University of California

About UCR

The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside), is a public research university and one of the 10 general campuses of the University of California system. The main campus sits on 1,900 acres (769 ha) in a suburban district of Riverside, California, United States, with a branch campus of 20 acres (8 ha) in Palm Desert. Founded in 1907 as the UC Citrus Experiment Station, Riverside pioneered research in biological pest control and the use of growth regulators responsible for extending the citrusgrowing season in California from four to nine months. Some of the world's most important research collections on citrus diversityand entomology, as well as science fiction and photography, are located at Riverside.

UCR's undergraduate College of Letters and Science opened in 1954. The Regents of the University of California declared UCR a general campus of the system in 1959, and graduate students were admitted in 1961. To accommodate an enrollment of 21,000 students by 2015, more than $730 million has been invested in new construction projects since 1999. Preliminary accreditation of the UC Riverside School of Medicine granted in October 2012 and the first class of 50 students was enrolled in August 2013. It is the first new research-based public medical school in 40 years.

UCR is consistently ranked as one of the most ethnically and economically diverse universities in the United States. The 2016 U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges rankings places UCR tied for 58th among top public universities, tied for 121st nationwide and ranks 16+ graduate school programs including the Graduate School of Education and the Bourns College of Engineering based on peer assessment, student selectivity, financial resources, and other factors. Washington Monthly ranked UCR 2nd in the United States in terms of social mobility, research and community service, while U.S. News ranks UCR as the fifth most ethnically diverse and, by the number of undergraduates receiving Pell Grants (42 percent), the 15th most economically diverse student body in the nation. Nearly two-thirds of all UCR students graduate within six years without regard to economic disparity. UCR's extensive outreach and retention programs have contributed to its reputation as a "campus of choice" for minority students, including LGBTstudents. In 2005, UCR became the first public university campus in the nation to offer a gender-neutral housing option.

UCR's sports teams are known as the Highlanders and play in the Big West Conference of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I. Their nickname was inspired by the high altitude of the campus, which lies on the foothills of Box Springs Mountain. The UCR women's basketball team won back-to-back Big West championships in 2006 and 2007. In 2007, the men's baseball team won its first conference championship and advanced to the regionals for the second time since the university moved to Division I in 2001.

History of UCR

At the turn of the 20th century, Southern California was a major producer of citrus, the region's primary agricultural export. The industry developed from the country's first navel orange trees, planted in Riverside in 1873. Lobbied by the citrus industry, the UC Regents established the UC Citrus Experiment Station (CES) on February 14, 1907, on 23 acres (9 ha) of land on the east slope of Mount Rubidoux in Riverside. The station conducted experiments in fertilization, irrigation and crop improvement. In 1917, the station was moved to a larger site, 475 acres (192 ha) near Box Springs Mountain.

The 1944 passage of the GI Bill during World War II set in motion a rise in college enrollments that necessitated an expansion of the state university system in California. A local group of citrus growers and civic leaders, including many UC Berkeley alumni, lobbied aggressively for a UC-administered liberal arts college next to the CES. State Senator Nelson Dilworth, former Assemblyman Philip L. Boyd and Riverside State Assemblyman John Babbage were instrumental in shepherding the legislation through the State Legislature.Governor Earl Warren signed the bill in 1949, allocating $2 million for initial campus construction.

Gordon S. Watkins, dean of the College of Letters and Science at UCLA, became the first provost of the new college at Riverside. Initially conceived of as a small college devoted to the liberal arts, he ordered the campus built for a maximum of 1,500 students and recruited many young junior faculty to fill teaching positions. He presided at its opening with 65 faculty and 127 students on February 14, 1954, remarking, "Never have so few been taught by so many."

UCR's enrollment exceeded 1,000 students by the time Clark Kerr became president of the UC system in 1958. Anticipating a "tidal wave" in enrollment growth required by the baby boom generation, Kerr developed the California Master Plan for Higher Education and the Regents designated Riverside a general university campus in 1959. UCR's first chancellor, Herman Theodore Spieth, oversaw the beginnings of the school's transition to a full university and its expansion to a capacity of 5,000 students. UCR's second chancellor, Ivan Hinderaker led the campus through the era of the free speech movement and kept student protests peaceful in Riverside. According to a 1998 interview with Hinderaker, the city of Riverside received negative press coverage for smog after the mayor asked Governor Ronald Reagan to declare the South Coast Air Basin a disaster areain 1971; subsequent student enrollment declined by up to 25% through 1979. Hinderaker's development of innovative programs in business administration and biomedical sciences created incentive for enough students to enroll at Riverside to keep the campus open.

In the 1990s, the UC experienced a new surge of enrollment applications, now known as "Tidal Wave II". The Regents targeted UCR for an annual growth rate of 6.3%, the fastest in the UC system, and anticipated 19,900 students at UCR by 2010. By 1995, African American, American Indian, and Latino student enrollments accounted for 30% of the UCR student body, the highest proportion of any UC campus at the time. The 1997 implementation of Proposition 209—which banned the use of affirmative action by state agencies—reduced the ethnic diversity at the more selective UC campuses but further increased it at UCR.

With UCR scheduled for dramatic population growth, efforts have been made to increase its popular and academic recognition. The students voted for a fee increase to move UCR athletics into NCAA Division I standing in 1998. In the 1990s, proposals were made to establish a law school, a medical school, and a school of public policy at UCR, with the UCR School of Medicine and the School of Public Policy becoming reality in 2012. In June 2006, UCR received its largest gift, 15.5 million from two local couples, in trust towards building its medical school. The Regents formally approved UCR's medical school proposal in 2006. Projected to be completed by 2013, it will be the first new medical school in 40 years built in California.

Accreditation

Institutional Accreditation or Recognition - WASC Senior College and University Commission

Rankings

• UC Riverside was ranked the #8 college in the United States by the Social Mobility Index college rankings.
• In the 2017 edition of U.S. News & World Report's "America's Best Colleges", UCR was ranked tied for 118th among national universities; criteria include professor peer assessment, student selectivity and retention, as well as faculty resources, financial resources, and alumni giving.
• In the 2016 edition of the Washington Monthly college rankings, UCR ranked 12th among national universities. Washington Monthly assesses the quality of schools based on social mobility (recruiting and graduating low-income students), research (producing cutting-edge scholarship and PhDs), and service (encouraging students to give something back to their country). 
• Money magazine ranked UC Riverside 150th in the country out of the nearly 1500 schools it evaluated for its 2014 Best Colleges ranking.
• The Daily Beast ranked UC Riverside 153rd in the country out of the nearly 2000 schools it evaluated for its 2013 Best Colleges ranking.
• According to the Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index published by Academic Analytics in 2006, UCR as an institution ranked 46th among top research universities considering such criteria as faculty publications, citations, research funding and other honors.
• Since 1997, more than 110 UCR faculty members have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Over the course of UCR's history, seven current or former faculty members have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and more than 50 have received Guggenheim Fellowships.

Student life @UCR

Much of the student life on campus revolves around extensive local outreach and retention programs. Riverside enrolls the highest percentage of African American students of any of the 10 UC campuses and the second highest percentage of Latino students after Merced, prompting the Los Angeles Times and New York Times to run stories stating that UCR is a "campus of choice" for minority students. UCR was the first college in California to open a staffed lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) resource center in 1993, the first UC campus to offer a LGBT minor studies program in 1996, and the first campus in the nation to offer a gender-neutral housing option in 2005. In recognition of this, The Advocate recognized UCR as one of the nation's best campuses for LGBT students in 2006, although it did not make the top 20. The Princeton Review listed UCR as a "Best Western College."While over 83 percent of students are non-white, there is a tendency for the different ethnic groups to self-segregate.

Housing

UCR's residence halls consist of three structures—Aberdeen-Inverness, Lothian, and Pentland Hills—which as of 2002 housed 2,930 students in triple, double and single rooms. In addition, UCR features several on-campus apartment complexes such as Stonehaven, Bannockburn Village, University Plaza, Falkirk, Oban, Glen Mor and International Village, which together house 959 students. UCR also offers student family housing at Canyon Crest, a low-density residential community that serves 268 and is slated for demolition to make room for higher-density residence halls. Glen Mor, an apartment housing complex adjacent to Pentland Hills, was opened in 2007, and the university also purchased a nearby apartment complex, which is now known as Falkirk, for student housing in 2007.About half of the student population lives in off-campus apartments, one-fourth commute, and one-fourth live on campus.Thirty percent of students remain on campus for the weekend.

Reflecting UCR's diversity, a number of residence halls have been established for specific social, cultural and academic needs. Ethnic and gender-oriented theme halls include Unete a Mundo, for students seeking to support Latino or Chicano students in acclimating to life at UCR; a Pan African Theme Hall for students interested in developing consciousness of African culture in relation to other cultures of the world; and Stonewall Hall, dedicated to students of all gender identities and sexual orientations who wish to live in a gender-neutralcommunity. UCR's three academic colleges in the humanities, sciences and engineering fields are represented by respective theme halls, and halls exist for honor students and transfer students.

Student organizations and activities

UCR hosts over 375 registered student organizations, including the Associated Students of the University of California, Riverside (ASUCR), which represents undergraduates on administrative and policy issues. ASUCR is guided by a Senate composed of 16 elected officers, who represent the three undergraduate colleges in proportion to their enrollment, 10 Directors, who are in charge of the various parts of ASUCR, and a Judicial Council of 6, which adjudicates any cases involving personnel misconduct or interpretation of the Constitution. Membership is composed of all UCR students who pay mandatory activity fees. ASUCR assesses these fees and distributes funds to registered student groups on campus, including student lobbying groups, a right that ASUCR won in a federal court case against the Regents in 1999.

Of the registered student groups, 40 are fraternities and sororities. Nine men's fraternities belong to the North-American Interfraternity Conference; seven women's sororities belong to the National Panhellenic Conference; seven men's fraternities and ten women's sororities represent the National Multicultural Greek Council, and two others fall under the campus Raza Assembly and are unique to UCR.Thirteen percent of the undergraduate student body participates in Greek life, although chapter houses are not permitted. Including the Greek letter organizations, more than 60 student volunteer service organizations at UCR contribute to more than 100,000 hours of collective and individual service done in the community each year. Jewish student life has existed for over a decade through UCR Hillel.

Student media organizations include The Highlander student newspaper, currently published every Tuesday during the academic year. First published in 1954, the Highlander remains an independent student media outlet. It was an entirely self-funded organization until 2001, when ASUCR passed a funding referendum for it. Student fees from the referendum go towards overhead and printing costs, however the Highlander is primarily funded through its own advertising revenue. In 2003, the Highlander published a comic depicting a stereotypical Asian American graduate teaching assistant with poor English skills, inciting community backlash and prompting an apology from Editor-in-Chief Kahlil Ford. Other student news publications on campus include the Asian Community Times, Indian Time, Nuestra Cosa, Queeriosity, and the X-Factor Student Newspaper. Campus literary magazines include Mosaic, published at UCR since 1959, and Crate, published by graduate students in UCR's master's level creative writing program since 2005. UCR broadcasts over radio as KUCR at 88.3 FM. The station programs a variety of independent music, news and commentary.

On-campus entertainment events are planned by a 14-member Associated Students Program Board (ASPB), comprising six student-run divisions that include concerts, films and lectures, cultural events and special events, as well as a marketing and leadership division. ASPB's major events include the Block Party Concert, Student Film Festival, International Film Festival, World Fest, Welcome Week, Homecoming and Spring Splash.

Still other on-campus events take place at The Barn, one of the original buildings on campus grounds. Throughout the 60s', 70s' and 80s' popular up and coming bands played at The Barn including No Doubt and Radiohead. During the 90s' however, the university administration sought to avoid a "party school" stigma and did away with the concerts and events and remodeled the facility into a restaurant, The Big West Bar and Grill. As recently as the fall of 2007, concerts returned to The Barn and efforts are underway to rejuvenate it and once again make it into an on-campus venue attracting students as well as the larger university community.

The Graduate Student Association of the University of California, Riverside (GSAUCR) is ASUCR's counterpart on the graduate level. It is guided by a Graduate Student Council consisting of representatives from every department on campus. GSAUCR assesses fees required of all graduate students and uses them to fund research awards and colloquiums, conference travel grants, and speaker funds.

Athletics

UCR's varsity teams compete in the Big West Conference of NCAA Division I. Programs include men's and women's soccer, cross country, basketball, track and field, baseball, softball, tennis, golf and women's volleyball. After students voted to assess themselves $35 a quarter to fund the athletic programs in 1998, men's and women's soccer and golf were added, and the athletic department switched from NCAA Division II in 2000. While at Division II level, UCR produced 5 national championship teams in men's baseball and women's volleyball. As of 2006, UCR had produced 17 individual national champions, 175 All-Americans and many conference and regional champions. The men's golf team represented UCR in the 2004 and 2005 NCAA West Regionals after winning back-to-back Conference Championships in those respective years while having three athletes ranked in the top 100 in the country. In 2006, 2007, and 2010 the UCR women's basketball team represented the conference in the Division I tournament but lost all three times in the first round. In December 2008, the UCR women's basketball team upset the #16-seeded Vanderbilt Commodores.

In 2005 the women's soccer team competed in the first round of the NCAA tournament. In 2007, UCR's baseball team won their first Big West championship and reached the Division I postseason for the second time since 2003, and the cross country team sent its first two athletes to the national championships. Football was played until 1975, and the team won two CCAA championships before the sport was discontinued because of low attendance and in anticipation of the impact of Title IX regulations.

The volleyball and basketball teams play home games in the Student Recreation Center (SRC), which seats 3,168. The baseball team competes at the Riverside Sports Complex, just off campus at the corner of Blaine and Rustin streets. UCR graduate Troy Percival personally built UCR's baseball clubhouse to major league quality standards. Softball is played at the Amy S. Harrison Field, named after a UCR graduate who donated $300,000 towards its upgrade in 2004. Adjacent to the softball field are the soccer and track fields. The soccer field was resurfaced with artificial turf in 2007.In 2011, the old track and field facility, which had bleachers that dated back to the 1950s and a track surface that was over 15 years old, was completely torn out and replaced with a brand new facility.

Non-varsity student sports clubs that compete with other area universities include the Rugby Football Club, established in 2006, which plays in the Southern California Rugby Football Union.The karate program is provided through the UC Riverside Recreation Center's Leisure Line classes. The classes are provided by top of the line USA Shotokan karate team coaches from the American JKA Karate Association, an association that has been in the city for over 40 years. It is one of the largest collegiate programs in the United States, that take competitors to local, national and international competitions.[130] A Men's and Women's Club Soccer team also competes in the West Coast Soccer Association.

In 1954, UCR's founding class adopted the name "Highlanders", reflecting the campus' high altitude. After the student body passed a referendum to move to Division I competition in 1998, the bear mascot, formerly called "Scotty", was professionally redesigned to look more ferocious. The new mascot featured a half-blue face in homage to William Wallace, the subject of the movie Braveheart. In line with the Scottish motif, UCR assembles a bagpipe band made up of students and staff who play at graduation and other campus events. The blue and gold tartan worn by the pipe band and the mascot is a registered trademark of the University of California. For the women's basketball team's first appearance at the NCAA Tournament in 2006, UCR sent 22 members of the pipe band to play at halftime.

National Championship Teams (Division II)

• Baseball (1977 and 1982).
• Women's Volleyball (1977 – AIAW, 1982 and 1986).
• Women's Soccer (1983) First place in the California Collegiate Women's Soccer Conference.