UNIVERSITY of
CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY
Berkeley, CA
Est. 1868
Ranking
#4
Top University in the US
(topuniversities.com)
Est.
1868
Students
43,000
Other Rankings
- #6 in World University Rankins 2018-19 by cwur.org.
- #1 in “25 Best Master’s in Civil Engineering Degrees.” by collegechoice.net.
- #1 in “Top 30 Pre-college Summer Programs for 2019” by collegeconsensus.com.
- #4 in “The 50 Best Computer Science Programs in the World.” in thebestschools.org.
Mascot
- Oski the Bear
Website
"
Fiat Lux - Let there by Light.
"
About
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public research university in Berkeley, California. Founded in 1868, it is the oldest campus of the University of California system, and is considered by some to be one of the system’s flagship campuses, along with the University of California, Los Angeles.
As of fall 2019, Berkeley has an enrollment of 43,204, of which 31,348 are undergraduates and 11,856 are graduate students. Berkeley’s 130-plus academic departments and programs are organized into 14 colleges and schools in addition to UC Berkeley Extension. Colleges offer both undergraduate and graduate courses and degrees, while Schools are generally graduate only. Berkeley offers 106 bachelor’s degrees, 88 master’s degrees, 97 research-focused doctoral programs, and 31 professionally focused graduate degrees.
Berkeley is one of the 14 founding members of the Association of American Universities and had $797 million in research and development expenditures in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2018. Today, Berkeley maintains close relationships with three United States Department of Energy National Laboratories—Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory—and is home to many institutes, including the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and the Space Sciences Laboratory. Through its partner institution University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Berkeley also offers a joint medical program at the UCSF Medical Center.
History
Alma Mater
After the passage by the US Congress of the Morrill Act in 1862, the California legislature procrastinated in establishing a land-grant university. Meanwhile, in 1866, the private College of California purchased the land comprising the current Berkeley campus to re-sell it in subdivided lots to raise funds. The effort failed to raise the necessary funds so the private college merged with the state-run Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts College to form the University of California, the first full-curriculum public university in the state. This designation fulfilled the requirement for access to Morrill Act donated land.
Upon its founding, The Dwinelle Bill (California Assembly Bill No. 583) stated that the “University shall have for its design, to provide instruction and thorough and complete education in all departments of science, literature and art, industrial and professional pursuits, and general education, and also special courses of instruction in preparation for the professions”.
Ten faculty members and almost 40 students made up the new University of California when it opened in Oakland in 1869. Frederick H. Billings was a trustee of the College of California and suggested that the new site for the college north of Oakland be named in honor of the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley. During the following year the college began admitting women. In 1870, Henry Durant, the founder of the College of California, became the first president. With the completion of North and South Halls in 1873, the university relocated to its Berkeley location with 167 male and 22 female students where it held its first classes.
Beginning in 1891, Phoebe Apperson Hearst made several large gifts to Berkeley, funding a number of programs and new buildings and sponsoring, in 1898, an international competition in Antwerp, Belgium, where French architect Émile Bénard submitted the winning design for a campus master plan.
First half of 20th century
20th century
In 1905, the University Farm was established near Sacramento, ultimately becoming the University of California, Davis. In 1919, Los Angeles State Normal School became the southern branch of the University, which ultimately became University of California, Los Angeles. By 1920s, the number of campus buildings had grown substantially, and included twenty structures designed by architect John Galen Howard.
Robert Gordon Sproul served as president from 1930 to 1958. In the 1930s, Ernest Lawrence helped establish the Radiation Laboratory (now Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) and invented the cyclotron, which won him the Nobel physics prize in 1939. Based on the cyclotron, UC Berkeley scientists and researchers, along with Berkeley Lab, went on to discover 16 chemical elements of the periodic table – more than any other university in the world. In particular, during World War II and following Glenn Seaborg’s then-secret discovery of plutonium, Ernest Orlando Lawrence’s Radiation Laboratory began to contract with the U.S. Army to develop the atomic bomb. UC Berkeley physics professor J. Robert Oppenheimer was named scientific head of the Manhattan Project in 1942. Along with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley was then a partner in managing two other labs, Los Alamos National Laboratory (1943) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (1952).
By 1942, the American Council on Education ranked Berkeley second only to Harvard in the number of distinguished departments. During the McCarthy era in 1949, the Board of Regents adopted an anti-communist loyalty oath. A number of faculty members led by Edward C. Tolman objected and were dismissed; ten years passed before they were reinstated with back pay.
Second half of 20th century
–
In 1951, the University of California began to reorganize itself into a system of coequal campuses, as opposed to the previous structure which prioritized Berkeley. Each campus was given relative autonomy and its own chancellor. In 1952 Clark Kerr became the first Chancellor of UC Berkeley, while Sproul remained in place as the President of the University of California.
Berkeley gained worldwide reputation for student activism in the 1960s with the Free Speech Movement of 1964 and opposition to the Vietnam War. In the highly publicized People’s Park protest in 1969, students and the school conflicted over use of a plot of land; the National Guard was called in and violence erupted. Then governor of California Ronald Reagan called the Berkeley campus “…a haven for communist sympathizers, protesters, and sex deviants”.
In 1982, the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) was founded on the Berkeley campus at the request of three Berkeley mathematicians – Shiing-Shen Chern, Calvin Moore and Isadore M. Singer—and with the support of the National Science Foundation. The institute was later moved to the Berkeley Hills. The institute is now widely regarded as a leading center for collaborative mathematical research, drawing thousands of visiting researchers from around the world each year.
The 21st century
Present
In the new century, Berkeley has become less politically active and more focused on entrepreneurship and fundraising, especially for STEM disciplines. Modern Berkeley students are less politically radical, with a greater percentage of moderates and conservatives than in the 1960s and 70s. Democrats outnumber Republicans on the faculty by a ratio of 9:1. On the whole, Democrats outnumber Republicans on American university campuses by a ratio of 10:1.
With state funding waning in recent decades, Berkeley relies increasingly on private support (see “Funding” below). The 2008–13 Campaign for Berkeley raised $3.13 billion from 281,855 donors and the “Light the Way” campaign is scheduled to raise $6 billion by the end of 2023.
In 2007, Stanley Hall, a state-of-the-art research facility and headquarters for the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, opened and the Energy Biosciences Institute was established with funding from BP. The next few years saw the dedication of the Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences, funded by a lead gift from billionaire Li Ka-shing; the opening of Sutardja Dai Hall, home of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society; and the unveiling of Blum Hall, housing the Blum Center for Developing Economies. Supported by a foundational grant from alumnus, mathematician, and billionaire hedge-fund manager James Simons, the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, housed in Calvin Lab, was established in 2012. In 2014, Berkeley and its sister campus, UCSF, established the Berkeley-based Innovative Genomics Institute, and, in 2020, an anonymous donor pledged $252 million to help fund a new center for computing and data science just north of Koshland Hall.
Since 2000, Berkeley alumni and faculty have received 37 Nobel Prizes, behind only Harvard and MIT among US universities; five Turing Awards, behind only MIT and Stanford; and five Fields Medals, second only to Princeton. According to PitchBook, Berkeley ranks second, just behind Stanford, in producing VC-backed entrepreneurs.
Show Less
Campus
The Berkeley campus encompasses approximately 1,232 acres (499 ha), though the “central campus” occupies only the low-lying western 178 acres (72 ha) of this area. Of the remaining acres, approximately 200 acres (81 ha) are occupied by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; other facilities above the main campus include the Lawrence Hall of Science and several research units, notably the Space Sciences Laboratory, the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, an undeveloped 800-acre (320 ha) ecological preserve, the University of California Botanical Garden and a recreation center in Strawberry Canyon. Portions of the mostly undeveloped, eastern area of the campus are actually within the City of Oakland; these portions extend from the Claremont Resort north through the Panoramic Hill neighborhood to Tilden Park.
Notable Alumni
As of October 2019, Berkeley alumni, faculty members and researchers include 107 Nobel laureates, the third most of any university worldwide, as well as 25 Turing Award winners and 14 Fields Medalists. They have also won 19 Wolf Prizes, 45 MacArthur Fellowships, 20 Academy Awards, 20 Pulitzer Prizes, and 207 Olympic medals. In 1930, Ernest Lawrence invented the cyclotron at Berkeley, based on which UC Berkeley researchers along with Berkeley Lab have discovered or co-discovered 16 chemical elements – more than any other university. During the 1940s, Berkeley physicist J. R. Oppenheimer, the “Father of the Atomic Bomb”, led the Manhattan project to create the first atomic bomb. In the 1960s, Berkeley was particularly noted for the Free Speech Movement as well as the anti–Vietnam War movement led by its students. In the 21st century, Berkeley has become one of the leading universities in producing entrepreneurs, and its alumni have founded or co-founded many companies worldwide, including Apple, Tesla, Intel, eBay, SoftBank, AIG, and Morgan Stanley.
Douglas Engelbart
American engineer and inventor; invented the computer mouse.
University of California, Berkeley
Robert B. Laughlin
Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Stanford University; Nobel laureate in physics.
University of California, Berkeley
Robert McNamara
American business executive and the eighth United States Secretary of Defense.
University of California, Berkeley
Earl Warren
American politician and jurist; former governor of California.
University of California, Berkeley
FAIR USE STATEMENT
This page may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Most of the time, however, we give credits to the author of quotes, photos and other related materials. We sourced these materials from various internet sites, in an effort to advance understanding of environmental, political, geographical, anthropological, biological, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific, cultural and social justice issues, etc.
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_California,_Berkeley
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/
https://www.topuniversities.com/