Encyclopedia
The
University of California, Berkeley is the oldest and flagship campus of the ten-campus
University of California system. Founded in 1868, the campus is located in
Berkeley,
California, occupying about 200 acres on a wooded slope, plus an additional 1000 acres of largely undeveloped land in the
Oakland hills overlooking
San Francisco Bay.
Berkeley physicists played a key role in developing the atomic bomb during WWII and the hydrogen bomb soon afterwards, and the University has managed the nation's two principal nuclear weapons labs at
Livermore and
Los Alamos ever since. Berkeley scientists invented the
cyclotron, discovered the anti-proton, played a key role in developing the
laser, explained the processes underlying
photosynthesis, isolated the
polio virus, designed experiments that confirmed
Bell's Theorem, and discovered numerous elements, including Seaborgium,
Plutonium, Berkelium, Lawrencium and Californium. Berkeley computer scientists are also credited with creating
BSD. But Berkeley faculty have a no less distinguished record in fields outside the sciences as well, including four Fields Medal winners in mathematics, and nine recipients of the prestigious James S. McDonnell Foundation award.
Berkeley still enjoys a certain notoriety for its history of student activism. The Free Speech Movement , a protest that began when the university tried to remove political pamphleteers from campus, and the
People's Park riots were part of a wave of international student protest that took place during the 1960s, associated with an accompanying "
hippie"
counterculture. For all of its student activism and rebellious history, however, the Berkeley campus is remarkably serene, with numerous quiet, green areas on campus and many architecturally distinguished buildings.
History
In 1866, the land which is now the Berkeley campus was purchased by the private College of California . Lacking sufficient funds to operate, the College of California merged with state-run Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts College, forming the
University of California on March 23, 1868. Durant was the first president. In 1869, the university opened in
Oakland using the former College of California's buildings. In 1873, with the completion of North and South Halls, the university relocated to its current location with 167 male and 222 female students.
The university came of age under the direction of
Benjamin Ide Wheeler, who was University President from 1899 to 1919. Its reputation grew as President Wheeler succeeded in attracting renowned faculty to the campus and procuring research and scholarship funds. The campus began to take on the look of a contemporary university with
Beaux-Arts and
neoclassical buildings designed by architect John Galen Howard. These buildings form the core of UC Berkeley's present campus architecture.
Robert Gordon Sproul assumed the presidency in 1930 and, during his tenure of 28 years, UC Berkeley gained international recognition as a major research university. Prior to taking office, Sproul took a six month tour of other universities and colleges to study their educational and administrative methods as well as to establish connections through which he could draw talented faculty to the campus in the future.
In spite of funding cutbacks caused by the
Great Depression and
World War II, Sproul maintained academic and research excellence by campaigning for private funds. By 1942, the American Council on Education ranked UC Berkeley second only to
Harvard University in the number of distinguished departments.
During World War II,
Ernest Orlando Lawrence's
Radiation Laboratory in the hills above Berkeley began to contract with the
U.S. Army to develop the
atomic bomb, based on Berkeley's cutting-edge research in nuclear physics . Physics professor
J. Robert Oppenheimer was named scientific head of the
Manhattan Project in 1942. Room 307 of Gilman Hall, where Seaborg discovered plutonium, is now a
National Historic Landmark. Along with the descendant of the Radiation Lab, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of California manages two other labs,
Los Alamos National Laboratory and
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, were also established during this period, in 1943 and 1952, respectively.
During the
McCarthy era in 1949, the Board of Regents adopted an anti-
communist loyalty oath to be signed by all University of California employees. A number of faculty members objected to the oath requirement and were dismissed. They were reinstated with back pay ten years later. One of them, Edward C. Tolman—the noted comparative psychologist—now has a building on campus named after him housing the departments of psychology and education. An oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic” is still required of all UC employees.
In 1952, the University of California became an entity separate from the Berkeley campus as part of a major restructuring of the UC system. Each campus was given relative autonomy and its own Chancellor. Sproul assumed the presidency of the entire University of California system, and
Clark Kerr became the first Chancellor of UC Berkeley.
The University's academic achievements were partly upstaged by its student activism during the Free Speech Movement in 1964 UC Regent
Edwin Pauley turned to CIA Director John McCone and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover for assistance, and FBI files were revealed to him to discredit UC Chancellor
Clark Kerr and others.
Student protests continued into the early 1970s, with some more violent in tone than those of the Free Speech Movement. In 1969, a group of Berkeley students claimed an empty lot that the University was going to convert into a dormitory as "
People's Park". California governor
Ronald Reagan -- who had said in his gubernatorial election campaign that he would "clean up the mess" at Berkeley, and who managed to get Chancellor
Clark Kerr fired weeks after he took office because Kerr refused to crack down on the Free Speech Movement -- called in
National Guard troops. The University eventually gave in to the protesters, but not until over a dozen people were hospitalized, a police officer stabbed, and one student killed.
Today, students at UC Berkeley are less politically active and liberal than their predecessors and have opinions similar to students at most other American universities. More students at UC Berkeley are identifying themselves as "moderate" or "conservative" than in the past decades.
Military History
The military has been and continues to be an integral part of UC Berkeley's history since the university's birth. In fact, military training was compulsory at the university from 1870 to 1962.
The University of California came into being in 1868 as a merger between the cash-strapped College of California and the Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts College . The latter was created by the state legislature after it took advantage of the federal Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act of 1862, which offered states a grant of public land if they would establish a public college teaching agriculture, mechanical arts, and military tactics.
Thus the precursor to the army's
Reserve Officer Training Corps was born. In exchange for California's share of 150,000 acres , the first male undergraduates at the new University of California were required to serve two hours per week for four years being trained in tactics, dismounted drill, marksmanship, camp duty, military engineering, and fortifications. North Hall, which no longer exists, housed an armory.
The university president's report from 1902 states that "The University Cadets from last year numbered no less than 866. Appointments as second lieutenants in the regular army have been conferred upon several men who have distinguished themselves as officers in the University Cadets. It is very much to be hoped that the War Department will establish permanently the policy of offering such appointments to the graduates of each year who show the highest ability in military pursuits."
In 1904, the service requirement was dropped to two years, and in 1917, Cal's ROTC was established more or less as it exists today with ROTC programs for the all four branches of the military.
During
World War II, the military increased its presence on campus to churn out recruits from the officer training corps. The army program took over
Bowles Hall, a dormitory, and the naval program took over the International House and several fraternities for its trainees. By 1944, more than 1,000 navy personnel were studying at Cal, roughly one out of every four male Berkeley students.
With the end of the war and the subsequent rise of student activism, the California Board of Regents succumbed to pressure from the student government and ended compulsory military training at Berkeley in 1962.
Former secretary of defense
Robert McNamara and former Army chief of staff
Frederick C. Weyand are both graduates of Cal's ROTC program. To learn more about ROTC's history at UC Berkeley, visit Hearst Gymnasium's first-floor exhibits, which showcase historical photographs and memorabilia — including ship's wheels and antique machine guns.
Campus architecture and architects
The campus is approximately 1,232 acres in its entirety, though the main campus is on the western 178 acres . The campus is bordered on the west by
Downtown Berkeley, on the north by older neighborhoods, and on the east by the
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Berkeley Hills. The south campus area includes student housing and
Telegraph Avenue, a raffish shopping strip that was heavily populated by "street people" during the 1990s.
The campus is divided by two branches of Strawberry Creek. The south fork appears by the Haas School of Business and runs along the edge of the campus core before disappearing underground at the west end of campus. The north fork appears just east of University House and runs through the glade north of the Valley Life Sciences Building, the original site of the Campus Arboretum.
Trees in the area date from the founding of the University in the 1870s. The campus also contains numerous wooded areas; including:
Founders' Rock, Faculty Glade, Grinnell Natural Area, and the
Eucalyptus Grove, said to be the tallest stand of hardwood trees in North America.
Several research units overlook the campus from the rugged eastern foothills, notably the
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Space Sciences Laboratory, the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, and the
Lawrence Hall of Science.
Residential halls and administrative buildings dot the city of Berkeley, mostly south of the main campus.
The campus and surrounding community are home to a number of buildings designed by early 20th century campus architect John Galen Howard, his peer Bernard Maybeck , and Maybeck's student
Julia Morgan. Later buildings were designed by architects such as
Charles Willard Moore and Joseph Esherick .
Very little of the original University of California remains, with the Victorian Second Empire-style South Hall and Piedmont Avenue being notable exceptions.
Built in 1873, South Hall is the oldest university building in California. What is considered the historic campus today was the eventual result of the 1898 "International Competition for the
Phoebe Hearst Architectural Plan for the University of California," funded by
William Randolph Hearst’s mother and initially held in the
Belgian city of
Antwerp .
Much of the older campus is built in the
Beaux-Arts Classical style, today referred to as the “classical core” of the campus.
Howard designed over twenty buildings, which set the tone for the campus up until its expansion in the 1950s and 1960s. These included the Hearst Greek Theatre, the
Hearst Memorial Mining Building,
Doe Memorial Library, California Hall, Wheeler Hall, Le Conte Hall, Gilman Hall, Haviland Hall, Wellman Hall,
Sather Gate, and the 307-foot
Sather Tower .
Buildings he regarded as temporary, nonacademic, or not particularly "serious" were designed in shingle or
Collegiate Gothic styles, such as North Gate Hall, Dwinelle Annex, and Stephens Hall.
Many of these and other campus buildings are recognized California Historical Landmarks and are now listed on the
National Register of Historic Places.
Organization
Chancellors
The position of Chancellor was created in 1952 during the reorganization and expansion of the
University of California; there have since been nine inaugurated chancellors :
Colleges and schools
Berkeley's 130-plus academic departments and programs are organized into 14 unique colleges and schools. :
Labor unions representing UC Berkeley employees
- UPTE University Professional and Technical Employees - health care, technical and research workers
- CUE Coalition of University Employees - clericals
- UC-AFT University Council-American Federation of Teachers - faculty and librarians
- UAW United Auto Workers - Academic student employees
- AFSCME American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees- service workers and patient care technical employees.
- CNA California Nurses Association - Nurses
Names
Even though Berkeley is the flagship campus of the University of California system, the term
University of California is not applied to the campus outside of varsity sports. The official name of the campus is
University of California, Berkeley. Informally, the campus is usually called
Cal,
UC Berkeley or just
Berkeley, which are all official variations. Athletic teams are designated as
California Golden Bears or simply
Cal Bears, but the word "Berkeley" is never used in reference to them. Outside of sports,
University of California usually refers to the entire University of California system. The campus office for trademarks disallows the use of
Cal Berkeley, though it is occasionally used colloquially. Unlike most University of California campuses, which are commonly known by their initials, usage of
UCB is discouraged , and the registered domain name is
berkeley.edu.
Berkeley is sometimes confused but unaffiliated with
Berklee College of Music, a private music school in
Boston, Massachusetts, or Berkeley College, a private college with campuses in
New York and
New Jersey.
Academics
Berkeley's academic programs have been considered among the best in the world since the end of World War II, and surveys such as those by the National Research Council and the have praised the university for its broad range of academic strengths, not just in mathematics, science and engineering, but in the arts, humanities and social sciences as well.
Berkeley is an exceptionally comprehensive university, offering over 7,000 courses in nearly 300 degree programs. The university awards over 5,500 bachelor's degrees, 2,000 master's degrees, 900 doctorates, and 200 law degrees each year. The student-faculty ratio is 15.5 to 1, among the lowest of any major
public university, and the average class consists of 30 students . However, introductory classes consisting of hundreds of students are not unusual, and some Berkeley professors are criticized for being more interested in research than in undergraduate teaching.
Berkeley's faculty includes 221
American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows, 83 Fulbright Scholars, 139 Guggenheim Fellows, 87 members of the National Academy of Engineering, 132 members of the
National Academy of Sciences, 9
Nobel Prize winners, 3
Pulitzer Prize winners, 84 Sloan Fellows, and 7 Wolf Prize winners.. 58 Nobel Laureates are associated with the university, the sixth most of any university in the world. Nineteen have served on its faculty.
Berkeley has graduated more students who go on to earn doctorates than any other university in the United States, and its enrollment of National Merit Scholars was third in the nation until 2002, when participation in the National Merit program was discontinued. Berkeley's acceptance rate to medical school of 63.4% is among highest of all public universities.
Campus Enrollment
The following statistics are calculated from the Fall 2005 enrollment and were released by the University of California system :
- Total Enrollment: 33,558
- Undergraduate Enrollment: 23,482
- Women: 12,640
- Men: 10,842
- Graduate Enrollment: 10,076
- Women: 4,643
- Men: 5,433
- Undergraduates by Ethnicity:
- African American: 3.5%
- Native American: 0.5%
- Asian/Pacific Islander: 41.4%
- Chicano/Latino: 10.6%
- White: 31%
- Other: 1.6%
- Not Stated: 8.1%
- International: 3.3%
- Undergraduates Living on Campus: 28%
Rankings
According to the National Research Council, Berkeley ranks first nationally in the number of graduate programs in the top ten in their fields and first nationally in the number of "distinguished" programs for the scholarship of the faculty . Berkeley is the only university in the nation to achieve top 5 rankings for all its PhD programs in those disciplines covered by the
US News and World Report is a weekly newsmagazine [i]. ...
graduate school survey.
US News also consistently ranks Berkeley as the nation’s top
public university and within the top three for both Undergraduate Business and Undergraduate Engineering.
U.S. News & World Report recently ranked Berkeley's undergraduate program twentieth nationally in terms of "academic excellence."
The World Universities Rankings performed in 2005 by the The Times Higher Education Supplement ranked Berkeley sixth in the world , and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Institute for Higher Education ranked Berkeley fourth in the world in its 2005 and 2006 rankings. Those rankings were based upon alumni and faculty quality defined by academic reputation, as well as awards won, papers published, international presence, student to faculty ratio, frequency of citation by peers, and performance relative to size.
Admissions
UC Berkeley is perennially the most selective school in the UC system and one of the most selective universities in the United States. In 2006, Berkeley admitted 9,836 freshmen from an application pool of just under 42,000 applicants, an acceptance rate of 23.5%. The average person admitted to the university as a freshman in 2005 had a weighted GPA of 4.33, and those who matriculated in 2006 had an average GPA of 4.26 and average score of 1975 out of 2400 on the SAT admissions test. 99% of Berkeley's freshmen graduated from the top 10% of their high school class .
Graduate admissions vary by department, although in 2005 the university's graduate program admitted 3,444 students from a pool of 18,333 applicants, an overall acceptance rate of 18.3%.
Library system
Berkeley’s 32 libraries together tie for fourth largest academic library in the United States with
University of Illinois, surpassed only by the
Library of Congress,
Harvard, and
Yale. In 2003, the Association of Research Libraries ranked it as the top public and third overall university library in
North America based on various statistical measures of quality.As of 2006, Berkeley’s library system contains over 10 million volumes and maintains over 70,000 serial titles. The libraries together cover over 12 acres of land and comprise one of the largest library complexes in the world. Doe Library serves as the library system's reference, periodical, and administrative center, while most of the main collections are now housed in the subterranean Gardner Main Stacks and Moffitt Undergraduate Library.
Contributions to computer science
UC Berkeley has nurtured a number of key technologies associated with the early development of the
Internet, Free software movement and the Open Source Software movement. The original
Berkeley Software Distribution, commonly known as BSD
Unix, was assembled in 1977 by
Bill Joy, a graduate student in the computer science department. Joy also developed the original version of
vi.
PostgreSQL emerged from faculty research begun in the late 1970s.
Sendmail was developed at Berkeley in 1981. BIND was written by a team of graduate students around the same time period. The Tcl programming language and the Tk
GUI toolkit were developed by faculty member John Ousterhout in 1988.
SPICE and espresso, popular tools for IC Designers, were invented at Berkeley under the direction of Professor
Donald Pederson. The
RAID and RISC technologies were both developed at Berkeley under David Patterson.
Perhaps the most influential contributions to computing from UC Berkeley have been the algorithms and analysis of floating-point arithmetic, led by Professor William Kahan. They include extensive and ongoing contributions to the
IEEE 754 standard.
The XCF, an undergraduate research group located in Soda Hall, has been responsible for a number of notable software projects, including
GTK+,
The GIMP, and the initial diagnosis of the Morris worm. In 1992 Pei-Yuan Wei, an undergraduate at the XCF, created
ViolaWWW, one of the first graphical
web browsers. ViolaWWW was the first browser to have embedded scriptable objects, stylesheets, and tables. In the spirit of Open Source, he donated the code to
Sun Microsystems, inspiring
Java applets. ViolaWWW would also inspire researchers at the
National Center for Supercomputing Applications to create the
Mosaic web browser.
SETI@home was one of the first widely disseminated distributed computing projects, allowing hobbyists and enthusiasts to participate in scientific research by donating unused computer processor cycles in the form of a screen saver.
In an interesting example of the confluence of disparate ideas, many of the arguments for the efficacy of Open Source software development, and of the
Wikipedia project itself, find parallels in writings on urban planning and architecture published in the late 1970s by Christopher Alexander, a Berkeley professor of
architecture. At the same time,
John Searle, a Berkeley professor of philosophy, introduced a critique of
artificial intelligence using the metaphor of a Chinese Room.
Berkeley has established partnerships with
Yahoo!,
Sun Microsystems,
Google, and
Microsoft. Yahoo! Research Berkeley Labs will focus on mobile media technology and social media in a facility adjacent to the campus. Sun Microsystems, Google, and Microsoft are funding a $7.5 million dollar Reliable, Adaptive and Distributed Systems Laboratory to develop more reliable computing systems.
List of research projects conducted at Berkeley:
- Daedalus project
- Digital library project
- GiST: A Generalized Search Tree for Secondary Storage
- Harmonia research project: Open interactive programming tools
- Sather: Object-oriented language derived from Eiffel programming language
- Not Another Completely Heuristic Operating System: Instructional software for teaching undergraduate and graduate operating systems courses.
See also: - Technology alumni
- Business alumni
Distinguished Berkeley people
Nobel Prizes have been awarded to nineteen past and present faculty, among the
58 Nobel laureates associated with the university.
Student life
Athletics and traditions
UC Berkeley's sports teams compete in intercollegiate athletics as the
California Golden Bears. They participate in the
NCAA's Division I-A as a member of the
Pacific Ten Conference. The official school colors, established in 1873 by a committee of students, are Yale Blue and California Gold. Yale Blue was chosen because many of the university's founders were
Yale University graduates, while California Gold was selected to represent the Golden State of California. Cal has a long history of excellence in athletics, having won national titles in football, men's basketball, baseball, softball, men's and women's crew, men's gymnastics, men's tennis, men's and women's swimming, men's water polo, men's track, and rugby. In addition, Cal athletes have won numerous individual NCAA titles in track, gymnastics, swimming and tennis.
The official university mascot is
Oski the Bear, who first debuted in 1941. Previously, live bear cubs were used as mascots at
Memorial Stadium. It was decided in 1940 that a costumed mascot would be a better alternative to a live bear. Named after the Oski-wow-wow yell, he is cared for by the Oski Committee, who have exclusive knowledge of the identity of the costume-wearer.
The Golden Bears' traditional arch-rivalry is with the
Stanford Cardinal. The most anticipated sporting event between the two universities is the annual football game dubbed the Big Game, and it is celebrated with spirit events on both campuses. Since 1933, the winner of the Big Game has been awarded custody of
the Stanford Axe. One of the most famous moments in Big Game history occurred during the 85th Big Game on November 20, 1982. In what has become known simply as
The Play, Cal scored the winning touchdown in the final seconds with a kickoff return that involved a series of laterals and the Stanford marching band rushing onto the field.
The University of California Marching Band, which has served the university since 1891, performs at every home football game and at select road games as well. A smaller subset of the Cal Band, the Straw Hat Band, performs at basketball games, volleyball games, and other campus and community events.
The UC Rally Committee, formed in 1901, is the official guardian of California's Spirit and Traditions. Wearing their traditional blue and gold rugbies, Rally Committee members can be seen at all major sporting and spirit events. Committee members are charged with the maintenance of the five Cal flags, the large California banner overhanging the Memorial Stadium Student Section, the California Victory Cannon, Card Stunts and the Big C among other duties. The Rally Committee is also responsible for safekeeping of the Stanford Axe when it is in Cal's possession. The Chairman of the Rally Committee holds the title "Custodian of the Axe" while it is in the Committee's care.
Overlooking the main Berkeley campus from the foothills in the east, the Big C is an indelible symbol of California school spirit. The Big C has its roots in an early 20th century campus event called "Rush," which pitted the freshman and sophomore classes against each other in a race up Charter Hill that often ensued in a wrestling match. It was eventually decided to discontinue Rush and, in 1905, the freshman and sophomore classes banded together in a show of unity to build the Big C. Owing to its prominent position, the Big C is often the target of pranks by rival
Stanford University students who paint the Big C red and also Fraternities and Sororities who paint it their organization's colors. One of the Rally Committee's functions is to repaint the Big C to its traditional color of King Alfred Yellow.
Cal students invented the college football tradition of card stunts. Then known as Bleacher Stunts, they were first performed during the 1910 Big Game and consisted of two stunts: a picture of the
Stanford Axe and a large blue "C" on a white background. The tradition continues today in the Cal student section and incorporates complicated motions, for example tracing the Cal script logo on a blue background with an imaginary pen.
The California Victory Cannon, placed on Tightwad Hill overlooking the stadium, is fired before every football home game, after every score, and after every Cal victory. First used in the 1963 Big Game, it was originally placed on the sidelines before moving to Tightwad Hill in 1971. The only time the cannon ran out of ammunition was during a game against the
Pacific in 1991, when Cal scored 12 touchdowns.
California finished in seventh place in the NACDA Director's Cup standings , which measures the best overall collegiate athletic programs in the country, with points awarded for national finishes in NCAA sports. With 865.5 points, Cal's seventh place finish is the highest in the school's history.
Cal National Champions2 College World Series championships
1 NCAA Championship
1 NIT Championship
15 national championships
3 national championships
2 national championships
1 NCAA Championship
4 team NCAA championships
21 individual NCAA champions
1 USLIA MDIA national championship
22 national championships
1 NCAA championship
2 team NCAA championships
42 individual NCAA champions
12 NCAA relay championships
21 individual NCAA champions
2 NCAA relay championships
1 NCAA championship
2 NCAA singles champions
9 NCAA doubles championships
4 NCAA doubles championships
1 NCAA singles champion
1 NCAA team championship
30 individual NCAA champions
4 individual NCAA champions
11 NCAA championships
Total NCAA Team Championships 66
Student housing
UC Berkeley's student housing accommodates a variety of personal and academic preferences and styles. Presently, the university offers two years of guaranteed housing for entering freshmen, and the immediately surrounding community offers apartments, Greek housing, and Co-ops.
There are four dormitory complexes south of campus in the City of Berkeley: Units 1, 2, 3, and Clark Kerr. Units 1, 2 and 3 offer high-rise accommodations with common areas on each floor. Dining commons and other central facilities are shared by the high-rises. Because of their communal design and location in the city, these dormitories tend to be the more social of the housing options. Units 1 and 2 also have many of the newest dormitory buildings, which are intended for continuing and transfer students. Just outside these complexes are the Channing-Bowditch and Ida Jackson apartments, also intended for older students. Farther away from campus is Clark Kerr, a dormitory complex that houses many student athletes and was once a school for the deaf and blind. This complex is considered the most spacious and luxurious accommodation south of campus.
In the foothills, east of the central campus, there are three additional dormitory complexes: Foothill, Stern, and Bowles.
