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Motto | Fiat lux Let there be light |
---|---|
Type | Public |
Established | May 23, 1919 |
Parent institution | University of California, Los Angeles |
Dean | Humanities: Alexandra Minna Stern Life Sciences: Tracy L. Johnson Physical Sciences, senior dean: Miguel García-Garibay Social Sciences: Abel Valenzuela Jr. Undergraduate Education: Adriana Galván |
Location | , |
Campus | Urban |
Mascot | Bruins |
Website | College website |
The UCLA College of Letters and Science (or simply UCLA College) is the arts and sciences college of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). It encompasses the Life and Physical Sciences, Humanities, Social Sciences, Honors Program and other programs for both undergraduate and graduate students. It is often called UCLA College or the College, which is not ambiguous because the College is the only educational unit at UCLA to be currently denominated as a "college." All other educational units at UCLA are currently labeled as schools or institutes.
The College is the largest academic unit at UCLA and the largest in the entire UC system. [1] The bulk of UCLA's student body belongs to the College, which includes 50 academic departments, 99 majors, 25,000 undergraduate students, 2,700 graduate students and 900 faculty members. [2] Virtually all of the academic programs in the College are ranked very highly and 11 were ranked in the top ten nationally by the National Research Council.
The College originated on May 23, 1919, the day when the Governor of California (William D. Stephens) signed a bill into law which officially established the Southern Branch of the University of California. At that time, a two-year Junior College was established as the university's general undergraduate program. [3] The Junior College held its first classes on September 15, 1919 for 260 undergraduates. [3]
At its inception, the Junior College was truly a junior college in both name and fact, because it offered only a two-year lower-division program. Young people interested in earning bachelor's degrees were required to proceed to the Berkeley campus or other universities to attend upper-division third- and fourth-year courses. The inferior two-year program was intolerable to the many Southern Californians who had fought to establish the southern branch. They vigorously lobbied the Regents of the University of California for a third year of instruction at the southern branch, which was promptly followed by demands for a fourth year. The Southern Californians finally prevailed on December 11, 1923, when the UC Board of Regents approved a fourth year of instruction. [4]
At that time, the Junior College was transformed into the College of Letters and Science (named after its northern counterpart at Berkeley) and was expressly authorized to award the Bachelor of Arts degree. [4] Charles H. Rieber, a philosophy professor, was named the first dean of the new four-year college. [4] The College's original departments in 1923 were chemistry, economics, English, French, history, mathematics, philosophy, physics, political science, psychology, Spanish, and zoology. [4]
On June 12, 1925, the College awarded its first Bachelor of Arts degrees to 98 women and 30 men. [5]
According to UC President Clark Kerr, the political science department at UCLA College in his experience was the second-strongest program in the entire UC system after the chemistry program at Berkeley. [6] To date, three faculty members of the UCLA political science department have become UC chancellors (as listed below).
The main disadvantage of the gigantic size of the College (as with its counterpart at Berkeley) is a coldly impersonal undergraduate experience, especially in large lower-division survey courses (before students declare specific majors, begin to work more closely with department advisers and faculty members in their chosen major, and switch to smaller upper-division courses). [7] It is because of this specific issue that UC President Clark Kerr experimented with residential college systems at the newer UC campuses at San Diego and Santa Cruz. [8]
The College encompasses five divisions — Humanities, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Social Sciences, as well as the Division of Undergraduate Education, which includes 83% of UCLA's undergraduate students. [9]
The main graduation commencement ceremony for the College of Letters and Science is held annually on a Friday night in June in Pauley Pavilion. For two years in a row, the scheduled commencement keynote speaker had canceled the engagement. Bill Clinton canceled in 2008 for not wanting to cross a picket line. Actor and alumnus James Franco canceled in 2009 because of his filming scheduling conflicts. Rock band Linkin Park's Brad Delson accepted the last minute invitation to speak at the 2009 commencement ceremony. [12] [13] Mayim Bialik cancelled in 2016 for not wanting to cross a picket line. [14]
In various years, UCLA has received criticism from students for the relative obscurity of commencement speakers. [15] [16] [17] [18]
The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, the system is composed of its ten campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz, along with numerous research centers and academic abroad centers. The system is the state's land-grant university. Major publications generally rank most UC campuses as being among the best universities in the world. In 1900, UC was one of the founders of the Association of American Universities and since the 1970s seven of its campuses, in addition to Berkeley, have been admitted to the association. Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and San Diego are considered Public Ivies, making California the state with the most universities in the nation to hold the title. UC campuses have large numbers of distinguished faculty in almost every academic discipline, with UC faculty and researchers having won 71 Nobel Prizes as of 2021.
The University of California, Berkeley is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley, it is the state's first land-grant university and is the founding campus of the University of California system. It has been regarded as one of the top universities in the world.
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the California State Normal School which later evolved into San José State University. The branch was transferred to the University of California to become the Southern Branch of the University of California in 1919, making it the second-oldest of the ten-campus University of California system after the University of California, Berkeley.
The University of California, Irvine is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and professional degrees, and roughly 30,000 undergraduates and 6,000 graduate students were enrolled at UCI as of Fall 2019. The university is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and had $523.7 million in research and development expenditures in 2021. UCI became a member of the Association of American Universities in 1996.
Bradford Philip Delson is an American musician best known as the lead guitarist and one of the founding members of the rock band Linkin Park.
The University of California, Santa Barbara is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. It is part of the University of California university system. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an independent teachers' college, UCSB joined the ancestor of the California State University system in 1909 and then moved over to the University of California system in 1944. It is the third-oldest undergraduate campus in the system, after UC Berkeley and UCLA. Total student enrollment for 2022 was 23,460 undergraduate and 2,961 graduate students.
The UC Berkeley College of Chemistry is one of the fifteen schools and colleges at the University of California, Berkeley. It houses the department of chemistry and the department of chemical and biomolecular engineering.
The University of California, Merced is a public land-grant research university in Merced, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California (UC) system. Established in 2005, UC Merced is the newest campus within the UC system. The primary campus is located around five miles north of Merced and sits adjacent to Lake Yosemite. The main campus is around 1,026 acres in size, and total land owned by the university amounts to around 8,195 acres including large areas of preserve land. Large swaths of almond orchards and natural grasslands surround the university.
The UCLA School of Education and Information Studies is one of the academic and professional schools at the University of California, Los Angeles. Located in Los Angeles, California, the school combines two departments. Established in 1881, the school is the oldest unit at UCLA, having been founded as a normal school prior to the establishment of the university. It was incorporated into the University of California in 1919.
Carol Tecla Christ is an American academic administrator. In March 2017, she was named the 11th Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, the first woman to hold that position. She succeeded outgoing Chancellor Nicholas B. Dirks on July 1, 2017.
The University of California, Los Angeles School of Law is the law school of the University of California, Los Angeles.
The University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health, also called Berkeley Public Health, is one of fourteen schools and colleges at the University of California, Berkeley. The School of Public Health is consistently rated alongside the best in the nation, with recent rankings placing its doctoral programs in Epidemiology, Biostatistics, Environmental Health Sciences, and Health Policy among the top in their fields, The school is ranked 8th in the country by U.S. News & World Report. Established in 1943, it was the first school of public health west of the Mississippi River. The school is currently accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health.
Charles Edward Young, nicknamed Chuck Young, was an American university administrator and professor. A native of California, Young led the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) for 29 years as chancellor and the University of Florida for more than four years as president.
The history of the University of California, Riverside, or UCR, started in 1907 when UCR was the University's Citrus Experiment Station. By the 1950s, the University had established a teaching-focused liberal arts curriculum at the site, in the spirit of a small liberal arts college, but California's rapidly growing population made it necessary for the Riverside campus to become a full-fledged general campus of the UC system, and it was so designated in 1959.
Nicholas B. Dirks is an American academic and a former Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley. Dirks is the author of numerous books on South Asian history and culture, primarily concerned with the impact of British colonial rule. In June 2020, Dirks was named president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences.
James Ellis LuValle was an American athlete and scientist. He won the bronze medal in the 400 metres at the 1936 Summer Olympics, and was an accomplished chemist and founder of the Graduate Students Association at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) traces back to the 19th century when the institution operated as a teachers' college. It grew in size and scope for nearly four decades on two Los Angeles campuses before California governor William D. Stephens signed a bill into law in 1919 to establish the Southern Branch of the University of California. As the university broke ground for its new Westwood campus in 1927 and dissatisfaction grew for the "Southern Branch" name, the UC Regents formally adopted the "University of California at Los Angeles" name and "U.C.L.A." abbreviation that year. The "at" was removed in 1958 and "UCLA" without periods became the preferred stylization under Chancellor Franklin D. Murphy in the 1960s. In the first century after its founding, UCLA established itself as a leading research university with global impact across arts and culture, education, health care, technology and more.
The University of California, Los Angeles Asian American Studies Center (AASC) is an organization that educates students and the general public about the history of Asian American and Pacific Islanders and their experiences. The AASC is one of the leading and groundbreaking organizations to have substantial and credible resources for their research. Located in Campbell Hall, the AASC quickly became a center for resource-gathering and scholarship for the Asian American movement. Asian American student organizations at CSULA, Occidental, USC, and other colleges soon followed. It was a vital hub and training ground for young activists, a place where they could earn a salary while doing community work.
Howard Aaron Gillman is an American political science scholar and academic administrator, currently serving as the 6th chancellor of the University of California, Irvine since September 2014.