The good news is that the other campuses have
largely fulfilled Kerr’s dream – they’ve become significant research
universities in each case. Pioneering research is a critical
component of the highest quality education, and perhaps as a corollary
consequence, these UC ‘clones’ have largely emulated Cal’s
breadth of undergraduate disciplines that Kerr envisioned for the top 12% of
students.
Even though Jacobsen omitted this analysis, it is
worth considering each campus in turn.
UC
San Francisco, with the mission to be “the world’s pre-eminent
health sciences innovator, joined with UC Berkeley in 1873. In
2009-2010, UCSF became the only institution to claim faculty who earned the
Nobel Prize, Albert Lasker Award and Shaw Prize within a single academic
year. Five UCSF faculty are recipients
of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
UCSF faculty are ranked third for "scholarly productivity"
among all universities and research institutes worldwide, according to 2007
data published by the Chronicle of Higher Education.
UC
Davis began in 1905, admitting ‘ag students’ for what
is still the largest physical UC campus at 5,300 acres. Their oenology program today leads the
nation, but in addition they are:
·
1st among 96
of “America’s Coolest Schools 2012,” Sierra magazine's 6th
annual ranking of the greenest universities (a publication of the Sierra Club)
· 1st among national universities
in number of faculty papers written in the field of ecology and the
environment, agriculture, entomology, food science and nutrition, and plant and
animal sciences (ScienceWatch)
· Tied for 1st among research
universities (with UC Berkeley and Penn State) as the top producer of U.S.
Fulbright Scholars, 2012-13
“The UC Southern Branch” opened in 1919; it was
named University of California at Los Angeles in 1927 (quickly known as UCLA), enrolling 5,500 students in 1929
on a new Westwood campus. Operating as
an autonomous unit, by 1938 UCLA was conducting its own research program and
granting PhD degrees. UCLA today is the
largest UC student body, with 28,000 undergraduates and 12,000 graduate
students. There are 405,000 living
alumni for UCLA, versus 452,000 for Cal.
UCLA faculty and alumni have garnered twelve Nobel Prizes and several
hundred other prestigious awards; the Internet was born at UCLA in the early
1960s.
UC
Santa Barbara joined the
renowned University of California system in 1944, growing to be an integral
and important part of public postsecondary education in the state. UCSB’s
1,050-member faculty includes five Nobel Prize winners, scores of elected
members of national and international academies and societies, and dozens of
Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowship winners.
For the past decade, UC Santa Barbara’s researchers have outscored
every other UC campus in scientific rankings, scoring an incredible 2nd
place worldwide in impact and value of faculty publications, slightly behind
MIT but ahead of Stanford, Caltech, and Berkeley.
Recognition of UCSB’s academic
quality takes many forms. One of the most prestigious is support from the
National Science Foundation. The campus is now home to 12 national centers
and institutes, eight of which are sponsored by the NSF, including the
Materials Research Laboratory, the National Center for Ecological Analysis
and Synthesis, the Southern California Earthquake Center, and the renowned
Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics.
The California NanoSystems
Institute—one of the California Institutes for Science and Innovation—focuses
on dramatic breakthroughs in materials, devices, and resulting technologies,
made possible by controlling form and function at the nanoscale. At the interdisciplinary Carsey-Wolf Center,
students and scholars study everything from silent films to the latest in
digital media and satellite communications, all in the context of a strong
liberal arts and sciences curriculum.
|
In 1948, the University of California
Regents approved the establishment of the College of Letters and Science at
Riverside. The college opened for classes in February 1954. In 1959, Riverside was declared a general
campus by the Regents and courses of study began to be developed. The
University’s Graduate Division was established in 1960.
Since then, UC Riverside growth has mirrored the growth of Southern California.
Once a small university in a small town, it is now the premier research and
educational institution in the thriving Inland Southern California region. With its roots as a Citrus Experiment
Station, UC Riverside is guided by its land grant tradition of giving back by
addressing some of the most vexing problems facing society. Whether it is
assuring a safe, nutritious, and affordable food supply; stimulating the human
mind and soul through the humanities and arts; or finding solutions to the
profound challenges in education, engineering, business, healthcare, and the
environment, UC Riverside is living the promise. Already internationally prominent for its food
and environment research programs, 850 faculty run the gamut from established
professors in the prime of their research to up-and-coming academics bringing in
exciting new ideas.
Seven current and former UCR faculty
members have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, while more than 50
UCR faculty members have garnered Guggenheim Fellowships. More than 100 UCR faculty members have been
elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a
recognition of how these faculty members have made notable contributions to the
advancement of science and its role in society.
After a five-year pilot with Scripps
Oceanography, UC San Diego (UCSD) opened
in 1960 with this mission statement: “dedicated to
the advancement of knowledge through excellence in education and research at
the undergraduate, graduate, professional school and postdoctoral levels. The
campus is committed to community engagement, public service and industry
partnerships in order to advance the health and well-being of our region,
state, nation and the world. Our academic community of world-renowned faculty,
bright students and dedicated staff is characterized by a globe-spanning
culture of interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation.”
UCSD recently ranked 5th
in the nation for annual federal research and development spending, excelling
in both traditional scholarly disciplines and fields that cross these
disciplines, such as neuroscience, nanoscience, and climate science. Similar to
Berkeley and other UC faculty, UCSD researchers consistently earn international
acclaim. They include Nobel and Pulitzer prize winners, members of the National
Academies, and recipients of MacArthur Foundation "genius grants." UCSD has the leading national program in a
half dozen fields, as well as the nation’s premier Supercomputer Center. The UC San Diego faculty counts among its members and alumni 20
Nobel Laureates, two Fields Medalists, 8 MacArthur Foundation Fellows, two
Pulitzer Prize winners, 91 members of the National Academy of Sciences,
and 8 recipients of the National Medal of Sciences. They also hold more than 158 Endowed
Chairs.
Located forty miles
southeast of Los Angeles in Orange County, UC
Irvine opened in 1965. An analysis by Times Higher Education, released in June 2013, ranked UCI first in the U.S. and fifth
in the world among the 100 best universities less than 50 years old. The “100
Under 50” list aims to show institutions poised to become future world leaders.
The 2007 Faculty Scholarly
Productivity Index ranked five UCI research fields in the top five among large
research universities. Computer & information science ranked first;
information science/studies fourth; and geology/Earth science, mathematics, and
urban & regional planning fifth. Produced by Academic Analytics, the index
rates journal articles and books published by each program’s faculty, as well
as journal citations, awards, honors and grants.
UC Santa Cruz
also opened in 1965, and along with UC Irvine, has been acknowledged in the
“Top 100 in 50” rankings. “In its 45
years, UC Santa Cruz has earned national and international recognition for
quality research and world-class teaching. Faculty include 24 members of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 14 members of the National Academy of
Sciences, and 33 members of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science. Awards include:
·
The computer engineering
Ph.D. program was rated 1st
nationally for publication impact by
the National Research Council in 2010.
·
In 2012, UCSC was rated second in the world for research influence by the Times Higher Education World
University Rankings.
·
In 2010, the UCSC Economics
Department was ranked 7th in the
world--and 6th among
all academic departments--for research in international finance, according to
Research Papers in Economics (RePEc).
·
In 2012, UCSC's graduate
programs in computer game design were ranked among the top 10 in the U.S. (Princeton Review)
·
In 2013, Times Higher
Education World University Rankings ranked UCSC 11th in the
world overall among universities
under 50 years old (and 2nd only to UC Irvine in the US).
·
In 2013, UCSC placed 11th in the annual Leiden Ranking, which measures the scientific
performance of 500 major universities worldwide.
·
In 2010, the British
publication Times Higher Education ranked UCSC 18th in the
world for research impact in
geosciences.
Opened in 2005, the UC system's tenth campus at Merced
— the nation's first public research university to be built in the 21st century
— is the first new UC campus in 40 years.
Critics are carping that it is off to a slow
start, but alongside the growth record of earlier campuses, it has a solid
beginning. With 6,000 students already, academic research is a critical part of UC Merced's mission just as it is at other UC campuses. The Merced campus also garners the highest
student ratings for faculty (3.88), by a full 0.1 points over second place
Berkeley and Riverside. The rest have a
modest average of 3.71. Berkeley’s key
competitors average 3.88, tied with Merced. [1]
Special research institutes established at UC Merced include:
· Health Sciences Research Institute
· Sierra Nevada Research Institute
· UC Merced Energy Research Institute
·
University of California Advanced
Solar Technologies Institute
In addition, startup funding has been received for the:
· UC Merced Center for Computational Biology
· Center of Excellence for the Study of Health Disparities in
Rural and Ethnic Underserved Populations
·
UC Merced Center for Research in the
Humanities and Arts
UC Merced has also entered into collaborative research
partnerships with the:
· Central Valley Higher Education Consortium
· Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
·
National Park Service
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