University of California

About UC Santa Cruz 

The University of California, Santa Cruz (also known as UC Santa Cruz or UCSC), is a public research university and one of 10 campuses in the University of California system. Located 75 miles (120 km) south of San Francisco at the edge of the coastal community of Santa Cruz, the campus lies on 2,001 acres (810 ha) of rolling, forested hills overlooking the Pacific Ocean and Monterey Bay.

Founded in 1965, UC Santa Cruz began as a showcase for progressive, cross-disciplinary undergraduate education, innovative teaching methods and contemporary architecture. Since then, it has evolved into a modern research university with a wide variety of both undergraduate and graduate programs, while retaining its reputation for strong undergraduate support and student political activism. The residential college system, which consists of ten small colleges, is intended to combine the student support of a small college with the resources of a major university.

• Division of the Arts

• Division of Humanities

  What does it mean to be human, to analyze and construct the human experience? These are the fundamental questions that guide and unite the learning, teaching and scholarship conducted in UC Santa Cruz’s Humanities Division. The exploration and discussion of this query has culminated in some of humanity’s most deeply and widely valued beliefs and teachings about ourselves and the world in which we live.

• Division of Physical & Biological Sciences

  • 24 Fellows, American Academy of Arts & Sciences
  • 27 Fellows, American Association for the Advancement of Science
  • 21 Members, National Academy of Sciences
  • 1 Member, American Philosophical Society
  • 1st: national ranking for impact of research in space sciences (NASA, 2008)
  • 2nd: world ranking for impact of research in physical science
  • 18th worldwide for work in geosciences (British Publication, Times Higher Education)
  • 4 faculty members the most highly cited researchers in their fields, according to the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI)

• Division of Social Sciences

  • Largest Academic Division on the UC Santa Cruz Campus
    • Eight Academic Departments
    • Two Residential Undergraduate Colleges
    • 8 Ph.D. Programs
    • 25 Undergraduate Degree Programs
  • Largest Enrollments on UC Santa Cruz Campus
    • Awards 45% of Total Bachelor Degrees
    • Awards 22% of Total Ph.D. Degrees
  • 136 Full-time Faculty
  • 100 Full-time Staff
  • UC Santa Cruz ranks #30 in U.S. News and World Report's 2017 list of public national universities.

• Jack Baskin School of Engineering

  The Baskin School of Engineering is located in the Baskin Engineering and Engineering 2 buildings on the UC Santa Cruz campus. The School includes departments of Applied Mathematics and Statistics (AMS), Biomolecular Engineering (BME), Computational Media (CM), Computer Engineering (CE), Computer Science (CS), Electrical Engineering (EE) and Technology Management (TM).

History of UC Santa Cruz 

Although some of the original founders had already outlined plans for an institution like UCSC as early as the 1930s, the opportunity to realize their vision did not present itself until the City of Santa Cruz made a bid to the University of California Regents in the mid-1950s to build a campus just outside town, in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains.The Santa Cruz site was selected over a competing proposal to build the campus closer to the population center of San Jose. Santa Cruz was selected for the beauty, rather than the practicality, of its location, however, and its remoteness led to the decision to develop a residential college system that would house most of the students on-campus. The formal design process of the Santa Cruz campus began in the late 1950s, culminating in the Long Range Development Plan of 1963. Construction had started by 1964, and the university was able to accommodate its first students (albeit living in trailers on what is now the East Field athletic area) in 1965. The campus was intended to be a showcase for contemporary architecture, progressive teaching methods, and undergraduate research. According to founding chancellor Dean McHenry, the purpose of the distributed college system was to combine the benefits of a major research university with the intimacy of a smaller college. UC President Clark Kerr shared a passion with former Stanford roommate McHenry to build a university modeled as "several Swarthmores

Impact on Santa Cruz

Although the city of Santa Cruz already exhibited a strong conservation ethic before the founding of the university, the coincidental rise of the counterculture of the 1960s with the university's establishment fundamentally altered its subsequent development. Early student and faculty activism at UCSC pioneered an approach to environmentalism that greatly impacted the industrial development of the surrounding area. The lowering of the voting age to 18 in 1971 led to the emergence of a powerful student-voting bloc. A large and growing population of politically liberal UCSC alumni changed the electorate of the town from predominantly Republican to markedly left-leaning, consistently voting against expansion measures on the part of both town and gown.

Expansion plans

Plans for increasing enrollment to 19,500 students and adding 1,500 faculty and staff by 2020, and the anticipated environmental impacts of such action, encountered opposition from the city, the local community, and the student body. City voters in 2006 passed two measures calling on UCSC to pay for the impacts of campus growth. A Santa Cruz Superior Court judge invalidated the measures, ruling they were improperly put on the ballot. In 2008, the university, city, county and neighborhood organizations reached an agreement to set aside numerous lawsuits and allow the expansion to occur. UCSC agreed to local government scrutiny of its north campus expansion plans, to provide housing for 67 percent of the additional students on campus, and to pay municipal development and water fees.

George Blumenthal, UCSC's 10th Chancellor, intends to mitigate growth constraints in Santa Cruz by developing off-campus sites in Silicon Valley. The NASA Ames Research Center campus is planned to ultimately hold 2,000 UCSC students – about 10% of the entire university's future student body as envisioned for 2020.

In April 2010, UC Santa Cruz opened its new $35 million Digital Arts Research Center; a project in planning since 2004.

Accreditation

Institutional Accreditation or Recognition - WASC Senior College and University Commission

Rankings

• UC Santa Cruz was tied for 79th in the list of Best National Universities in the United States by U.S. News & World Report's 2017 rankings.
• In 2015 Kiplinger ranked UC Santa Cruz 63rd out of the top 100 best-value public colleges and universities in the nation, and 7th in California.
• Money Magazine ranked UC Santa Cruz 114th in the country out of the nearly 1500 schools it evaluated for its 2015 Best Colleges ranking.
• The Daily Beast ranked UC Santa Cruz 157th in the country out of the nearly 2000 schools it evaluated for its 2013 Best Colleges ranking.
• In 2016–2017, UC Santa Cruz was rated 146th in the world by Times Higher Education World University Rankings.
• In 2016 it was ranked 83rd in the world by the Academic Ranking of World Universities and 296th worldwide in 2016 by the QS World University Rankings.
• In 2009, RePEc, an online database of research economics articles, ranked the UCSC Economics Department sixth in the world in the field of international finance.
• In 2007, High Times magazine placed UCSC as first among US universities as a "counterculture college."
• In 2009, The Princeton Review (with Gamepro magazine) ranked UC Santa Cruz's Game Design major among the top 50 in the country.
• In 2011, The Princeton Review and Gamepro Media ranked UC Santa Cruz's graduate programs in Game Design as seventh in the nation.
• In 2012, UCSC was ranked No. 3 in the Most Beautiful Campus list of Princeton Review.

Student life @UC Santa Cruz

UCSC students are known for political activism. In 2005, a Pentagon surveillance program deemed student opposition to military recruiterson campus a "credible threat," the only campus antiwar action to receive the designation. In February 2006, Chancellor Denice Dentongot the designation removed. Military recruiters declined to return to UCSC the following year, but returned in 2008 to a more low-keyed student reception and protests using elements of guerrilla theatre, rather than vandalism or physical violence. Thanks to students passing a $3 quarterly tuition increase to support buying renewable energy in 2006, UCSC is the sixth-largest buyer of renewable energy among college campuses nationwide.

UC Santa Cruz is also well known for its cannabis culture. On April 20, 2007, approximately 2,000 UCSC students gathered at Porter Meadow to celebrate the annual "420". Students and others openly smoked marijuana while campus police stood by.The once student-only event has grown since the city of Santa Cruz passed Measure K in 2006, an ordinance making marijuana use a low-priority crime for police. The 2007 event attracted a total of 5,000 participants. The university does not condone the gathering, but has taken steps to regulate the event and ensure security for all participants. On April 20, 2010, the school administration shut down the west entrance to campus and limited the amount of buses that could drive through campus.

Another well known tradition is what is known as "First Rain". Students run around campus naked or nearly naked to celebrate the school year's first night of heavy rain. The run begins at Porter and proceeds to travel through all the other colleges, collecting more students in its train.

Student government

The Student Union Assembly was founded in 1985 to better coordinate bargaining positions between students and administration on campus-wide issues.All the residential colleges and six ethnic and gender-based organizations send delegates to SUA. There is a total of 138 recognized student groups as of 2008.

Student media

All Student media organizations are funded by a student council referendum of $3.20 per student per quarter.

• City on a Hill Press, a weekly publication that serves as the traditional campus newspaper.
• Fish Rap Live!, the alternative, comedic paper.
• TWANAS, the Third World and Native American Student Press Collective publishes issues about every quarter for various communities of color at UCSC. Its peak years were during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
• Student Cable Television (SCTV) disbanded at the beginning of the 2010 academic school year. On The Spot (OTS), replaced the defunct SCTV organization, continuing the student-run television opportunities. On The Spot airs on channel 28 only on campus.
• The Moxie Production Group, which produces content on a quarterly basis.
• The Project, a quarterly paper, for UCSC's radical community.
• The Disorientation Guide, published on sporadic years, introduces new students to UCSC's radical history and various political issues that face the campus and community.
• Rapt Magazine, a quarterly literary and arts magazine.
• Leviathan Jewish Journal, a Jewish student life publication.
• On The Spot, a student-run broadcast media organization, that produces a variety of shows including Press Center Live (Sketch-Comedy), ART (Music videos), and game shows.
• Banana Slug News, a television broadcast news program.
• Chinquapin, an open-ended creative journal sponsored by the creative writing department.
• Turnstile, a poetry journal.
• "Gaia Magazine," a magazine about environmental and sustainability subjects that is published once a year.
• Red Wheelbarrow, a "literary arts" journal.
• Matchbox Magazine, an annual humanities publication, started at UCSC, that operates across many UC campuses.
• EyeCandy, an annual student-run film journal associated with the Film and Digital Media department.
• KZSC, the student-run campus radio station.
• Santa Cruz Indymedia, a local activist resource with a lot of UCSC content.
• The Film Production Coalition which produces films on a quarterly basis.

Housing

Most of the UCSC undergraduate housing is affiliated with one of the ten residential colleges. The residence halls, which include both shared and private rooms, typically house fifteen to twenty students per floor and have common bathrooms and lounge areas. Some halls have coed floors where men and women share bathroom facilities, others have separate bathroom facilities for men and women. Single-gender, gender-neutral and substance-free floors are also available.

All of the colleges, except for Kresge, have both residence halls and apartments. Kresge is all apartments. Apartments are typically shared by four to eight students, have common living/dining rooms, kitchens and bathrooms, and a combination of shared and private bedrooms. Apartments at colleges other than Kresge are generally reserved for students above the freshman level.

In addition to the residential colleges, housing is available at the Village on the lower quarry, populated by continuing and transfer students (in 2016-17, this will be restricted to only continuing students); the Redwood Grove Apartments, which is available to continuing student applicants from all colleges; and the University Town Center, located downtown, that serves both continuing and transfer students. The Transfer Community is located in sections of both the A and B Buildings at Porter College and over 500 residents live within this theme housing. Graduate Student Housing is available near Science Hill, and UCSC also offers Family Student Housing units as well as a Camper Park for student-owned trailers and RVs.

Greek life

UCSC is home to few fraternities and sororities. The first Greek organization on campus, Theta Chi, was given colony status on January 10, 1987 and chartered on October 14, 1989 (designation: Theta Iota). In the beginning, fraternities like Theta Chi and Sigma Alpha Epsilon were met with strong opposition from the student body. Student groups like P.A.C. (People's Alternative Community), S.A.G.E. (Students Against Greek Environments), and M.A.C. (Men's Alternative Community) protested the existence of Greek life at the UCSC campus.

Greek life at UCSC includes fraternities Sigma Lambda Beta, Tau Kappa Epsilon, Sigma Pi, Lambda Phi Epsilon, Sigma Phi Zeta, Alpha Epsilon Pi, Pi Alpha Phi, and Delta Lambda Psi, the nation's first gender neutral queer Greek organization. Sororities that are members of the National Panhellenic Council at the University of California, Santa Cruz include Gamma Phi Beta and Kappa Kappa Gamma. Recently in June 2016 the Theta Xi chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta was chartered to bring a third National sorority to UC Santa Cruz. Sororities on campus include Delta Sigma Theta, Sigma Lambda Gamma, Sigma Alpha Epsilon Pi, alpha Kappa Delta Phi, Gamma Phi Beta, Kappa Kappa Gamma, Sigma Pi Alpha, Tri Chi, Sigma Omicron Pi, Kappa Zeta, Lambda Theta Alpha and Alpha Psi. The most recent Greek lettered organization added to the campus was Zeta Phi Beta sorority, which chartered its chapter Gamma Phi as of Spring 2016.

In 2016, six students affiliated with the sorority Alpha Kappa Delta Phi and the fraternity Lambda Phi Epsilon were arrested as part of a suspected Ecstasy drug ring when Homeland Security Investigations, the US Drug Enforcement Administration, the US Postal Inspection Service-San Jose Team, and the Santa Cruz Police Department Neighborhood Enforcement Team found over $100,000 in MDMA (about 5,000 tablets).

Aside from social fraternities and sororities on campus, there are also a number of professional organizations as well. There are Kappa Gamma Delta, a prehealth sorority, Sigma Mu Delta, a prehealth fraternity, Alpha Phi Omega, a coed service fraternity, Phi Alpha Delta, a pre-law fraternity, and Delta Sigma Pi, a co-ed professional business fraternity.

Sustainability

Though UCSC has been known for its conservation efforts and environmentally minded students since it was founded, since 2000 enthusiasm for the UCSC sustainability movement has grown steadily among students and administrators alike. Students established the Student Environmental Center (SEC) in 2001, have held annual Earth Summits, and established a sustainability funding body, the Campus Sustainability Council. In 2004, the UC Policy on Sustainable Practices was released, stating that the University of California Office of the President was committed to minimizing its impact on the environment and reducing its dependence on non-renewable energy. This set the scene for huge breakthroughs in 2006, when a Committee on Sustainability and Stewardship (CSS) was established and a campus-wide Sustainability Assessment was completed. The following year, the pilot Sustainability Office was created to help institutionalize sustainability, coordinate communication and collaboration between the many entities already engaged in campus sustainability activities at UCSC, support policy implementation, and serve as a resource for the campus. Sustainability has become a major part of every aspect of the campus, and students, staff, and faculty campus-wide are working toward sustainability in a variety of different ways.

Organizations

The following is a list of UCSC sustainability organizations, departments, gardens, and funding bodies on the UCSC campus:

• Alliance to Save Energy's Power Save Green Campus Program (formerly known as Green Campus Program)
• Arboretum
• California Student Sustainability Coalition (CSSC)
• Campus Sustainability Council (CSC)
• Campus Sustainability Office
• Carbon Fund
• Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems
• Center for Global, International and Regional Studies
• College Eight: Nurturing Green Entrepreneurs
• Community Agroecology Network (CAN)
• Education for Sustainable Living Program (ESLP)
• Environmental Studies Department
• Friends of the Community Agroecology Network (FoCAN)
• Friends of the Sustainability Office (FoSO)
• IDEASS
• Kresge Garden
• Meatless Mondays, Beefless Thursdays & Farm Fridays in the dining halls
• Path to a Greener Stevenson (PTAGS)
• Program in Community and Agroecology (PICA)
• Program Recognizing Offices Practicing Sustainability (PROPS), a green office certification program
• Site Stewardship Program
• Student Environmental Center (SEC)
• Student Environmental Center (SEC)
• UCSC Climate Change Research Resources
• UCSC Greenhouses
• UCSC Museum of Natural History Collections
• UCSC Natural Reserves
• UCSC Sustainability Engineering and Ecological Design
• Formula Slug

Why UCSC?

UCSC is a world-class research and teaching university featuring interdisciplinary learning and a distinctive residential college system. From building more efficient solar cells to researching personalized care for cancer patients, UC Santa Cruz's focus is on improving our planet and the lives of all its inhabitants. Within our extraordinary educational community, students, faculty, and staff create new knowledge, new technologies, and new ways of expressing and understanding cultures.

• UCSC ranked 2nd in the world for research influence, tied with Stanford University (Source: Times Higher Education, 2015)
• UCSC is located near the heart of Silicon Valley, the worldwide hub of technological innovation. Our close proximity affords students with unparalleled research, internship, and employment opportunities.
• UCSC ranked 1st worldwide for research impact in molecular biology (Source: Science Watch, 2008)
• UCSC is home to a major in robotics engineering (The major, leading to a B.S. degree, is the first of its kind in the UC system)
• UCSC ranked 7th worldwide in international finance (Source: Research Papers in Economics, 2009)
• In 2010, Forbes Magazine listed UCSC as one of the 23 most beautiful campuses in the world.