year, UCSD was the only DII school that did not offer athletic scholarship
s. In 2005, the NCAA created a rule that made it mandatory for DII programs to award athletic grants; a measure was proposed to begin offering $500 "grants-in-aid" to all 600 intercollegiate athletes in order to meet this requirement. In February 2007, a student referendum
was passed with the largest vote in UCSD history, authorizing a $329 annual student fee to fund a raise in coaches' salaries, hire more trainers and provide all athletes with a $500 scholarship.
In 2006-2007, UCSD's best season since moving to DII, 19 of 23 athletic programs qualified for post-season competition, including 17 to the NCAA Championships. Eight of those teams finished in the top-5 in the nation.
UCSD fields a number of club sports
teams. The UCSD surfing
team has won the national title six times and is consistently rated one of the best surfing programs in the nation. The UCSD triathlon
team is continually one of the top triathlon teams in the nation. In 2008, the women's triathlon team won the US collegiate national championship and UCSD athlete Amanda Felder was the Overall Nation Champion. UCSD also has sport clubs in badminton
, cycling
, dancesport
, dance
team, equestrian
, ice hockey
, lacrosse
, roller hockey
, rugby union
, sailing
, soccer, snow skiing, table tennis
, ultimate
, volleyball
, water polo
, and waterskiing.
The National Collegiate Scouting Association (NCSA) 2008 Collegiate Power Rankings rate colleges and universities comprehensively based on student-athlete graduation rates, academic strength and athletic prowess of the university. The institutions posted in the 2007 Power Rankings represent less than 6% of colleges
and universities across the nation. UCSD placed 4th on the overall ranking list, trailing behind Williams College
, Amherst College
, and Duke University
, and first on the Division II list.
, four MacArthur fellows
, three National Medal of Science
laureates, and two Fields medalists
. UCSD faculty also include 146 Guggenheim Fellows
. UCSD ranks sixth in the nation in terms of United States National Academy of Sciences
membership. UCSD has a total of 20 Nobel Laureates affiliated with it.
and Bud Tribble
, members of the Apple Macintosh development team; biotechnology pioneers David Goeddel
and Craig Venter
, and Nobel Prize
winners Bruce Beutler (Physiology or Medicine), and Susumu Tonegawa
, recognized for his work in immunology
. Eleanor Mariano
, the first Filipino-American to reach the rank of Rear Admiral
in the United States Navy
and first female director of the White House Medical Unit
, received her BS in Biology cum laude in 1977. A number of science fiction
authors including Gregory Benford
, David Brin
and Kim Stanley Robinson
earned PhDs at UCSD; cartoon animation producer Mike Judge
is also an alum. Robert Buckley
, who stars as Clay on The CW television show One Tree Hill
graduated from UCSD with a degree in Economics. The Kite Runner
s Khaled Hosseini
is also a UCSD alum as well as Dileep Rao
, one of the stars of the hit blockbuster movies Avatar and Inception
. Rao spoke at the 2010 Convocation Dinner as he kicked off UCSD's 50th Anniversary Celebration. The three members of the popular Asian American filmmaking group Wong Fu Productions
, Ted Fu, Phillip Wang, and Wesley Chan all graduated from UCSD as well. Anna Marie Caballero is a former member of the California State Assembly
and had previously served as the Mayor and Council member of Salinas, California
. Chad Butler
, drummer and co-founding member of the Grammy-nominated San Diego area based rock band Switchfoot
.
Public university
A public university is a university that is predominantly funded by public means through a national or subnational government, as opposed to private universities. A national university may or may not be considered a public university, depending on regions...
research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. UCSD is one of the ten general campuses of the University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
system and was founded in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, is one of the oldest and largest centers for ocean and earth science research, graduate training, and public service in the world...
.
22,048 undergraduate and 5,073 graduate students enrolled in Fall 2007 and the university awarded 6,802 degrees in 2005/06. The university is organized into six undergraduate colleges and six graduate divisions and offers 125 undergraduate majors, 52 masters degrees, 51 doctoral programs, and four professional degrees.
The university is a designated sea
Sea grant colleges
The National Sea Grant College Program is a program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration within the U.S. Department of Commerce...
and space grant
Space grant colleges
The space-grant colleges compose a network of 52 consortia, based at universities across the United States, for outer space-related research. Each consortium is based in one of the 50 states, the District of Columbia or Puerto Rico and consists of multiple independent institutions, with one of the...
institution and has a very high level of research activity. The university operates the UC San Diego Medical Center and is affiliated with several regional research centers, such as the Salk Institute
Salk Institute for Biological Studies
The Salk Institute for Biological Studies is a premier independent, non-profit, scientific research institute located in La Jolla, California. It was founded in 1960 by Jonas Salk, the developer of the polio vaccine; among the founding consultants were Jacob Bronowski and Francis Crick. Building...
, the Burnham Institute for Medical Research
Burnham Institute for Medical Research
The Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, previously Burnham Institute for Medical Research, is a non-profit medical research institute with locations in La Jolla, California, Orlando, Florida, and Santa Barbara, California...
, and The Scripps Research Institute
The Scripps Research Institute
The Scripps Research Institute is an American medical research facility that focuses on research in the basic biomedical sciences. Headquartered in La Jolla, California, with a sister facility in Jupiter, Florida, the institute is home to 3,000 scientists, technicians, graduate students, and...
. The university employs 7,566 faculty members including eight Nobel Laureates
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
, eight MacArthur fellows
MacArthur Fellows Program
The MacArthur Fellows Program or MacArthur Fellowship is an award given by the John D. and Catherine T...
, three National Medal of Science
National Medal of Science
The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social sciences, biology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics and...
laureates, and one Fields medalist
Fields Medal
The Fields Medal, officially known as International Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics, is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians not over 40 years of age at each International Congress of the International Mathematical Union , a meeting that takes place every four...
. The university was admitted to the Association of American Universities
Association of American Universities
The Association of American Universities is an organization of leading research universities devoted to maintaining a strong system of academic research and education...
in 1982.
UCSD's undergraduate program ranked 8th among public universities according to the 2012 U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...
college rankings using indicators such as endowment, giving rates, and the prior high school achievement of incoming students as metrics.
The university's 19 intercollegiate sports teams are known as the Tritons and participate in the NCAA's
National Collegiate Athletic Association
The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi-voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States...
Division II (DII) level in the California Collegiate Athletic Association
California Collegiate Athletic Association
The California Collegiate Athletic Association or CCAA is an intercollegiate athletic conference in the Division II of the NCAA. All of its current members are public universities, and all except for UC San Diego are members of the California State University system.It was founded in December 1938...
.
History
Regents of the University of California
The Regents of the University of California make up the governing board of the University of California. The Board has 26 full members:* The majority are appointed by the Governor of California for 12-year terms....
originally authorized the San Diego campus in 1956, it was planned as first imagined by Roger Revelle
Roger Revelle
Roger Randall Dougan Revelle was a scientist and scholar who was instrumental in the formative years of the University of California, San Diego and was one of the first scientists to study global warming and the movement of Earth's tectonic plates...
, Director of Scripps, to start as a graduate school of science and engineering comparable in quality to Caltech
California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...
. Citizens of San Diego supported the idea, voting the same year to transfer to the university 59 acres (23.9 ha) of mesa land on the coast near the Scripps Institute. The Regents requested an additional gift of 550 acres (222.6 ha) of undeveloped mesa land northeast of Scripps, as well as 500 acres (202.3 ha) on the former site of Camp Matthews
Camp Calvin B. Matthews
Camp Calvin B. Matthews or Marine Corps Rifle Range Camp Matthews or Marine Corps Rifle Range, La Jolla or more simply Camp Matthews was a United States Marine Corps military base from 1917 until 1964, when the base was decommissioned and transferred to the University of California to be part of...
, but Revelle jeopardized the site selection by making public La Jolla's exclusive real estate practices antagonistic to minority racial and religious groups, angering local conservatives as well as UC Regent Edwin W. Pauley
Edwin W. Pauley
Edwin Wendell Pauley, Sr. was an American businessman and political leader.-Early life:Born in Indianapolis, Indiana to Elbert L...
. UC President 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 :...
satisfied San Diego city donors by changing the proposed name from University of California, La Jolla, to University of California, San Diego. The city voted in agreement to its part in 1958, and the UC approved construction of the new campus in 1960. Because of the clash with Pauley, Revelle was not made chancellor—Herbert York
Herbert York
Herbert Frank York was an American nuclear physicist. He held numerous research and administrative positions at various United States government and educational institutes.-Biography:...
, first director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory , just outside Livermore, California, is a Federally Funded Research and Development Center founded by the University of California in 1952...
, was designated instead. York worked out the planning of the main campus according to the "Oxbridge
Oxbridge
Oxbridge is a portmanteau of the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge in England, and the term is now used to refer to them collectively, often with implications of perceived superior social status...
" model, relying on many of Revelle's ideas.
UCSD was the first general campus of the UC to be designed "from the top down" in terms of research emphasis. John Jay Hopkins
John Jay Hopkins
John Jay Hopkins was founder and president of General Dynamics from 1952 to 1957.Hopkins was born in Santa Ana, California....
of General Dynamics Corporation
General Dynamics
General Dynamics Corporation is a U.S. defense conglomerate formed by mergers and divestitures, and as of 2008 it is the fifth largest defense contractor in the world. Its headquarters are in West Falls Church , unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, in the Falls Church area.The company has...
donated one million dollars to be used for recruiting a founding faculty. Harold Urey
Harold Urey
Harold Clayton Urey was an American physical chemist whose pioneering work on isotopes earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1934...
, Nobel winner in Chemistry, was an early recruit to the faculty in 1958. (Revelle and Suess
Hans Suess
Hans Eduard Suess was an Austrian physical chemist and nuclear physicist. He was a grandson of the Austrian geologist Eduard SuessSuess earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Vienna in 1935...
published the first paper on the Greenhouse effect
Greenhouse effect
The greenhouse effect is a process by which thermal radiation from a planetary surface is absorbed by atmospheric greenhouse gases, and is re-radiated in all directions. Since part of this re-radiation is back towards the surface, energy is transferred to the surface and the lower atmosphere...
the year before.) Maria Goeppert-Mayer was appointed professor of physics in 1960; she later won the Nobel Prize in 1963. The graduate division of the school opened in 1960 with 20 faculty in residence; instruction was offered in the fields of physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
, biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
, chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
and earth science
Earth science
Earth science is an all-embracing term for the sciences related to the planet Earth. It is arguably a special case in planetary science, the Earth being the only known life-bearing planet. There are both reductionist and holistic approaches to Earth sciences...
. Classes initially met in the Scripps Institute.
By 1963, new facilities on the mesa been finished for the School of Science and Engineering, and new buildings were under construction for Social Sciences and Humanities. Ten additional faculty in those disciplines were hired, and the whole site was designated the First College of the new campus. York resigned as chancellor in 1963 and was replaced by John Semple Galbraith
John Semple Galbraith
John Semple Galbraith was a 20th-century British Empire historian, concentrating on Canada and South and East Africa, and former Chancellor of the University of California, San Diego. A native of Glasgow, his family immigrated to the US in 1926. He received a BA from Miami University in Ohio in...
in 1964. The campus accepted its first undergraduate class of 181 freshman in 1964, and was designated Revelle College the next year. Second College was also organized in 1964, on the land deeded by the federal government. It was renamed John Muir College in April, 1966. UCSD Medical school also accepted its first students in 1966.
Political theorist Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse was a German Jewish philosopher, sociologist and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory...
joined the faculty in 1965. A champion of the New Left
New Left
The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...
, he reportedly was the first protestor to occupy the administration building in a demonstration organized by his student, Angela Davis
Angela Davis
Angela Davis is an American political activist, scholar, and author. Davis was most politically active during the late 1960s through the 1970s and was associated with the Communist Party USA, the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Panther Party...
. The American Legion
American Legion
The American Legion is a mutual-aid organization of veterans of the United States armed forces chartered by the United States Congress. It was founded to benefit those veterans who served during a wartime period as defined by Congress...
offered to buy out the remainder of Marcuse's contract for $20,000; the Regents censured Chancellor McGill for defending Marcuse on the basis of academic freedom
Academic freedom
Academic freedom is the belief that the freedom of inquiry by students and faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy, and that scholars should have freedom to teach or communicate ideas or facts without being targeted for repression, job loss, or imprisonment.Academic freedom is a...
, but further action was averted after local leaders expressed support for Marcuse.
Richard C. Atkinson
Richard C. Atkinson
Richard Chatham Atkinson is an American professor of psychology and academic administrator. He is the former president and regent of the University of California system, and former chancellor of U.C...
, chancellor from 1980 to 1995, strengthened UCSD's ties with the city of San Diego by encouraging technology transfer
Technology transfer
Technology Transfer, also called Transfer of Technology and Technology Commercialisation, is the process of skill transferring, knowledge, technologies, methods of manufacturing, samples of manufacturing and facilities among governments or universities and other institutions to ensure that...
with developing companies, transforming San Diego into a world leader in technology-based industries. Private giving rose from $15 million to nearly $50 million annually, faculty expanded by nearly 50%, and enrollment doubled to about 18,000 students during his chancellorship. In 1995, the quality of UCSD's graduate programs was ranked tenth in the nation by the National Research Council.
UCSD is taking out a $40 million dollar loan against itself to offset $84.2 million in state budget cuts in 2009.
Notable research
UCSD researchers have made impacts including global warmingGlobal warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
research and the discovery of the Keeling Curve
Keeling curve
The Keeling Curve is a graph which plots the ongoing change in concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere since 1958. It is based on continuous measurements taken at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii under the supervision of Charles David Keeling. Keeling's measurements showed the...
. The widely used computer language, UCSD Pascal
UCSD Pascal
UCSD Pascal was a Pascal programming language system that ran on the UCSD p-System, a portable, highly machine-independent operating system. UCSD Pascal was first released in 1978...
was developed there, (which influenced the design of Java
Java (programming language)
Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
), as was the Network News Transfer Protocol
Network News Transfer Protocol
The Network News Transfer Protocol is an Internet application protocol used for transporting Usenet news articles between news servers and for reading and posting articles by end user client applications...
(NNTP). Early research activity, notably in the sciences, was integral to shaping the focus and culture of the university.
Campus
The university's main campus is located near the Pacific Ocean on 1200 acres (485.6 ha) of coastal woodland within the city of San Diego's "University Community" planning area. It is a lab for energy innovation.Public art
More than a dozen public art projects, part of the Stuart CollectionStuart Collection
The Stuart Collection is a collection of public art on the campus of the University of California, San Diego. Founded in 1983, the Stuart Collection's goal is to spread commissioned sculpture throughout the campus, including both traditional sculptures and integration with features of the campus...
, decorate the campus. Perhaps the most famous of these is the Sun God
Sun God (statue)
Sun God is a statue by French sculptor Niki de Saint Phalle located on the campus of the University of California, San Diego. The statue is a 14-foot multicolored bird-like creature, perched atop a 15-foot-tall horseshoe-shaped rock pedestal....
, a large winged creature located near the Faculty Club. Other Stuart Collection art includes a collection of Stonehenge
Stonehenge
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in the English county of Wiltshire, about west of Amesbury and north of Salisbury. One of the most famous sites in the world, Stonehenge is composed of a circular setting of large standing stones set within earthworks...
-like stone blocks, a large coiling snake path, a table by Jenny Holzer
Jenny Holzer
Jenny Holzer is an American conceptual artist. Holzer lives and works in Hoosick Falls, New York.-Education:...
, a building that flashes the names of vices and virtues in bright neon lights, and three metallic Eucalyptus
Eucalyptus
Eucalyptus is a diverse genus of flowering trees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Members of the genus dominate the tree flora of Australia...
trees, the Music Tree, the Literary Tree and the Third Tree commonly referred to as the Silent Tree. One of the newest additions to the collection is Tim Hawkinson's giant teddy bear made of six boulders located in between the newly constructed Calit2
Calit2
The California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology is an academic research institution jointly run by the University of California, San Diego and University of California, Irvine ....
buildings. Another notable campus sight are the graffiti tunnels of Mandeville Hall, a series of corridors that have been tagged with graffiti
Graffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
by generations of students over decades of use. Students in the university's visual arts department also often create temporary public art installations as part of their coursework. The university is also sponsoring a $56,000 performance art
Performance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
project to develop a sense of community at the sprawling campus.
In 2009, local San Diego artist Mario Torero was invited to create a mural called "Chicano Legacy" based on content suggested by UCSD Chicano students. The mural is a $10,000 digital image on a 15 by canvas mounted on the exterior of Peterson Hall, which includes representations of Cesar Chavez
César Chávez
César Estrada Chávez was an American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist who, with Dolores Huerta, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers ....
and Dolores Huerta
Dolores Huerta
Dolores C. Huerta is the co-founder and First Vice President Emeritus of the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO , and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.-Early life:...
as well as the kiosk structure at Chicano Park
Chicano Park
Chicano Park is a 32,000 square meter park located beneath the San Diego-Coronado Bridge in Barrio Logan, a predominantly Mexican American and Mexican-immigrant community in central San Diego, California...
.
Special facilities
UCSD has the 5,000 animal Birch AquariumBirch Aquarium
Birch Aquarium at Scripps is the public exploration center for the world-renowned Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego...
and public museum, the San Diego Supercomputer Center
San Diego Supercomputer Center
The San Diego Supercomputer Center is an organized research unit of the University of California, San Diego . Physically, SDSC is located on the east end of Eleanor Roosevelt College on the campus of UCSD....
, several large shake facilities including the world record holding Large High Performance Outdoor Shake Table, multiple open ocean research vessels, and a sea port.
Organization and administration
UCSD is one of the ten general campuses of the University of CaliforniaUniversity of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
system which is governed by a publicly appointed 26-member Board of Regents
Regents of the University of California
The Regents of the University of California make up the governing board of the University of California. The Board has 26 full members:* The majority are appointed by the Governor of California for 12-year terms....
and administered by a president whose office is located in Oakland
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. Mark Yudof
Mark Yudof
Mark G. Yudof is an American law professor and academic administrator. He is president of the University of California , former chancellor of the University of Texas System , and former president of the University of Minnesota .In addition to his position as Chancellor at The University of Texas,...
became the 19th president of the University system in June 2008. The board of regents appoint chancellors
Chancellor (education)
A chancellor or vice-chancellor is the chief executive of a university. Other titles are sometimes used, such as president or rector....
to serve as the chief administrative officer of each individual general campus. Marye Anne Fox
Marye Anne Fox
Marye Anne Payne Fox is a physical organic chemist and university administrator. She was the first female chief executive of North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina. In April 2004, Fox was named Chancellor of the University of California, San Diego.-Early years:Fox was born in...
became the seventh chancellor of UCSD in 2004, succeeding Robert C. Dynes
Robert C. Dynes
Robert C. Dynes is a Canadian-American physicist, researcher, and academic administrator, and professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and the former President of the University of California system, and former Chancellor of the University of California, San Diego.-Early...
who served as President of the UC system from 2003 until 2007. Chancellor Fox's total compensation was $401,091 for 2007–2008. The chancellor has an immediate staff of eight vice chancellors for academic affairs, research, marine sciences, student affairs, planning, external relations, business affairs, and health sciences.
The university operates on an academic quarter system
Academic quarter (year division)
An academic quarter refers to the division of an academic year into four parts, found in a minority of universities in the United States and in some European and Asian countries.-Background and trends:...
with three primary academic quarters beginning in late September and ending in mid June.
Endowment
UCSD has at least two distinct endowments; one controlled by the Regents and another controlled by a privately appointed non-profit corporation called the UC San Diego Foundation. In 2008, the foundation received $121.8 million in support and managed assets worth $520.7 million in total.In 2007, UCSD became the first university in the western region to top $1 billion in their eight-year fundraising campaign.
Student government
The campus's undergraduate population is represented by a formal student government, known as the Associated Students (ASUCSD) which was founded on 16 December 1964. By a student referendum it was abolished in 1972 and later reestablished in 1977. In 1986, the ASUCSD passed a non-binding resolution calling on the University of California to divest from its investments in South AfricaSouth Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
due to the South African government’s institutionalized system of apartheid. The UC subsequently divested from such holdings later that year, a move Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
later pointed to as a catalyst to ending white-minority rule in the country. Each college has its own student council
Student council
Student council is a curricular or extra-curricular activity for students within elementary and secondary schools around the world. Present in most public and private K-12 school systems across the United States, Canada and Australia these bodies are alternatively entitled student council, student...
as well.
The campus's graduate population is represented by the Graduate Student Association (GSA). The Association's membership comprises representatives from each of the graduate departments. The number of representatives is proportional to the number of graduate students within that particular department. Additionally, graduate students who serve as teaching or research assistants are represented by the UC-wide union of Academic Student Employees, UAW Local 2865.
Academics
Western Association of Schools and Colleges
The Western Association of Schools and Colleges is one of six official academic bodies responsible for the accreditation of public and private universities, colleges, secondary and elementary schools in the United States and foreign institutions of American origin. The Western Association of...
. UCSD granted 5,337 bachelors degrees, 894 masters degrees, 488 doctorate degrees, and 125 medical degrees in 2007-2008.
UCSD's comprehensive doctoral program has high undergraduate degree coexistence as well as professional programs in business, medicine, and pharmacy. UCSD's graduate division and professional schools include the Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, is one of the oldest and largest centers for ocean and earth science research, graduate training, and public service in the world...
, School of Medicine, Institute of Engineering in Medicine
Institute of Engineering in Medicine
was established at UC San Diego as an Organized Research Unit in July 2008. The IEM has over 130 outstanding faculty from UCSD’s Schools of Medicine, Skaggs School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Jacobs School of Engineering, all sharing the objective of translating creative ideas into...
, Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies
Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies
The Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies , at the University of California, San Diego, is devoted to the study of international affairs, economics, and policy education. Its research and education focus is the Pacific Region...
, Jacobs School of Engineering
Jacobs School of Engineering
The Jacobs School of Engineering at the University of California, San Diego is an undergraduate and graduate-level engineering school offering Bachelors of Science , Master of Engineering , Master of Science , and Doctorate degree programs...
, Rady School of Management
Rady School of Management
The Rady School of Management at the University of California, San Diego is a graduate-level business school offering full-time and part-time Master of Business Administration degree programs in addition to non-degree executive development programs, Ph.D.s and undergraduate courses including a...
, and Skaggs School of Pharmacy
Skaggs School of Pharmacy
The Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of California, San Diego is a graduate-level pharmacy school offering five educational programs: *Doctor of Pharmacy degree awarded in a four-year program...
. The university offers 52 masters programs, 51 doctoral programs, 4 professional programs, and 11 joint doctoral programs with San Diego State University
San Diego State University
San Diego State University , founded in 1897 as San Diego Normal School, is the largest and oldest higher education facility in the greater San Diego area , and is part of the California State University system...
and other UC campuses. UCSD has noted graduate programs in biological sciences and medicine, economics, social and behavioral sciences, and
physics.
Rankings
The University of California, San Diego is currently ranked 15th in the world by the Academic Ranking of World UniversitiesAcademic Ranking of World Universities
The Academic Ranking of World Universities , commonly known as the Shanghai ranking, is a publication that was founded and compiled by the Shanghai Jiaotong University to rank universities globally. The rankings have been conducted since 2003 and updated annually...
. The 2012 edition of U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...
ranked UC San Diego as the 37th best university in the nation, and the 8th best public university in the United States. UCSD is consistently ranked high in other college and university rankings
College and university rankings
College and university rankings are lists of institutions in higher education, ordered by combinations of factors. In addition to entire institutions, specific programs, departments, and schools are ranked...
. In 2010, the university ranked 1st nationally in The Washington Monthly
The Washington Monthly
The Washington Monthly is a bimonthly nonprofit magazine of United States politics and government that is based in Washington, D.C.The magazine's founder is Charles Peters, who started the magazine in 1969 and continues to write the "Tilting at Windmills" column in each issue. Paul Glastris, former...
.
The Washington Monthly ranked UCSD 1st best overall in the nation when incorporating additional societal benefits other than just research impact as a metric, and 8th in the U.S. in terms of research alone. The Graham-Diamond report ranked UCSD 8th overall in the country. UCSD was selected as the "Hottest" science school by Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
in 2006. Human Resources & Labor Review ranked the university 16th worldwide in 2010. In its 2008 report on best values in public colleges, Kiplinger
Kiplinger
Kiplinger is a Washington, D.C.-based publisher of business forecasts and personal finance advice, available in print, online, audio, video and software products ....
ranked UCSD 11th in the nation for in-state value and 17th in the nation for out-of-state value.
In 2011, QS World University Rankings
QS World University Rankings
The QS World University Rankings is a ranking of the world’s top 500 universities by Quacquarelli Symonds using a method that has published annually since 2004....
ranked UCSD 77th overall in the world, coming 14th in Life Sciences and Biomedicine. Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters Corporation is a provider of information for the world's businesses and professionals and is created by the Thomson Corporation's purchase of Reuters Group on 17 April 2008. Thomson Reuters is headquartered at 3 Times Square, New York City, USA...
Science Watch ranks UCSD 7th of federally funded U.S. universities, based on the citation impact of their published research in major fields of science and the social sciences and 12th globally by volume of citations.
Research
UCSD’s total research expenditures for 2007-08 were $798 million. The National Science FoundationNational Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
has ranked UCSD first in the UC system and sixth in the nation in terms of Federal research expenditures. Some 200 San Diego companies have been founded by UCSD faculty and alumni, and over 40% of the people employed in the San Diego biotechnology industry work in UCSD spin-offs. Science Watch ranked UCSD 1st in social psychology
Social psychology
Social psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. By this definition, scientific refers to the empirical method of investigation. The terms thoughts, feelings, and behaviors include all...
, 2nd in oceanography
Oceanography
Oceanography , also called oceanology or marine science, is the branch of Earth science that studies the ocean...
, 3rd in international relations
International relations
International relations is the study of relationships between countries, including the roles of states, inter-governmental organizations , international nongovernmental organizations , non-governmental organizations and multinational corporations...
, 5th in molecular biology
Molecular biology
Molecular biology is the branch of biology that deals with the molecular basis of biological activity. This field overlaps with other areas of biology and chemistry, particularly genetics and biochemistry...
and genetics
Genetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
, 17th in engineering
Engineering
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
, and 18th in Neuroscience
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...
and Behavior
Behavior
Behavior or behaviour refers to the actions and mannerisms made by organisms, systems, or artificial entities in conjunction with its environment, which includes the other systems or organisms around as well as the physical environment...
using non-survey, quantitative based metrics to determine research impact.
UCSD also counts among its research centers the Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, is one of the oldest and largest centers for ocean and earth science research, graduate training, and public service in the world...
, the San Diego Supercomputer Center
San Diego Supercomputer Center
The San Diego Supercomputer Center is an organized research unit of the University of California, San Diego . Physically, SDSC is located on the east end of Eleanor Roosevelt College on the campus of UCSD....
, the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, and the Center for US-Mexican Studies.
Residential colleges
UCSD's undergraduate division is organized into six residential collegeResidential college
A residential college is an organisational pattern for a division of a university that places academic activity in a community setting of students and faculty, usually at a residence and with shared meals, the college having a degree of autonomy and a federated relationship with the overall...
s. The system is modeled on the residential systems at Oxford
Colleges of the University of Oxford
The University of Oxford comprises 38 Colleges and 6 Permanent Private Halls of religious foundation. Colleges and PPHs are autonomous self-governing corporations within the university, and all teaching staff and students studying for a degree of the university must belong to one of the colleges...
and Cambridge. They each set their own general-education requirements as well as having their own administrative and advising staff and granting unique degrees and separate commencement ceremonies. In chronological order by date of foundation, the six colleges are:
- Revelle College, founded in 1964 as First College, emphasizes a "Renaissance education" through the Humanities sequence which integrates history, literature, and philosophy. It has highly structured requirements.
- John Muir CollegeJohn Muir CollegeJohn Muir College is one of the six undergraduate colleges at the University of California, San Diego . The college is named after John Muir, the environmentalist and founder of the Sierra Club. It has a humanitarian emphasis focused on the "spirit of self-sufficiency and individual choice"...
, founded in 1967 as Second College, emphasizes a "spirit of self-sufficiency and individual choice" and offers loosely structured general-education requirements. - Thurgood Marshall CollegeThurgood Marshall CollegeThurgood Marshall College is one of the six undergraduate colleges at the University of California, San Diego. The college, named after Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court Justice and lawyer for the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v...
, founded in 1970 as Third College, emphasizes "scholarship, social responsibility and the belief that a liberal arts education must include an understanding of one's role in society". - Earl Warren CollegeEarl Warren CollegeEarl Warren College is one of the six undergraduate colleges at the University of California at San Diego and is named after the three term California Governor and former Chief Justice of the United States Earl Warren. Warren College emphasizes the importance of living a balanced life. Founded in...
, founded in 1974 as Fourth College, requires students to pursue a major of their choice while also requiring two "programs of concentration" in disciplines unrelated to each other and to their major "toward a life in balance". - Eleanor Roosevelt CollegeEleanor Roosevelt CollegeEleanor Roosevelt College is one of the six colleges located on the campus at the University of California, San Diego...
, founded in 1988 as Fifth College, which focuses its core education program on a cross-cultural interdisciplinary course sequence entitled "Making of the Modern World", has a foreign language requirement, and encourages studying abroad. - Sixth CollegeSixth CollegeSixth College is the sixth and newest college of the University of California, San Diego, and is as of yet unnamed. Sixth College aims to prepare its students to become effective citizens of the 21st century — innovative, interconnected and aware. Opened in September 2001, Sixth College seeks to...
, founded in 2002 with a focus on "historical and philosophical connections among culture, art and technology."
Students affiliate with a college based upon its particular philosophy and environment as majors are not exclusive to specific colleges. John Muir and Earl Warren enroll the largest number of undergraduate students followed by Thurgood Marshall, Revelle, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Sixth. Each undergraduate college sets the requirements for awarding provost's honors and honors at graduation in addition to departmental honors and Phi Beta Kappa
Phi Beta Kappa Society
The Phi Beta Kappa Society is an academic honor society. Its mission is to "celebrate and advocate excellence in the liberal arts and sciences"; and induct "the most outstanding students of arts and sciences at America’s leading colleges and universities." Founded at The College of William and...
honors.
Extension
UCSD Extension is the continuing education and public program branch of the university. Approximately 50,000 enrolles per year are educated in the university's extension program. The Extension provides over 90 certificate programs and over 12 specialized study programs. Most courses are held evenings and weekends for the convenience to working adults on the main campus or at one of three off campus locations:the Extension Sorrento Mesa Center, the Extension Rancho Bernardo Center, and the Extension Mission Valley Center. The Extension program also includes online only classes. The UCSD Extension program is not affiliated with the UC Cooperative Extension program.Charter school
The Preuss School is a charter schoolCharter school
Charter schools are primary or secondary schools that receive public money but are not subject to some of the rules, regulations, and statutes that apply to other public schools in exchange for some type of accountability for producing certain results, which are set forth in each school's charter...
established on the UCSD campus in 1999 to provide an intensive college preparatory curriculum for low-income students from the greater San Diego area. The Preuss school has been ranked as one of the top ten best high schools in the United States by US News & World Report.
Admissions and enrollment
| Ethnicity | Undergraduate |
|---|---|
| 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... |
2% |
| Asian American Asian American Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians as "Asian” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan,... |
48% |
| Hispanic American Hispanic and Latino Americans Hispanic or Latino Americans are Americans with origins in the Hispanic countries of Latin America or in Spain, and in general all persons in the United States who self-identify as Hispanic or Latino.1990 Census of Population and Housing: A self-designated classification for people whose origins... |
13% |
| Native American Native Americans in the United States Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as... |
0% |
| Caucasian American | 26% |
| Unreported/unknown | 10% |
UCSD received 48,114 freshmen applicants for the Fall 2010, and admitted 38.1%. Admitted students attained a mean weighted high school GPA of 4.07 and average SAT
SAT
The SAT Reasoning Test is a standardized test for college admissions in the United States. The SAT is owned, published, and developed by the College Board, a nonprofit organization in the United States. It was formerly developed, published, and scored by the Educational Testing Service which still...
score of 1980 . The average ACT Composite Score is 29. 31% of admitted students receive federal Pell Grant
Pell Grant
A Pell Grant is money the federal government provides for students who need it to pay for college. Federal Pell Grants are limited to students with financial need, who have not earned their first bachelor's degree or who are not enrolled in certain post-baccalaureate programs, through participating...
s. According to the 2010 U.S News and World Report, students applying to UCSD are also most likely to apply to UC Berkeley, Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
, and Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
for matriculation http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/university-of-californiasan-diego-1317.
The four year, full-time undergraduate program comprises the majority of enrollments at the university. The university offers 125 bachelors degree programs organized into six disciplinary divisions: Arts, Humanities, Engineering, Science/Math, Biological Sciences, and Social Sciences. 38% of undergraduates major in the social sciences, followed by 25% in biological sciences, 18% in engineering, 8% in sciences and math, 4% in humanities, and 3% in the arts. Each undergraduate colleges sets its own general education requirements (GEs) for graduation in addition to the specific requirements of majors set by individual departments and programs.
Graduate admissions are largely centralized through the Office of Graduate Studies. However, the Rady School of Management
Rady School of Management
The Rady School of Management at the University of California, San Diego is a graduate-level business school offering full-time and part-time Master of Business Administration degree programs in addition to non-degree executive development programs, Ph.D.s and undergraduate courses including a...
, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, is one of the oldest and largest centers for ocean and earth science research, graduate training, and public service in the world...
, and the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies
Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies
The Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies , at the University of California, San Diego, is devoted to the study of international affairs, economics, and policy education. Its research and education focus is the Pacific Region...
(IR/PS) handle their own admissions.
In 2009, UCSD mistakenly sent Admit Day welcome emails to all its 47,000 freshmen applicants, instead of just the 17,000 who had been admitted. However, school officials quickly realized the mistake and sent an apology email within two hours.
Student life
Geisel Library
The Geisel Library is the main library building on the University of California, San Diego campus and contains four of the six libraries located on campus...
. The Price Center offers a variety of services, places, and spaces, including restaurants, the central bookstore, movie theater, and various student organizations. In the Spring of 2003, a Student Referendum was passed to expand the Price Center to nearly double the original size. The Price Center East expansion was officially opened to the public on May 19, 2008.
There are also three campus centers that cultivate a sense of community among faculty, staff, and students: the Cross-Cultural
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...
Center, the Women's Center
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
, and the LGBT
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
Resource Center. UCSD was the last UC campus to have such centers. All three centers, especially the Cross-Cultural Center that was created first, were founded in the mid-1990s and were the result of student movements that demanded change despite opposition by the campus administration.
There is a music venue on the campus grounds of some fame called the Ché Café
Che Cafe
The Ché Café is a worker co-operative, social center, and live music venue located on the University of California, San Diego campus in La Jolla, California, USA.-History:Founded in 1980 by UCSD students, the Che originally began its life as a vegan cafe...
, a collective organization serving multiple functions as an underground music venue, vegan food collective, center for grassroots organizations such as Food Not Bombs
Food Not Bombs
Food Not Bombs is a loose-knit group of independent collectives, serving free vegan and vegetarian food to others. Food Not Bombs' ideology is that myriad corporate and government priorities are skewed to allow hunger to persist in the midst of abundance...
, and similar groups and activities. Prominent local San Diego bands such as The Locust
The Locust
The Locust is a musical group from San Diego, California, United States known for their unique mix of grindcore speed and aggression, mathcore complexity, and new wave weirdness.- Style :...
and Pinback
Pinback
Pinback is an indie rock band from San Diego, California, currently signed to Temporary Residence Ltd. The band was formed in 1998 by singers, songwriters and multi-instrumentalists Armistead Burwell Smith IV and Rob Crow. Tom Zinser, Chris Prescott, and Mario Rubalcaba have all contributed drums...
, and national tours such as Mates of State
Mates of State
Mates of State are an American indie pop duo, active since 1997. The group is composed of the husband-and-wife team of Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel .Over the course of the band's fourteen year career, they've released three EPs and six full-length, studio...
and The Dillinger Escape Plan
The Dillinger Escape Plan
The Dillinger Escape Plan is an American mathcore band from Morris Plains, New Jersey. The group originated in 1997 after the disbanding of Arcane, a hardcore punk trio consisting of Ben Weinman, Dimitri Minakakis, and Chris Pennie. The band's current line-up consists of guitarist Ben Weinman,...
have given the Ché Café
Che Cafe
The Ché Café is a worker co-operative, social center, and live music venue located on the University of California, San Diego campus in La Jolla, California, USA.-History:Founded in 1980 by UCSD students, the Che originally began its life as a vegan cafe...
some fame and praise as a radical vegan collective despite its small size (it fits a few hundred people) and limited sound equipment.
International House
International House is home to about 400 students from more than thirty countries. The I-House community provides a social atmosphere where opportunities for significant cross-cultural exchange between American and international students is plentiful. International learning is fostered through formal programs including current affairs discussions, cultural nights, and a community newsletter. Upper-division undergraduates from all six colleges, graduate students, faculty, and researchers are eligible to live in International House, located in the Eleanor Roosevelt College townhouses. Demand is very high for this special program and there is a waitlist each quarter. Spaces in International House are not guaranteed and admission requires a separate application.Events and traditions
Sun God (statue)
Sun God is a statue by French sculptor Niki de Saint Phalle located on the campus of the University of California, San Diego. The statue is a 14-foot multicolored bird-like creature, perched atop a 15-foot-tall horseshoe-shaped rock pedestal....
created by art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
ist Niki de Saint Phalle
Niki de Saint Phalle
Niki de Saint Phalle, born Catherine-Marie-Agnès-Brandon Fal de Saint Phalle was a French sculptor, painter, and film maker.-The early years:...
, is the best-known of the festivals. The festival has grown in its 28 year history into a 20,000 person event. The day consists of student org booths and performers, as well as an eclectic mix of musical acts across 3 stages.
Two other popular campus events include the Pumpkin Drop and the Watermelon Drop, which take place during Halloween
Halloween
Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...
and at the end of the third (Spring) academic quarter
Academic quarter (year division)
An academic quarter refers to the division of an academic year into four parts, found in a minority of universities in the United States and in some European and Asian countries.-Background and trends:...
, respectively. The Watermelon Drop is one of the campus's oldest traditions, famously originating in 1965 from a physics exam question centering on the velocity on impact of a dropped object. A group of intrigued students pursued that line of thought by dropping a watermelon from the top floor of Revelle's Urey Hall to measure the size of the resulting splat. A variety of events surround the Watermelon Drop, including a pageant where an occasionally male but generally female "Watermelon Queen" is elected. In 1979 the Queen rode to Urey Hall in a yellow VW Bug with a cut-off top owned by the winner that year, Bill Clabby. The Pumpkin Drop is a similar event celebrated by the dropping of a large, candy-filled pumpkin from 11-story Tioga Hall, the tallest residential building on the Muir college campus.
Student media
The campus newspaper, operated independent of student funds, is the UCSD GuardianUCSD Guardian
The UCSD Guardian is a student-operated newspaper at the University of California, San Diego. Originally named the Triton Times, it is published twice a week during the regular academic year, usually Mondays and Thursdays. Although the Guardian is officially a university department, it is funded...
. The campus also hosts a small independent radio station, KSDT
KSDT Radio
KSDT is an online College radio station which refers to itself as "fiercely independent college radio." Its facilities are located on the campus of UCSD, the University of California San Diego, in La Jolla....
, which no longer broadcasts over the airwaves, but still operates online.
One of the more controversial aspects of student life at UCSD is the student-run comedy paper, The Koala
The Koala
The Koala is marketed as a satirical comedy college paper distributed primarily on the campus of the University of California, San Diego San Diego State University and Cal State San Marcos...
, a satirical paper often criticized for its provocative articles and drawings, which is also funded by the A.S. In 2005, the student government made national news over a controversy regarding pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
broadcast over the A.S.-funded television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
station, SRTV, by members of The Koala. More controversy was generated by the program Live Hot Puppet Chat
Live Hot Puppet Chat
Live Hot Puppet Chat gained its initial popularity on a student-run college television station in the Fall of 2005 at the University of California, San Diego, with a series of shows they titled "Season 2"...
, a midnight sex-advice puppet show also broadcast on SRTV.
In February 2010, members of The Koala
The Koala
The Koala is marketed as a satirical comedy college paper distributed primarily on the campus of the University of California, San Diego San Diego State University and Cal State San Marcos...
, on their Student Run Television program "Koala TV" publicly supported the "Compton Cookout", a controversial off-campus party mocking Black History Month that included UCSD fraternity members among the organizers.
Athletics
UCSD offers student participation in a wide range of sports including swimming
Swimming (sport)
Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...
, water polo
Water polo
Water polo is a team water sport. The playing team consists of six field players and one goalkeeper. The winner of the game is the team that scores more goals. Game play involves swimming, treading water , players passing the ball while being defended by opponents, and scoring by throwing into a...
, soccer, volleyball
Volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...
, crew
Rowing (sport)
Rowing is a sport in which athletes race against each other on rivers, on lakes or on the ocean, depending upon the type of race and the discipline. The boats are propelled by the reaction forces on the oar blades as they are pushed against the water...
, track and field athletics, fencing
Fencing
Fencing, which is also known as modern fencing to distinguish it from historical fencing, is a family of combat sports using bladed weapons.Fencing is one of four sports which have been featured at every one of the modern Olympic Games...
, basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
, golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
, cross country
Cross country running
Cross country running is a sport in which people run a race on open-air courses over natural terrain. The course, typically long, may include surfaces of grass and earth, pass through woodlands and open country, and include hills, flat ground and sometimes gravel road...
, softball
Softball
Softball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of 10 to 14 players. It is a direct descendant of baseball although there are some key differences: softballs are larger than baseballs, and the pitches are thrown underhand rather than overhand...
, baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
, and tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
. UCSD participates at the NCAA's
National Collegiate Athletic Association
The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi-voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States...
Division II (DII) level in the California Collegiate Athletic Association
California Collegiate Athletic Association
The California Collegiate Athletic Association or CCAA is an intercollegiate athletic conference in the Division II of the NCAA. All of its current members are public universities, and all except for UC San Diego are members of the California State University system.It was founded in December 1938...
, although water polo, fencing, and men's volleyball compete at the Division I level. Before joining DII in 2000, the school participated at the Division III level and won numerous national championships.
UCSD does not have an NCAA football team.
Until the 2007-2008 school year, UCSD was the only DII school that did not offer athletic scholarship
Scholarship
A scholarship is an award of financial aid for a student to further education. Scholarships are awarded on various criteria usually reflecting the values and purposes of the donor or founder of the award.-Types:...
s. In 2005, the NCAA created a rule that made it mandatory for DII programs to award athletic grants; a measure was proposed to begin offering $500 "grants-in-aid" to all 600 intercollegiate athletes in order to meet this requirement. In February 2007, a student referendum
Referendum
A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...
was passed with the largest vote in UCSD history, authorizing a $329 annual student fee to fund a raise in coaches' salaries, hire more trainers and provide all athletes with a $500 scholarship.
In 2006-2007, UCSD's best season since moving to DII, 19 of 23 athletic programs qualified for post-season competition, including 17 to the NCAA Championships. Eight of those teams finished in the top-5 in the nation.
UCSD fields a number of club sports
Sports club
A sports club or sport club, sometimes athletics club or sports association is a club for the purpose of playing one or more sports...
teams. The UCSD surfing
Surfing
Surfing' is a surface water sport in which the surfer rides a surfboard on the crest and face of a wave which is carrying the surfer towards the shore...
team has won the national title six times and is consistently rated one of the best surfing programs in the nation. The UCSD triathlon
Triathlon
A triathlon is a multi-sport event involving the completion of three continuous and sequential endurance events. While many variations of the sport exist, triathlon, in its most popular form, involves swimming, cycling, and running in immediate succession over various distances...
team is continually one of the top triathlon teams in the nation. In 2008, the women's triathlon team won the US collegiate national championship and UCSD athlete Amanda Felder was the Overall Nation Champion. UCSD also has sport clubs in badminton
Badminton
Badminton is a racquet sport played by either two opposing players or two opposing pairs , who take positions on opposite halves of a rectangular court that is divided by a net. Players score points by striking a shuttlecock with their racquet so that it passes over the net and lands in their...
, cycling
Cycling
Cycling, also called bicycling or biking, is the use of bicycles for transport, recreation, or for sport. Persons engaged in cycling are cyclists or bicyclists...
, dancesport
DanceSport
Dancesport denotes competitive ballroom dancing, as contrasted to social or exhibition dancing. It is wheelchair dancesport where at least one of the dancers is in a wheelchair....
, dance
Dance
Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....
team, equestrian
Equestrianism
Equestrianism more often known as riding, horseback riding or horse riding refers to the skill of riding, driving, or vaulting with horses...
, ice hockey
Ice hockey
Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...
, lacrosse
Lacrosse
Lacrosse is a team sport of Native American origin played using a small rubber ball and a long-handled stick called a crosse or lacrosse stick, mainly played in the United States and Canada. It is a contact sport which requires padding. The head of the lacrosse stick is strung with loose mesh...
, roller hockey
Roller hockey
Roller Hockey is a form of hockey played on a dry surface using skates with wheels. The term "Roller Hockey" is often used interchangeably to refer to two variant forms chiefly differentiated by the type of skate used. There is traditional "Roller Hockey," played with quad roller skates, and...
, rugby union
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
, sailing
Sailing
Sailing is the propulsion of a vehicle and the control of its movement with large foils called sails. By changing the rigging, rudder, and sometimes the keel or centre board, a sailor manages the force of the wind on the sails in order to move the boat relative to its surrounding medium and...
, soccer, snow skiing, table tennis
Table tennis
Table tennis, also known as ping-pong, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight, hollow ball back and forth using table tennis rackets. The game takes place on a hard table divided by a net...
, ultimate
Ultimate (sport)
Ultimate is a sport played with a 175 gram flying disc. The object of the game is to score points by passing the disc to a player in the opposing end zone, similar to an end zone in American football or rugby...
, volleyball
Volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...
, water polo
Water polo
Water polo is a team water sport. The playing team consists of six field players and one goalkeeper. The winner of the game is the team that scores more goals. Game play involves swimming, treading water , players passing the ball while being defended by opponents, and scoring by throwing into a...
, and waterskiing.
The National Collegiate Scouting Association (NCSA) 2008 Collegiate Power Rankings rate colleges and universities comprehensively based on student-athlete graduation rates, academic strength and athletic prowess of the university. The institutions posted in the 2007 Power Rankings represent less than 6% of colleges
and universities across the nation. UCSD placed 4th on the overall ranking list, trailing behind Williams College
Williams College
Williams College is a private liberal arts college located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. It was established in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams. Originally a men's college, Williams became co-educational in 1970. Fraternities were also phased out during this...
, Amherst College
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...
, and Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
, and first on the Division II list.
Faculty
The university employs 1,205 faculty members, including six Nobel LaureatesNobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
, four MacArthur fellows
MacArthur Fellows Program
The MacArthur Fellows Program or MacArthur Fellowship is an award given by the John D. and Catherine T...
, three National Medal of Science
National Medal of Science
The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social sciences, biology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics and...
laureates, and two Fields medalists
Fields Medal
The Fields Medal, officially known as International Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics, is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians not over 40 years of age at each International Congress of the International Mathematical Union , a meeting that takes place every four...
. UCSD faculty also include 146 Guggenheim Fellows
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Mr. and Mrs. Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died April 26, 1922...
. UCSD ranks sixth in the nation in terms of United States National Academy of Sciences
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
membership. UCSD has a total of 20 Nobel Laureates affiliated with it.
Alumni
Over 130,000 alumni are associated with UCSD. Notable alumni include Bill AtkinsonBill Atkinson
Bill Atkinson is an American computer engineer and photographer. Atkinson worked at Apple Computer from 1978 to 1990. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of California, San Diego, where Apple Macintosh developer Jef Raskin was one of his professors...
and Bud Tribble
Bud Tribble
Guy L. "Bud" Tribble, MD, PhD, is Vice President of Software Technology at Apple Inc. Tribble served as the manager of the original Macintosh software development team where he helped to design the Mac OS and user interface. He was among the founders of NeXT, Inc., serving as NeXT's vice...
, members of the Apple Macintosh development team; biotechnology pioneers David Goeddel
David Goeddel
David Goeddel is a pioneer of the biotechnology industry who, employed at the time by Genentech, successfully used genetic engineering to coax bacteria into creating synthetic human insulin, human growth hormone, and human TPA for use in therapeutic medicine...
and Craig Venter
Craig Venter
John Craig Venter is an American biologist and entrepreneur, most famous for his role in being one of the first to sequence the human genome and for his role in creating the first cell with a synthetic genome in 2010. Venter founded Celera Genomics, The Institute for Genomic Research and the J...
, and Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
winners Bruce Beutler (Physiology or Medicine), and Susumu Tonegawa
Susumu Tonegawa
Susumu Tonegawa is a Japanese scientist who won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1987 for his discovery of the genetic mechanism that produces antibody diversity. Although he won the Nobel Prize for his work in immunology, Tonegawa is a molecular biologist by training...
, recognized for his work in immunology
Immunology
Immunology is a broad branch of biomedical science that covers the study of all aspects of the immune system in all organisms. It deals with the physiological functioning of the immune system in states of both health and diseases; malfunctions of the immune system in immunological disorders ; the...
. Eleanor Mariano
Eleanor Mariano
Eleanor Concepcion "Connie" Mariano is a Filipino-American physician and former flag officer in the United States Navy. She is the first Filipino-American and graduate of the Uniformed Services University of Medicine to reach the rank of Rear Admiral in the U.S...
, the first Filipino-American to reach the rank of Rear Admiral
Rear Admiral
Rear admiral is a naval commissioned officer rank above that of a commodore and captain, and below that of a vice admiral. It is generally regarded as the lowest of the "admiral" ranks, which are also sometimes referred to as "flag officers" or "flag ranks"...
in the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
and first female director of the White House Medical Unit
White House Medical Unit
The White House Medical Unit is the unit of the White House Military Office responsible for the medical needs of White House staff and visitors. The Unit provides medical care to the President, the Vice President, and their families....
, received her BS in Biology cum laude in 1977. A number of science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
authors including Gregory Benford
Gregory Benford
Gregory Benford is an American science fiction author and astrophysicist who is on the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine...
, David Brin
David Brin
Glen David Brin, Ph.D. is an American scientist and award-winning author of science fiction. He has received the Hugo, Locus, Campbell and Nebula Awards.-Biography:...
and Kim Stanley Robinson
Kim Stanley Robinson
Kim Stanley Robinson is an American science fiction writer known for his award-winning Mars trilogy. His work delves into ecological and sociological themes regularly, and many of his novels appear to be the direct result of his own scientific fascinations, such as the fifteen years of research...
earned PhDs at UCSD; cartoon animation producer Mike Judge
Mike Judge
Michael Craig Judge is an American animator, film director, writer and voice actor, best known as the creator and star of the animated television series Beavis and Butt-head , King of the Hill , and The Goode Family .He also wrote, directed and in some instances produced the films Beavis and...
is also an alum. Robert Buckley
Robert Buckley
Robert Earl Buckley is an American actor, best known for his roles on the television series Lipstick Jungle and One Tree Hill....
, who stars as Clay on The CW television show One Tree Hill
One Tree Hill (TV series)
One Tree Hill is an American television drama created by Mark Schwahn, which premiered on September 23, 2003, on The WB Television Network. After its third season, The WB merged with UPN to form The CW Television Network, and, since September 27, 2006, the network has been the official broadcaster...
graduated from UCSD with a degree in Economics. The Kite Runner
The Kite Runner
The Kite Runner is a novel by Khaled Hosseini. Published in 2003 by Riverhead Books, it is Hosseini's first novel, and was adapted into a film of the same name in 2007....
s Khaled Hosseini
Khaled Hosseini
Khaled Hosseini , is an Afghan-born American novelist and physician of ethnic Tajik origin. He is a citizen of the United States where he has lived since he was fifteen years old. His 2003 debut novel, The Kite Runner, was an international bestseller, selling more than 12 million copies worldwide....
is also a UCSD alum as well as Dileep Rao
Dileep Rao
Dileep A. Rao is an American actor who has appeared in feature films and television series. He starred in Sam Raimi's horror film Drag Me to Hell , James Cameron's science fiction film Avatar , and Christopher Nolan's thriller Inception .-Life and career:Rao was born in Los Angeles, California to...
, one of the stars of the hit blockbuster movies Avatar and Inception
Inception
Inception: The Subconscious Jams 1994-1995 is a compilation of unreleased tracks by the band Download.-Track listing:# "Primitive Tekno Jam" – 3:23# "Bee Sting Sickness" – 8:04# "Weed Acid Techno" – 8:19...
. Rao spoke at the 2010 Convocation Dinner as he kicked off UCSD's 50th Anniversary Celebration. The three members of the popular Asian American filmmaking group Wong Fu Productions
Wong Fu Productions
Wong Fu ProductionsShort films by Wong Fu Productions prior to the group's graduation from the University of California, San Diego, included a logo with the Chinese characters for "Wong Fu" . The last film to feature this logo was License Plate, released on August 18, 2006. Films produced after the...
, Ted Fu, Phillip Wang, and Wesley Chan all graduated from UCSD as well. Anna Marie Caballero is a former member of the 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...
and had previously served as the Mayor and Council member of Salinas, California
Salinas, California
Salinas is the county seat and the largest municipality of Monterey County, California. Salinas is located east-southeast of the mouth of the Salinas River, at an elevation of about 52 feet above sea level. The population was 150,441 at the 2010 census...
. Chad Butler
Chad Butler
Chad Matthew Butler is the drummer for the band Switchfoot which he co-founded along with Jon and Tim Foreman in 1996...
, drummer and co-founding member of the Grammy-nominated San Diego area based rock band Switchfoot
Switchfoot
Switchfoot is an American rock band from San Diego, California. The band's members are Jon Foreman , Tim Foreman , Chad Butler , Jerome Fontamillas , and Drew Shirley .After early successes in the Christian rock scene, Switchfoot first gained mainstream...
.