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University of California, Santa Cruz
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University of California, Santa Cruz

The University of California, Santa Cruz, established in 1965, is one of the ten campuses of the University of California. It is located just northwest of Santa Cruz, California, built amidst a redwood forest on a former ranch and lime processing site in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains, overlooking Monterey Bay and the Pacific Ocean.

The 2000 acre (8 km²) UCSC campus is located 75 miles (120 km) south of San Francisco. It is bounded on the south by the city's upper-west-side neighborhoods, on the east by Harvey West Park [1] and the Pogonip [1] [1], on the north by Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park [1] [1] [1] in the town of Felton, and on the west by Gray Whale Ranch, a portion of Wilder Ranch State Park [1] [1].

Table of contents
1 Overview
2 Planning and Construction
3 Geology and History
4 Notable UCSC Alumni
5 References
6 External Link

Overview

Except for the brand new Merced campus, UCSC is the youngest and smallest of the University of California campuses. After a period of rapid growth (7.3% growth rate from 1998-2003[1]) , the undergraduate student population has reached about 13,000, and there are about 1,500 graduate students. Majors and graduate degrees are offered in a broad range of academic fields, but the recently established Baskin School of Engineering is the only professional school.

The undergraduate program is organized around a residential college system. The ten colleges — Cowell College, Stevenson College, Crown College, Merrill College, Porter College, Kresge College, Oakes College, College 8, College 9, and College 10 — provide services such as housing, academic assistance, activities and a selection of college-related coursework. Each college has its own theme, architectural style, and student and faculty housing. Each provides a mandatory "core course," centering on the college's theme, that is taken by incoming freshmen. College sizes vary, but roughly a third of students live on campus within their college community. Coursework, academic majors and general areas of study are not limited by college membership, though colleges "host" the offices of various departments and faculty. Until recently, most classes used written evaluations instead of letter grades. Mandatory grades are now given, as at other UC campuses, but they are still sometimes supplemented with evaluations.

UCSC has been growing fast. Many students and alumni feel that it is changing from a liberal, humanities-based alternative educational institution to a high-tech science-driven institution. The Engineering school and the Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering have recently gained prominence, as has groundbreaking work being done at UCSC on the Human Genome Project[1]. But science has always been a UCSC strength, especially in departments like Astronomy and Astrophysics and Ocean Sciences (UCSC manages Lick Observatory and Keck Observatory, as well as the Long Marine Laboratory). And much of the recent growth on campus has been in new graduate programs in the humanities and social sciences, such as those in Politics, Philosophy, and Education, as well as in majors such as Film and Digital Media.

The mascot of UCSC is the banana slug. A favorite trick played on new students is to claim that banana slugs actually smell like bananas (they don't). Another is to convince them to lick a slug (the slime contains a mild anesthetic).

The Banana Slugs participate in the NAIA's California Pacific Conference.

Planning and Construction

Although the original founders had outlined their plans for the University in the 1930s, the opportunity did not present itself to build such a unique educational experiment until the City of Santa Cruz made a bid to the University of California Regents in the mid-1950s to build a campus in the mountains outside town. The formal design of the Santa Cruz campus begun in the late 1950s and construction started in the early 1960s. The campus was originally intended to be a showcase for contemporary architecture as well as a place for learning. The first building on campus to be completed was Hahn Central Services. Not long after opening, Hahn Central Services was subject to a devastating fire that gutted the building. It was then rebuilt using the undamaged concrete structure.

Until recently, most of the buildings on campus have been named after people of great worth: educators, writers, philosophers, and alternative thinkers. This tradition has slowed recently in favor of selling naming rights to buildings and colleges (e.g. Kresge College of the Kresge K-Mart fame). The roads on campus are named after the UC Regents who voted in favor of building the campus. Clark Kerr Hall is named after the man who originally imagined building a University in a way that it would be like several small Swarthmore Colleges in close proximity to each other. As such, each college was originally intended to be primarily educationally self-sustaining.

UCSC opened during a time of civil unrest when student protests on college campuses across the United States were common. According to popular myth, incoming students are sometimes told that the campus was designed on a decentralized plan, with no central quadrangle or central administrative buildings that would lend themselves readily as rallying points for such protests. However, the campus opened in 1965 and was designed several years prior, so this story is relegated to folklore, and the protests in question didn't begin until the mid-1960s. Regardless, the result was the development of one of the world's most beautiful university campuses.

Geology and History

The campus itself covers 2,000 acres (8 km²), and has an elevation change of about 900 feet (275 m) from the base of campus at 285 feet (87 m) to the upper boundary at 1,195 feet (364 m). The lower portion of the campus primarily consists of the Great Meadow, and most of the upper campus is redwood forest.

The geology and history of the campus are closely tied. The campus was a gift to the University of California from the Cowell Family, which donated a portion of their ranch. The original living quarters for ranch employees are still (mostly) standing at the base of campus, as is the stonehouse which served as the paymaster's house. The stonehouse was home to the campus newspaper, City on a Hill, from the 1970s to the mid 1990s. Many of the other original century-old ranch buildings have been renovated to have comfortable modern offices despite their antiquated appearance.

The Cowell Ranch was a part of the Henry Cowell Lime and Cement Company. The limestone that runs under most of campus was pulled from one of several quarries, the most notable being the Upper Quarry. There is an amphitheater in this quarry that is used for most of the large gatherings on campus. The original campus plan indicated a stadium in the Lower Quarry, but this plan never was realized.

Once the limestone was quarried, the lime was extracted by burning it in limekilns adjacent to the quarries. The fires were fueled by the redwood trees that were logged from adjacent land. Although most of these kilns are fenced off, they are still visible in several locations on and around campus.

Another interesting geologic feature of UCSC are the creeks running through several ravines traversing the campus. Footbridges span these ravines on pedestrian paths linking various areas of campus. These footbridges make it possible to walk to any part of campus within 20 minutes despite the campus being built on a mountainside with varying elevations.

Notable UCSC Alumni

References

External Link


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