University of California, Berkeley
The
University of California, Berkeley (also known as
UC Berkeley,
Berkeley,
Cal, and by other names, see
below) 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 (4 km²) covering the steeply sloping Berkeley 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 (now also used for more peaceful research) 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, discovered plutonium, 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.
Berkeley still enjoys a certain notoriety for its history of student activism. The
Free Speech Movement (1964), a protest that began when the university tried to remove political pamphleteers from campus
[ Free Speech Movement Digital Archives], and the
People's Park riots (1969) 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.
 |
U.C. Berkeley campus circa 1940 |
In 1866, the land which is now the Berkeley campus was purchased by the private
College of California (established by Congregational minister
Henry Durant in 1855). 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.
[http://www.berkeley.edu/about/history/] In 1873, with the completion of North and South Halls, the university relocated to its current location with 167 male and 222 female students.
[http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/uchistory/general_history/campuses/ucb/overview.html]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.
[http://www.berkeley.edu/about/history/] The campus began to take on the look of a contemporary university with
Beaux-Arts and
neoclassical buildings designed by architect
John Galen Howard.
[http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CalHistory/brief-history.2.html] 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.
[http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/uchistory/general_history/overview/presidents/index2.html#sproul]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.
[http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/uchistory/general_history/overview/presidents/index2.html#sproul]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 (including
Glenn Seaborg's then-secret discovery of plutonium). Physics professor
J. Robert Oppenheimer was named scientific head of the
Manhattan Project in 1942.
[http://www.atomicarchive.com/History/mp/chronology.shtml] [http://www.childrenofthemanhattanproject.org/HISTORY/H-06c11.htm] 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.
[http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/uchistory/archives_exhibits/loyaltyoath/timelinesummary.html] They were reinstated with back pay ten years later.
[http://www.dailycal.org/article.php?id=535] 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.
[http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/.const/.article_20][http://www.dailycal.org/sharticle.php?id=542]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.
[http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CalHistory/brief-history.2.html]The University's academic achievements were partly upstaged by its student activism during the
Free Speech Movement in 1964
[http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CalHistory/60s.html] 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. (This information was not confirmed until 2002, after a 17-year
FOIA legal battle.)
[See San Francisco Chronicle investigative report, "Reagan, Hoover and the UC Red Scare," at http://www.sfgate.com/news/special/pages/2002/campusfiles/, with copies of once-secret FBI documents. "Secret FBI files show how the bureau's covert campaign to disrupt the Free Speech Movement and topple UC President Clark Kerr helped launch the political career of an actor named Ronald Reagan."] 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 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.
["Berkeley in the 60s", Bancroft Library web exhibit. Ironically, People's Park remained an empty lot for a long time thereafter, and was eventually used by the university for other purposes. Online at http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CalHistory/60s.html; Jeffery Kahn, "Ronald Reagan launched political career using the Berkeley campus as a target", UC Berkeley News (8 June 2004). Available online at http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/06/08_reagan.shtml.] |
Memorial Glade, at the center of the Berkeley campus. |
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.
[http://www.dailycal.org/sharticle.php?id=19267] More students at UC Berkeley are identifying themselves as "moderate" or "conservative" than in the past decades.
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 (a private institution incorporated in 1855) and the Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts College (a public institution formed in 1866). 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 beefed up 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 â€" including ship's wheels and antique machine guns.
The campus is approximately 1,232 acres (5 km²) in its entirety, though the main campus is on the western 178 acres (0.7 km²). 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.
|
View of the Berkeley Campus from the Big C on the foothills to the east |
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 (best known for the
Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco), and Maybeck's student
Julia Morgan. Later buildings were designed by architects such as
Charles Willard Moore (
Haas School of Business) and
Joseph Esherick (Wurster Hall).
|
South Hall (1873) is the only original building still standing on the Berkeley campus |
Very little of the original University of California (c. 1868–1903) remains, with the Victorian Second Empire-style South Hall and
Piedmont Avenue (designed by
Frederick Law Olmsted) 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 (eleven finalists were judged again in San Francisco, 1899).
[Online Exhibit on the Hearst Architectural Competition]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, (Old) Le Conte Hall, Gilman Hall, Haviland Hall, Wellman Hall,
Sather Gate, and the 307-foot
Sather Tower (nicknamed "the Campanile" after its architectural inspiration,
St Mark's Campanile in Venice).
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.
[2]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 (one was acting chancellor):
Colleges and schools
 |
Haas School of Business |
Berkeley's 130-plus academic departments and programs are organized into 14 unique colleges and schools. ("Colleges" are both undergraduate and graduate, while "Schools" are graduate-only, the exception being the School of Business.):
*
Haas School of Business*
College of Chemistry*
Graduate School of Education*
College of Engineering*
College of Environmental Design*
Graduate School of Journalism*
Boalt Hall School of Law*
School of Information*
College of Letters and Science*
College of Natural Resources*
School of Optometry*
School of Public Health*
Richard & Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy*
School of Social WelfareLabor 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
|
Berkeley has had 19 Nobel Laureates on its faculty and 54 affiliated with the university |
Although Berkeley is the flagship campus of the University of California system, it is rarely ever designated as University of California in athletics, where varsity teams are listed as California or University of California Golden Bears officially, and Cal Bears colloquially. The campus office for trademarks allows the use of the short form UC Berkeley, but not Cal Berkeley. Informally, the campus is usually called Cal, UC Berkeley or just Berkeley. The abbreviation UCB is sometimes used, and the registered domain name of the campus is
berkeley.edu. University of California at Berkeley and University of California–Berkeley are common but unofficial variations, while University of California Berkeley without the comma is accepted use.
[Trademark use guidelines by the Office of Marketing and Management of Trademarks]Berkeley is 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.
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
American Council on Education 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 (not including discussion sections led by
graduate student instructors). 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.
[About UC Berkeley: Honors and Awards]. 58 Nobel Laureates are associated with the university, the sixth most of any university in the world. Nineteen have served on its faculty. (see
list of distinguished Berkeley 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.
[http://www.ucnewswire.org/news_viewer.cfm?story_PK=4989] Berkeley's acceptance rate to medical school of 63.4% is among highest of all public universities.
[http://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/MedStats.stm]Campus Enrollment
The following statistics are calculated from the Fall 2005 enrollment and were released by the University of California system (the 2006 statistics will be released Fall 2007):
*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 (97%, 35 of 36 programs) and first nationally in the number of "distinguished" programs for the scholarship of the faculty (32 programs).
[UC Berkeley Honors & Awards: Graduate Program Rankings] Berkeley is the only university in the nation to have all of its
PhD programs ranked in the top five by
US News and World Report.
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 [
1], and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Institute for Higher Education ranked Berkeley fourth in the world [
2]. 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 had an average GPA of 4.25 [
3] and average score of 1359 out of 1600 (94th Percentile) on the SAT admissions test. 99% of Berkeley's freshmen graduated from the top 10% of their high school class [
4].
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%.
[UC Berkeley Performance Metrics] |
The north side of Doe Library with Memorial Glade in the foreground. |
Library system
Berkeley's 32 libraries together make up the fifth largest academic library in the United States, surpassed only by the
Library of Congress,
Harvard,
Yale, and the
University of Illinois. 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.
[http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2002/06/20_libry.html]As of 2006, Berkeley's library system contains over 10 million volumes and maintains over 70,000 serial titles.
[http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/news_events/whats-new.html] The libraries together cover over 12 acres of land and comprise one of the largest library complexes in the world.
[http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/97legacy/gard.html] 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
|
Unix, filiation of Unix systems |
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 (Berkeley Internet Name Domain package) 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.
|
Screenshot of SETI at Home scientific research project |
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: *
List of University of California, Berkeley alumni: Turing Award laureates*
Technology alumni*
Business alumniNobel Prizes have been awarded to nineteen past and present faculty, among the
58 Nobel laureates associated with the university.
*
List of UC Berkeley alumni*
List of UC Berkeley faculty*
List of UC Berkeley faculty & associated Nobel Laureates |
Rally Committee running Cal flags across the Memorial Stadium field at the 2002 Big Game. (Note the Stanford visitors section on the left and the UC Berkeley alumni section on the right.) |
Athletics and traditions
 |
Cal Logo |
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.
[http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/1999/0414/traditions.html] 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.
[http://calbears.collegesports.com/trads/cal-m-fb-mas.html]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.
[http://www.calband.berkeley.edu/calband/about/]The university has a Rally Committee, formed in 1901, whose members serve as the official guardians of Cal Spirit. Wearing their traditional blue and gold rugbies, RallyComm can be seen at all major sporting and spirit events. RallyComm 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, and the Big C. The Rally Committee is also responsible for safekeeping of the Stanford Axe when it is in Cal's possession.
[http://ucrc.berkeley.edu/]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 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.
[http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CalHistory/traditions.html] 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. One of the Rally Committee's functions is to repaint the Big C to its traditional gold color.
Cal students invented the college football tradition of card 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.
[http://calbears.collegesports.com/trads/cal-m-fb-tour.html]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.
[http://calbears.collegesports.com/trads/victory-cannon.html]California finished in seventh place[
5] in the NACDA
Director's Cup standings (Formerly the Sears Cup), 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 ChampionsBaseball2 College World Series championships (1947, '57)
Men's Basketball1 NCAA Championship (1959)1 NIT Championship (1999)
Men's Crew15 national championships (1928, '32, '34-35, '39, '49, '60-61, '64, '76, '99-02, '06)
Women's Crew3 national championships (1980, 2005, 2006)
Football2 national championships (1920, '37)
Men's Golf1 NCAA Championship (2004)
Men's Gymnastics4 team NCAA championships (1968, '75, '97-98)21 individual NCAA champions
Men's Lacrosse[
6]1 USLIA MD1A national championship (1998)
Rugby22 national championships (1980-83, '85-86, '88, '91-02, 2004-06)
Softball1 NCAA championship (2002)
Men's Swimming2 team NCAA championships (1979, '80)42 individual NCAA champions12 NCAA relay championships
Women's Swimming21 individual NCAA champions2 NCAA relay championships
Men's Tennis1 NCAA championship (1925)2 NCAA singles champions (1925, '26)9 NCAA doubles championships (1925, '26, '30, '35, '37, '39, '52, '90, '91)
Women's Tennis4 NCAA doubles championships (1998-00)1 NCAA singles champion (2006)
Men's Track & Field1 NCAA team championship (1922)30 individual NCAA champions
Women's Track & Field4 individual NCAA champions
Men's Water Polo11 NCAA championships (1973-75, '77, '83-84, '87-88, '90-92)
Total NCAA Team Championships 66
Student housing
|
The neo-brutalist Wada Hall, part of the Unit 2 dormitory complex. |
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 (fraternity and sorority) 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.
[http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/01/11_spring05.shtml] Just outside these complexes are the Channing-Bowditch and Ida Jackson apartments, also intended for older students.
[http://www.housing.berkeley.edu/livingatcal/channing_bowditch.html][http://www.housing.berkeley.edu/livingatcal/jackson_house.html] 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.
|
Bowles Hall, as seen at the 2003 Homecoming and Parents Weekend |
Foothill is a co-ed suite-style dorm reminiscent of a Swiss chalet. Just south of Foothill, overlooking the
Hearst Greek Theatre, is the all-girls traditional-style Stern Hall, which boasts an original mural by
Diego Rivera. Because of their proximity to the
College of Engineering and
College of Chemistry, these dorms often house science and engineering majors. They tend to be quieter than the southside complexes, but because of their location next to the theatre, often get free glimpses of concerts.
Bowles Hall, the oldest state-owned dormitory in California, is located immediately north of
California Memorial Stadium. Dedicated in 1929 and on the
National Registry of Historic Places, this all-men's dormitory has large quad-occupancy rooms and looks like a castle. This dorm is not unlike a fraternity, with many of its residents staying all four years. However, in 2005 the university decided to limit Bowles to freshmen because of complaints that it had become too raucous and was jeopardizing the learning environment.
[http://www.dailycal.org/sharticle.php?id=19190] Bowles houses what was once ranked one of
Playboy Magazine's top-10 college parties during Halloween, although the university has cracked down on this activity. Currently, the residence is being courted by the
Haas School of Business to become housing for scholars and business professionals who visit Berkeley.
[contracostatimes.com: Haas eyes dorm to house program] There is a great deal of opposition to this plan, and no final decisions have been made.
*
UC Berkeley Housing and Residential Student Services*
UC Berkeley Fraternaties and Sororities*
University Students Cooperative AssociationStudent groups
UC Berkeley has over 700 established student groups.
*
Office of Student Life HomepageUC Berkeley has a reputation for
student activism, stemming from the 1960s and the
Free Speech Movement. Today, Berkeley is known as a lively campus with activism in many forms, from email petitions, presentations on
Sproul Plaza and volunteering, to the occasional protest. Berkeley sends the most students to the
Peace Corps of any university in the nation.
[http://www.ucop.edu/pathways/infoctr/introuc/ucb.html]The
IDEAL Scholars Fund was established by four alumni to increase the number of qualified, underrepresented students of color at UC Berkeley. The Fund tries to counter the effects of California
Proposition 209, which ended
Affirmative Action in
California and in the
University of California system. The consequent reduction in the numbers of Latino, African American and Native American students rekindled activism on campus concerning issues of race. However, supporters of
Proposition 209 have noted that the number of Asian American students has dramatically increased following its passage. Racial preferences remain a controversial topic, with some students supporting them while others are opposed.
The
Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC) is the
student government organization that controls funding for student groups and organizes on-campus student events. It is considered one of the most autonomous student governments at any
public university in the U.S.
UC Berkeley's independent student-run newspaper is the
Daily Californian. Founded in 1871,
The Daily Cal became independent in 1971 after the campus administration fired three senior editors for encouraging readers to take back
People's Park.
Berkeley's FM radio station,
KALX, broadcasts on 90.7 MHz. It is run largely by volunteers, including both students and community members.
Democratic Education at Cal, or DeCal, is a program that promotes the creation of professor-sponsored, student-facilitated classes through the Special Studies 98/198 program. DeCal arose out of the 1960's
Free Speech movement and was officially established in 1981. The program offers some 150 courses on a vast range of subjects that appeal to the Berkeley student community, including classes on
The Simpsons,
Poker,
South Park,
conspiracy theories,
political debate and
DJing.[
7]
Greek Life
See also:
List of University of California Berkeley alumni: Fictional* A brief shot of the Berkeley campus appears in the movie
The Andromeda Strain as scientists around the world grapple with the appearance of a deadly new virus.
* Parts of the movie
The Graduate are set in Berkeley, with star
Dustin Hoffman running through the campus and the Berkeley town center in search of his lover, Elaine Robinson (played by
Katharine Ross). Although set in Berkeley, many of the scenes were filmed at the
University of California, Los Angeles and the
University of Southern California.
* The comedy
Junior includes scenes that were filmed on the UC Berkeley campus. Strangely, the fictional school in the movie is called "Leland University", which calls to mind the full name of Berkeley's traditional rival school,
Leland Stanford Jr. University.
* In
Forrest Gump, Forrest (
Tom Hanks) meets Jenny (
Robin Wright Penn) and her boyfriend Wesley (
Geoffrey Blake) during an anti-
Vietnam War protest rally in
Washington, D.C. Jenny tells Forrest that she lives with Wesley in Berkeley, where he is president of the Berkeley chapter of
Students for a Democratic Society. In a later scene, a protest bus flies a banner proclaiming "Berkeley to DC".
* Fictional alumni have appeared in movies and television shows such as
Mona Lisa Smile,
The OC,
Grey's Anatomy,
24, and
The West Wing. For a list of such characters, refer to
List of University of California Berkeley alumni: Fictional.
*In the opening scene of
Made in America,
Whoopi Goldberg rides her bike through the university's south campus and through heavy traffic on Telegraph Avenue.
*Even though a recent episode of the popular teen dramedy
The OC was set at Berkeley, the scenes were shot at the
University of California, Los Angeles due to budget constraints. However, there is a lone shot of the Valley Life Sciences Building during the episode.
*One scene of the film in
National Lampoon's Van Wilder, when Van's peers and professors are deciding his graduation fate, has the Campanile shown in the background.
* A shot of the Campanile and surrounding buildings with the caption "An Average College Somewhere in Texas" appears in the independent stoner-comedy
Rolling Kansas*Official websites
* Berkeley Main Website
* Berkeley in the News
* Berkeley NewsCenter
* ASUC student government
* The Berkeleyan faculty and staff newsletter
* Cal Bears athletics
* The Daily Californian independent student newspaper
* General Course Catalog
* Library System Homepage
* Office of Planning and Analysis: Campus Statistics
* ScienceMatters @ Berkeley online science-oriented magazine
* @cal online alumni community
* Open Computing Facility free, volunteer-run computer center
* DeCal Home PageOther
* A. Twu's Tour of UC Berkeley
* A Loafer's Guide to the UC Berkeley Campus by Carolyn Dougherty
* Berkeley Police Department Crime Statistics Map
* CSUA (Computer Science Undergraduate Association) web site
* Tau Beta Pi Unofficial Guide to Engineering
* TerraServer-USA aerial image of campus
* "We're No. 2! Now What?"— Berkeleyan article about Berkeley's rankings and their validity
* UC Berkeley Cafeterias go Organic
* Oski: School Mascot
