wiki.Alumni.NET - Your Location Information Resource

From wiki.Alumni.NET

Current revision

Coordinates: 37°52′17″N 122°15′50″W 37.87139, -122.26389

University of California at Berkeley

• Address: 110 Sproul Hall, Berkeley, CA, 94720-5800, U.S.A.
• Phone: 510-642-6000
• Website: [1]
• Overview

The University of California, Berkeley (also referred to as Cal, California, Berkeley and UC Berkeley) is a public research university located in Berkeley, California, United States. The oldest of the ten major campuses affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley offers some 300 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines. The university occupies 6,651 acres (2,692 ha) with the central campus resting on approximately 200 acres (80.9 ha).^[1]

Sather Gate

The Academic Ranking of World Universities ranked UC Berkeley 3rd internationally. Newsweek and Webometrics Ranking of World Universities ranked Berkeley 5th in the World. UC Berkeley ranks 1st among public universities and ranks 21st overall in the USNWR "National University" Ranking. It ranked 2nd for undergraduate engineering and 3rd for its undergraduate business program.^[1]

Berkeley physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was the scientific director of the Manhattan Project which he personally headquartered at Los Alamos, New Mexico, during World War II. Since that time, the university has managed or co-managed the Los Alamos National Laboratory, as well as its later rival, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy.^[1]

Cal student-athletes compete intercollegiately as the California Golden Bears. A member of both the Pacific-10 Conference and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation in the NCAA, Cal students have won national titles in many sports, including football, men's basketball, baseball, softball, water polo, rugby, and crew. In addition, they have won over 100 Olympic medals. The official colors of the university and its athletic teams are Yale Blue and California Gold.^[1]

History & Memorable Moments

• In 1866, the private College of California obtained the land that includes the present Berkeley campus. Because it lacked adequate funds to operate, it eventually merged with all the state-run Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts College to create the University of California. The university's charter was signed by California Governor Henry H. Professor John Le Conte was appointed interim president, serving until 1870 when Henry Durant, the founder of the College of California was elected by the Board of Regents.

• Starting in 1891, Phoebe Hearst, mother of William Randolph Hearst, made several big gifts endowing a number of applications, sponsoring an international architectural competition, and funding the development of Hearst Hall and Hearst Memorial Mining Building. In 1905, the "University Farm" of Berkeley was shaped near Sacramento, ultimately becoming UC-Davis. UC Berkeley's reputation grew as President Wheeler succeeded in attracting renowned school to the campus and procuring research and scholarship funds. The campus started to accept the look of a contemporary college with Beaux-Arts and Neoclassical structures, including California Memorial Stadium (1923) created by architect John Galen Howard. These buildings form the core of UC Berkeley's present campus architecture.

• In the 1910s, Berkeley had a considerable function in the Indian independence movement, when Indian students studying at the university took an active part in forming the radical Ghadar Party—especially in publishing its paper, the Hindustan Ghadar, beyond the reach of the British colonial police in India.

• Robert Gordon Sproul assumed the presidency and throughout his tenure of 28 years, UC Berkeley gained international recognition as a significant research university. Before taking office, Sproul took a six-month tour of other universities and schools to review their educational and administrative techniques and also to establish connections through which he could attract gifted faculty in the future.[6] The Great Depression and World War II led to funding cutbacks, but Sproul was able to maintain academic and research specifications by campaigning for private funds. By 1942, the American Council on Training ranked UC Berkeley 2nd only to Harvard University in a number of distinguished departments.

• Since the Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts College (a public establishment shaped in 1866) was developed by the state legislature after it took advantage of the federal Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act of 1862, the first male undergraduates in the new University of California were needed to serve two hours per week for four years being trained in tactics, dismounted drill, marksmanship, camp duty, military engineering, and fortifications. In exchange for California's share of 150,000 acres (6-1,000 ha), North Hall, which no longer exists, housed an armory. To 2 years, the service requirement was dropped in 1904, as well as in 1917, Cal's ROTC was established less or more as it exists today for the four principal branches of the military with ROTC programs. The college president's report from 1902 states that "The University Cadets from the last year numbered at least 866. Appointments as 2nd lieutenants in the standard army have now been conferred upon several men who have distinguished themselves as officers in the College Cadets. It really is very much to be hoped that the War Division will create permanently the coverage of offering such appointments to the graduates of every year who show the best ability in military pursuits." Commander Chester W. Nimitz established the Naval ROTC at Cal in the fall of 1926. Commander Chester W. Nimitz established the Naval ROTC at Cal in the fall of 1926. Transferred in June 1929, Captain Nimitz left a unit of 150 midshipmen enrolled with a staff of six commissioned and six petty officers.

• UC Berkeley physics professor J. Robert Oppenheimer was named the scientific head of the Manhattan Project in 1942. Along with the descendant of the Radiation Lab, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of California originally managed and is now a partner in controlling two other labs, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which were established in 1943 and 1952, respectively. From 1943 to 1946, Berkeley was one of 131 universities and colleges nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program which provided students a road to some Navy commission.

• The military increased its presence on campus to create recruits from the officer training corps. The military program took over Bowles Hall, a dormitory, and the naval program overran the Global House, the Student Co-op Barrington Hall, and several fraternities for its trainees. By 1944, more than 1,000 navy personnel were studying at Cal, around one out of every four Berkeley students that were male. Former secretary of defense Robert McNamara and former Army chief of staff Frederick C. Weyand are both graduates of Cal's ROTC program. Together with the end of the war as well as the subsequent rise of student activism, the California Board of Regents succumbed to pressure from your student government and concluded compulsory military training at Berkeley in 1962.

• The University of California became an entity separate from the Berkeley campus as part of a major restructuring of the UC program. Each campus was given autonomy and its own Chancellor. Sproul assumed the presidency of the entire University of California program, and Clark Kerr became the first Chancellor of UC Berkeley.

• UC Berkeley's popularity for student activism was forged in the 1960s, beginning with the Free Speech Movement in 1964. The area in front Sproul Plaza had typically been a free speech location analogous to Speakers corner in London's Hyde Park. The university administration barred all political action on campus--especially speeches at the free-speech region. This was met having an impromptu reaction called the Free Speech Movement, which eventually led to the establishment of students' independence of expression. Student protests continued in the 1960s, through the Vietnam War era as campuses across the nation spoke out against American involvement in the war.

• Perhaps the most publicized occasion in Berkeley was the People's Park protest in 1969, which was a quantity of Berkeley students and a conflict involving the university and city citizens over a plot of land on which the college meant to build athletic fields. A grass roots effort by pupils and inhabitants turned it right into a residential district park, but after several weeks, the college decided to re-claim get a grip on within the property. Law enforcement was sent in and the park was bulldozed, leaving a protest. California Governor Ronald Reagan — who had mentioned in his gubernatorial election campaign which he would clean up the perceived unruliness a T Berkeley and other university campuses — called in Nationwide Guard troops and more violence erupted, resulting in over a dozen people hospitalized, a police officer stabbed, a bystander blinded, and the death of one student. The college eventually decided not to develop People's Park, though it remains the owner of the property.

• Students at UC Berkeley are typically regarded to be and much more liberal compared to the surrounding town of Berkeley, and less politically active than their predecessors. In a poll performed in 2005, 51% of Berkeley freshmen regarded themselves liberal, 3-7% considered themselves moderate, and 12% identified as conservative. 43.8% have no religious preference compared to a national average of 17.6%. In 1982, 20.8% identified as conservative, 32.9% defined as liberals, and 46.4% identified as moderate. The Berkeley College Republicans is the largest organization on campus although Republicans are in the minority. Democrats outnumber Republicans on the faculty by way of a ratio of nine to one, leading to some conservative student criticism of the faculty for teaching with a bias.

• Although considered a liberal institution numerous animal and human rights, by some groups have protested the the investigation performed at Berkeley. Hearst Museum of Anthropology's repatriation unit demonstrates unwillingness to comply with all the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, while Berkeley officials say the museum's re-organization complies with all the law and certainly will involve all museum personnel in the repatriation process. Animal-rights activists took to committing numerous acts of vandalism and intimidation against faculty members whose research involves the use of animals. Additionally, the university's response to a group of tree sitters protesting the building of a new athletic center has galvanized some members of the district, for example, city council, against the university. Plans to renovate Memorial Stadium in an in a fashion that that could eliminate a view of the area in the surrounding hills also have encountered opposition from alumni and others who have regularly watched Cal soccer games for free.

• As of 2006, the 32,347-student university needed more capital expense just to maintain current infrastructure than any other campus in the UC system, but as its enrollment is at ability, it frequently receives less state cash for improvement projects than other, growing campuses in the system. As state funding for higher schooling declines, Berkeley has progressively turned to personal resources to maintain preliminary research applications.

Employee

• U.C. Berkeley Job Listing

External Links

• Official Website

Gallery

References