The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a publicland-grantresearch university in Davis, California, United States.[11] It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The institution was first founded as an agricultural branch of the system in 1905, known as the University Farm, and became the sixth campus of the University of California in 1959.
Founded as a primarily agricultural campus, the university has expanded over the past century to include graduate and professional programs in medicine (which includes the UC Davis Medical Center), Engineering, science, law, veterinary medicine, education, nursing, and business management, in addition to 90 research programs offered by UC Davis Graduate Studies. The UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine is the largest veterinary school in the United States. The UC Center Sacramento, a public-service oriented program founded in 2004, is operated by UC Davis.[12] UC Davis also offers certificates and courses, including online classes, for adults and non-traditional learners through its Division of Continuing and Professional Education.[13]
Early creamery and horticulture buildings, University FarmThe Silo Union, one of the original buildings
In 1868, the University of California was established as a land-grant university, and immediately founded a College of Agriculture as its first college as required by the Morrill Land-Grant Acts and the university's own Organic Act.[20][21] UC operated a small farm at the Berkeley campus for several years after Ezra S. Carr became professor of agriculture, but he managed to alienate both the university faculty and the state's farmers with his attempt to directly integrate practical training in farming with courses on the larger historical, social, and political dimensions of farming and got himself fired in 1874.[22] The faculty could not understand why students should earn credit towards degrees for hoeing or plowing, and the farmers could not understand how learning the social history of farming could make their children into better farmers.[22]
Eugene W. Hilgard, Carr's successor, recognized that Berkeley's soil and climate were terrible for farming (the campus directly faces the notoriously foggyGolden Gate) and switched from "practical" to what he called "rational" instruction in scientific principles of agriculture at Berkeley.[23] He concentrated on things like soil science and fermentation that could be researched and taught in a university laboratory, supplemented by limited data gathering and experiments (but not hands-on teaching) at agricultural experimental stations in the field.[24] Hilgard was disdainful of the idea of a university farm.[25] He felt that for such a farm to teach effectively, it would necessarily have to be a model farm with examples of the best of everything, without any reference to local profitability, climate, or circumstances, and such a thing was clearly infeasible.[25]
Founding of the university farm
Around the turn of the 20th century, Peter J. Shields, secretary of the California Agricultural Society, became aware that colleges of agriculture elsewhere had university farms which performed experiments and provided hands-on education in useful agricultural subjects, and that young people were leaving the state to study at such farms.[26] Shields began to champion the cause of a university farm. He was later honored as the "founder" of UC Davis in 1962, when the Shields Oak Grove on campus was named after him, and again posthumously in 1972 when the campus library was named after him.[27] However, local farmer and politician George Washington Pierce Jr. also fought aggressively in the California State Assembly for the creation of a university farm.[27] Shields himself credited Pierce with ensuring that the site criteria in the University Farm Bill were so tightly formulated that they could be met only at the Yolo County town of Davisville.[27] Unlike Shields, Pierce did not live long enough to see the promotion of Davis to a general campus and is now largely forgotten.[27]
On March 18, 1905, the University Farm Bill was enacted, which called for the establishment of a farm for the University of California.[28][29] The bill provided that the University Farm would "be typical and representative of the best general agricultural conditions in California", and authorized an appropriation of $150,000 to cover the cost of purchasing land and constructing appropriate buildings.[29] A committee appointed by the Regents of the University of California took a year to select a site for the University Farm, a 779-acre portion of the stock farm of Jerome C. Davis, near a tiny town then known as Davisville.[28][30] The regents officially took control of the property in September 1906 and constructed four buildings in 1907.
Short courses were first offered in October and November 1908, and then the University Farm officially opened in 1909 as the University Farm School, offering a three-year non-degree vocational program.[30] The vocational program was shortened from three to two years in 1923.[31]
From vocational certificates to bachelor's degrees
In 1916, the Farm's 314 students occupied the original 778 acres (315ha) campus. The institution grew at a breakneck pace over the next four decades. By 1951, it had expanded to a size of 3,000 acres (1,200ha).[32] Along the way, it was renamed in 1922 to become the Northern Branch of the College of Agriculture, and in 1938, it became the College of Agriculture at Davis.
Initially, no degrees were awarded at Davis.[33] Students in the College of Agriculture at Berkeley often enrolled at Davis for a single semester to obtain practical training on an actual farm alongside the vocational students, but had to return to Berkeley to earn their degrees.[28][33] Because the non-degree vocational program at Davis was so disconnected from the traditional degree programs on the main Berkeley campus, agricultural interests began to agitate to separate Davis and the entire College of Agriculture from the University of California.[33] This forced the regents in 1922 to silence such proposals by initially authorizing a two-year undergraduate program at Davis.[33] By sharing faculty members between Berkeley and Davis and hiring a few more faculty members, the university was able to provide almost all courses of a "complete undergraduate program" at Davis—that is, a four-year program leading to the bachelor's degree.[33] The first class graduated from Davis in 1926.[31]
UC regularly appointed faculty members to joint positions at both Berkeley and Davis.[34] This was possible because the two campuses are separated by only 53 miles (85 km). Sharing faculty meant that the two campuses have always had an amicable relationship, in that Davis gradually developed its own strong identity while remaining proud of its older sibling.[34] Thus, Davis did not suffer from the kind of "hang-ups" (i.e., inferiority complexes)[34] which at Los Angeles culminated in a systemwide decentralization process from 1957 to 1960 in which the regents and the UC president delegated most power and responsibility to chancellors at the campus level.[35] Davis still retains a few traditions from its early era when its identity was much more intertwined with Berkeley, such as the Bossy Cow-Cow cheer, a parody of Berkeley's Oski Yell.
In 1941, the state legislature authorized the creation of a school of veterinary medicine at Davis, but the school's launch was severely delayed by the entrance of the United States into World War II and it did not open until 1948.[36] In 1943, the U.S. Army Signal Corps took over Davis to use the campus as a training facility.[33] The Davis campus was not returned to civilian use until the end of 1944.[37]
From 1926 to 1947, all Davis students earning bachelor's degrees had to travel to Berkeley for graduation.[38] In 1948, "the regents agreed to decentralize graduations".[38] In a ceremony at Davis that year, UC President Robert Gordon Sproul "awarded 101 bachelor of science degrees in agriculture", along with 195 certificates to graduates of the two-year vocational program.[38]
In 1949, UC expanded the Davis campus to what is now West Campus by purchasing the 526-acre Straloch Farm to the west from its owner, Harry Hopkins.[39][40] The farm came with an 86-acre private airport constructed by Hopkins in 1946.[39][40] The University Airport was the first university airport in the United States and is still the only one in the UC system.[39][40]
In 1958, the vocational program was discontinued.[31]
Promotion to general campus
For much of its early history, Davis was treated as an offsite department of the main campus in Berkeley, and its chief administrative officer was a director who reported to the dean of the College of Agriculture at Berkeley. In 1944, the title became assistant dean and in 1951, the title was upgraded to provost. In May 1952, the university appointed Harry R. Wellman as its first vice-president—agricultural sciences in charge of a new Division of Agriculture, which included the existing statewide College of Agriculture at Berkeley, Davis, Los Angeles, and Riverside; the agricultural extension field stations; and the county farm offices.[41] The provosts at Davis and Riverside reported to the president through this new vice-president (rather than through the College of Agriculture).[41]
Stanley B. Freeborn served as Davis's first provost from 1952 to 1958 and then as its first chancellor from 1958 to 1959 (in anticipation of its promotion to a general campus).[42] However, Freeborn retired in 1959 after only one year as chancellor, then died the next year.
In October 1959, Davis was formally designated by the regents as a general campus and its chancellor was vested with the same autonomy as the chancellors at UC Berkeley and UCLA—meaning that like them, Davis's chancellor would now report directly to the university's president.[43] The Board of Regents declared that Davis's College of Agriculture "will continue to be the University's major center of teaching and research in agriculture, which will remain a dominant emphasis".[43] The board also suggested that the Davis campus should give "special attention" to "opportunities" to be of service to the state government due to its proximity to the state capital at Sacramento.[43] Finally, the board set an enrollment target of 6,000 students by 1970.[43]
Most of Davis's initial development as a UC general campus was supervised by its second chancellor, Emil M. Mrak, who served from 1959 to 1969.[44] Mrak fondly recalled his bicycle-riding days as a child among the orchards of the Santa Clara Valley, and during his chancellorship, he worked hard to make the Davis campus into a bicycle-friendly place.[44] When Mrak retired in 1969, the campus administration building was named Mrak Hall in his honor.[45]
Davis's Graduate Division was established in 1961. This was followed by the creation of the College of Engineering in 1962.[43] The School of Law opened for classes in fall 1966, and the School of Medicine began instruction in fall 1968.[43] In a period of increasing activism, a Native American studies program was started in 1969, one of the first at a major university; it was later developed into a full department within the university.
During the Occupy movement against economic inequality, students at UC Davis organized the Occupy UC Davis protests in opposition to tuition hikes. On November 18, 2011, a campus police officer, Lieutenant John Pike, used pepper spray on a group of seated peaceful demonstrators when they refused to disperse, and another officer also pepper sprayed demonstrators at Pike's direction. The incident drew international attention and led to further demonstrations, a formal investigation, and Pike's departure in July 2012.[46][47][48]
Documents released in 2016 through a public records request showed that the university had spent at least $175,000 to attempt to "scrub the Internet of negative postings" about the incident, in efforts that started in 2013.[49] California newspaper The Sacramento Bee obtained a document outlining the public relations strategy, which stated: "Nevins and Associates is prepared to create and execute an online branding campaign designed to clean up the negative attention the University of California, Davis, and Chancellor Katehi have received related to the events that transpired in November 2011". The strategy included an "aggressive and comprehensive online campaign to eliminate the negative search results" intended to achieve the "eradication of references to the pepper spray incident in search results on Google for the university and the Chancellor".[50] The university's strategic communications office, which has worked on the management of the reputation of the university and its chancellor, has had its budget substantially increased since the current chancellor took office – rising from $2.93 million in 2009 to $5.47 million in 2015. In August 2016 Katehi resigned as chancellor, and under the terms of her contract, will continue to be a full-time faculty member at UCD.[51]
New chancellor
In February 2017, Gary S. May was named the seventh chancellor of UCD after a nationwide search. He officially began in the role on August 1. May, the former dean of the College of Engineering at Georgia Tech, is the second African American to be named chancellor at any of the UC campuses (after former UC Irvine chancellor, Ohio State president and current UC system president Michael Drake) and one of only three currently serving African American chancellors/presidents of an AAU institution.[52][53][54]
In fall quarter of 2022, the United Auto Workers (UAW) led teaching assistants at UC Davis and other UC campuses in a strike that lasted several weeks. On December 16, 2022, the UCs reached a tentative agreement with the UAW.[55]
In 2023, three people were stabbed over the course of five days, two of whom died. On Thursday, May 4, 2023, Davis Police arrested a former UC Davis student, Carlos Reales Dominguez, as a suspect for the crimes.[56]
Although named after the City of Davis, the campus is technically located adjacent to the City of Davis in an unincorporated part of Yolo and Solano counties. The main campus is located 15 miles (24.1km) west of Sacramento in the Sacramento Valley, part of California's Central Valley, and is adjacent to Interstate 80.
The city of Davis is a college town, with the ratio of students to long-term residents estimated at 1:4. Also contributing to the college-town environment is the close proximity of downtown Davis to the campus' main quad—a matter of a few blocks, and 5- to 10-minute walk or bike ride. Davis' 15-minute distance from Sacramento provides it with both the isolation critical to fostering a college-town environment while also providing a lively and large metropolitan area nearby. Although the campus itself is vast, the entire community of Davis is relatively small and is easily traversable on bike utilizing Davis' extensive bicycle trails.[57] The campus is the largest Campus in the UC system.
Campus Core/Quad
Towards the northeast end of campus is the Quad, a large rectangular field, which was the historic geographic center of campus. Earlier in the campus' history, the few campus buildings surrounded the four sides of the Quad. Today, though the campus has grown significantly and the geographic center of campus has shifted, the Quad remains the center of campus life, anchored to the north by the Memorial Union (student union), to the south by Shields Library and to the west and southeast by Wellman and Olson halls respectively. The Memorial Union Complex houses Freeborn Hall and the Memorial Union, which houses various establishments such as the UC Davis Bookstore.
Memorial Union
The northeast side of campus holds more of the core buildings that were built earlier in UC Davis's history, such as Wellman Hall, Shields Library, Mrak Hall, and Hutchison Hall. Also notable in this northeastern corner is the labyrinthine Social Sciences and Humanities building designed by Antoine Predock, known to students as the "Death Star" for its angular, metallic design.[58]
South Main Campus and South Campus
The majority of Equestrian Center, and Animal Sciences buildings are located near the Arboretum Waterway, away from the core campus; the West Entry Parking Complex, the Silo Union, and the newly constructed Science Lecture Hall and the Science Laboratory Building are located nearer to the Tercero residence halls and the core of campus. The Mondavi Center, home of the University Symphony Orchestra and other cultural events, is also located near the Tercero complex.[57][59]
West Campus
For most of UC Davis' history, West Campus has served primarily as agricultural research land. Recently, portions were developed through a $300 million public-private partnership to form the largest zero net energy community in the United States, known as UC Davis West Village.[60] West Village will provide housing for 3,000 students, faculty and staff and will help the university recruit and retain top faculty. The project will include 662 apartments, 343 single-family homes, 42,500 square feet of commercial space, a recreation center and study facilities. West Village will also host the first community college on a UC campus.
The classes held in this area mainly involve plant sciences, but also include entomology courses as well. Students in the plant sciences maintain gardens as part of the PLS 5 lab while Entomology 156L and 158 students embark on field trips to sample fish for parasites at Putah Creek and conduct projects in forensic entomology at the UC Davis ecosystem, respectively. West Campus is also home to the University Airport, Foundation Plant Services, the California National Primate Research Center, and the Contained Research Facility, a bio-safety level 3 facility.[57]
Arboretum
To the south side of the campus core is the 100-acre UC Davis Arboretum, which includes 3.5 miles of paved paths, 4,000 tree specimens, Putah Creek and Lake Spafford.[61] On March 10, 2017, a multi-year waterway enhancement project began.[62]
Artwork
Two "Egghead" statues on the south lawn of Mrak Hall
There are seven public art statues found around campus, collectively called The Egghead Series, sculpted by the late Robert Arneson, who also taught at Davis from 1962 to 1991.[63]
Bookhead is located at the Shields Library plaza, Yin & Yang is located at the Fine Arts Complex, See No Evil/Hear No Evil is at the east lawn of King Hall (the main building for UC Davis' School of Law), Eye on Mrak (FatalLaff) is outside Mrak Hall (housing the registrar office and other administrative offices), and Stargazer is located between North Hall and Young Hall. The Yin & Yang egg heads have been recast and duplicated for installation near the Port of San Francisco Ferry Building in San Francisco.[64]
UC Davis Student Housing operates 23 residence halls totaling 29 buildings which are organized into three areas: Segundo, Tercero, and Cuarto.[66] UC Davis Student Housing is large enough to accommodate over 11,000 students. Typically, campus operated housing is reserved exclusively for first-year students, whereby other students are required to seek housing off-campus at apartments or rented homes. The northwest end of campus holds the majority of the Segundo undergraduate housing complex, and various alternative housing sites, such as Orchard Park, Russell Park, The Colleges at LaRue Apartments, and Primero Grove. The Activities and Recreation Center, or the ARC, is also located near the Segundo complex. Adjacent to the northwest corner of campus is the Cuarto undergraduate housing complex, which has one dining commons.
The Tercero undergraduate housing complex is located near the geographic center of the UC Davis campus, to the north of the Arboretum Waterway. This extends longitudinally through almost the entirety of the south end of campus. Solano Park, UC Davis' family housing complex, is located adjacent to the Arboretum Waterway, at the Eastern end of campus. The Davis Arboretum is a public botanic garden with over 4,000 kinds of trees and plants, including many California native plants, which has been developed over 100 acres (40ha) along The Waterway. The Cuarto undergraduate (freshmen and transfer students) housing complex is located one block off-campus, across Russell Boulevard. Unlike the other undergraduate housing complexes, Cuarto is located within city limits; its residents may vote in city elections.[citation needed]
Organization and administration
The entire University of California system is governed by the regents, a 26-member board, as established under Article IX, Section 9 of the California Constitution.[67] The board appoints the university's principal officers including the system-wide president and UC Davis Chancellor.
The UC Davis Chancellor has overall responsibility for the leadership, management, and administration of the campus and reports to the President of the University of California system, a position currently held by the former president of Ohio State University (and chancellor of UC Irvine), Michael Drake, whose predecessor was former Secretary of Homeland Security and Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano.
The Offices of the Chancellor and Provost is headed by the executive vice-chancellor and provost (EVCP). In their capacity as executive vice-chancellor, the EVCP shares with the chancellor in the overall leadership and management of campus administration and operations, whereas as provost, the EVCP is UC Davis' chief academic officer.
The senior staff provides executive support to the Offices of the Chancellor and Provost. The Council of Deans and Vice-Chancellor consists of the heads of the university's major academic and administrative units.[68]
Students are most likely to interact with or be directly affected by the Office of Student Affairs, which is run by the vice chancellor of student affairs, currently Fred Wood, and by a variety of associate and assistant vice-chancellors. This office oversees many campus units including: Admissions, Athletics, Campus Recreation, Campus Unions, Counseling and Psychological Services, Financial Aid, Student Housing and others.[69]
In 2014, Chancellor Katehi stated that UC Davis aimed to become a Hispanic-Serving Institution by the 2018–2019 school year, with at least 25% of the undergraduate student body consisting of Latinos.[71] Women comprised 60.4% of undergraduates in Fall 2018.[72]
Census data
Census-designated place in California, United States
University of California-Davis CDP, California – Racial and ethnic composition Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos may be of any race.
The university has 102 undergraduate majors and 101 graduate programs.[94] It has a Department of Viticulture and Enology (concerning the scientific study of grape-growing and winemaking) that has been and continues to be responsible for significant advancements in winemaking utilized by many Californian wineries. The campus claims to be noted for its top-rated Agricultural and Resource Economics programs[95] and the large Department of Animal Science through which students can study at the university's own on-campus dairy, meat-processing plant, equestrian facility, and experimental farm. Students of Environmental Horticulture and other botanical sciences have many acres of campus farmland and the University of California, Davis, Arboretum at their disposal. The Department of Applied Science was founded and formerly chaired by physicist Edward Teller. The arts are also studied extensively on campus with subjects such as studio art, design, music, theater and dance. The Design Department at UC Davis is the only comprehensive academic design unit of the University of California system.[96] There is also the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts which features artists from all over the globe.
UC Davis undergraduate majors are divided into four colleges (with their founding in parentheses):
UC Davis is considered to be a "Public Ivy."[106] In its 2023 edition, U.S. News & World Report ranked UC Davis tied for the 6th-best public university in the United States, tied for 28th nationally and tied for 73rd globally.[107]Washington Monthly ranked UC Davis 13th in its 2020 National University ranking, based on its contribution to the public good as measured by social mobility, research, and promoting public service.[108]Money magazine ranked UC Davis 10th in the country out of 739 schools evaluated for its 2020 "Best Colleges for Your Money" edition[109] and 4th in its list of the 50 best public schools in the U.S.[110]Forbes in 2022 ranked UC Davis 23rd overall out of 650 colleges and universities in the U.S., 22nd among research universities, 4th among public university, and 11th for "Best Value".
The university has several distinguished graduate programs ranked in the top 10 in their fields by the United States National Research Council; most notable are its programs in agricultural economics, entomology, evolutionary biology, plant biology, and ecology. Additionally, the NRC placed more than a third of UC Davis graduate programs in the top 25% of their respective fields.[111] In 2016, U.S. News & World Report rated UC Davis 2nd globally in Agricultural Sciences, 1st in Plant and Animal Science, 4th in Environment/Ecology, and 1st nationally in Veterinary Medicine, 3rd in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 7th (tie) in Biological and Agricultural Engineering, 9th in U.S. Colonial History, 15th in Comparative Politics, 19th in Biological Sciences, 20th in Earth Sciences and 21st in Psychology.[107] The Economics department of UC Davis was also ranked 6th among public universities and 20th nationally according to the RePec (Research Papers in Economics) Rankings in 2011.[112] In 2013, The Economist placed UC Davis Graduate School of Management in the top 8% accredited MBA programs in the United States (ranked 37th nationally and 65th globally).[113]
For Fall 2019, UC Davis received 78,093 freshmen applications; 30,358 were admitted (39.1%) and 5,957 enrolled.[124] The average high school grade point average (GPA) of the enrolled freshmen was 4.13; the average SAT scores were between 610 and 710 for reading and 630–790 for math, and 28–34 for the ACT Composite score.[124]
For 2021 incoming freshman class, UC Davis received a record of 105,850 applicants, an 11% increase from last year.[126] The admission rate for incoming freshman for the class of 2021 was 37.5%.[127]
Library
Inside of the Peter J. Shields Library
UC Davis' libraries include the Peter J. Shields Library, the Physical Sciences & Engineering Library, the Carlson Health Sciences Library, and the Medical Center Library in Sacramento, contain more than 3.5 million volumes and offers a number of special collections and services. The Peter J. Shields Library has three different architectural styles due to various construction and extensions being added; it is the main library where students study on-campus, with a 24-hour reading room, open computer labs, and unique furniture.
Army ROTC
The university is host to an Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program, the Forged Gold Battalion, with more than 50 cadets. With more than 60 years in existence, it currently commissions roughly 10 graduating seniors as second lieutenants every year.[128]
Graduate studies
The University of California Davis Graduate Programs of Study consist of over 90 post-graduate programs, offering masters and doctoral degrees and post-doctoral courses.[129] The programs educate over 4,000 students[130] from around the world.
UC Davis has the following graduate and professional schools, the most in the entire UC system (with their founding in parentheses):
The University of California, Davis graduate division[131] has a long history. Graduate education has been a major feature of the academic focus for over 80 years. This academic tradition began in the fall of 1925, when 12 students received graduate degrees from the College of Agriculture through a partnership with the graduate division of the University California at Berkeley.[132][133] Over the years, the programs continued to grow, interact and collaborate. The first graduate degrees were awarded from the UC Davis campus in the fall of 1949.[134]
In 1961, autonomous graduate divisions and graduate councils were established on all University of California campuses to provide focused oversight of their graduate programs.[133]
Academics
A key feature of graduate education at UC Davis is the graduate group. The core elements of a graduate group include an emphasis on "shared research interests among faculty and students; flexibility to grow and quickly change to reflect emerging areas of interdisciplinary knowledge and technology; and an acceptance that many research questions transcend traditional academic departmental boundaries."[135] UC Davis offers more graduate groups than any other campus in the UC system.[136]
UC Davis is one of 62 members in the Association of American Universities, an organization of leading research universities devoted to maintaining a strong system of academic research and education. It consists of sixty universities in the United States (both public and private) and two universities in Canada.
Between 2017 and 2020 UC Davis was paid $1.4 million by Neuralink, to use its facilities for experiments with brain implants in monkeys. Some monkeys were euthanized after developing infections. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has filed a public records lawsuit demanding access to the research.[138][139] The university claims that it complied with the California Public Records act, and that research protocols were thoroughly reviewed and approved by the campus's Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC)[140]
Research expenditures
UC Davis spent $788.8 million on research and development in fiscal year 2018, ranking it 30th in the nation.[141]
University of California Solar Energy Center (UC Solar)
Energy Efficiency Center (the first university run energy efficiency center in the Nation).
Western Institute for Food Safety and Security
The Crocker Nuclear Laboratory on campus has had a nuclear accelerator since 1966.[143][144] The laboratory is used by scientists and engineers from private industry, universities and government to research topics including nuclear physics, applied solid state physics, radiation effects, air quality, planetary geology and cosmogenics.[145] UC Davis is the only UC campus, besides Berkeley, that has a nuclear laboratory.
Agilent Technologies will also work with the university in establishing a Davis Millimeter Wave Research Center to conduct research into millimeter wave and THz systems.[146]
Student life
The undergraduate student government of UC Davis is the Associated Students of UC Davis (ASUCD), and has an annual operating budget of $11.1 million, making it one of the largest-funded student governments in the United States.[147] ASUCD includes an Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branch. Other than representing the student body on campus, the task of ASUCD is to lobby student interests to local and state government. Also under the purview of ASUCD are the student-run Coffee House, an ASUCD unit, and Unitrans, the Davis public bus system. ASUCD employs thousands of students[148] annually across its many units.
Picnic Day, UC Davis's annual Open House, is the largest student-run event in the United States. It attracts thousands of visitors each year with its many attractions. These include a parade, a dance competition by the university club dance groups called "Dance Dance Revolution", a magic show performed by the chemistry department, the Doxie Derby (dachshund races), film screenings, and a Battle of the Bands between the UC Davis Marching Band and other college bands including the Cal Band, the Stanford Band, and the Humboldt State University Marching Lumberjacks.
Another highlight of UC Davis is its student-run freeform radio station, KDVS. The station began operations on February 1, 1964, from the laundry room of the all-male dormitory Beckett Hall. The station soon gained a reputation by airing interviews with Angela Davis and a live call-in show with then California GovernorRonald Reagan in 1969. The station can now be heard on 90.3 FM and online at its website.[150]
UC Davis has over 800 registered student organizations, ranging from political clubs to professional societies to language clubs.[151]
The academic Graduate Students and management students are represented by the Graduate Student Association (GSA). The Law Students are represented by Law Students Association.
Students are also encouraged to wear Aggie Blue on game days to show their Aggie Pride. If spotted wearing Aggie Blue by the Aggie Pack, students may have UC Davis paraphernalia thrown at them as a reward.
Students also participate in intramural sports such as basketball, ultimate frisbee, soccer and many more. The ARC contains a basketball gym, work out room, ping pong tables, squash courts, rock climbing wall, and other studio rooms for group exercise.
Other student activities and campus jobs:
Unitrans, the student run (and driven) bus system.
The Coffee House, also known as the CoHo, is a student run restaurant serving 7000 customers daily.
The Bike Barn, a bicycle shop that sells and rents bicycles and cycling equipment, also a full-service repair shop.
The Entertainment Council,[153] responsible for bringing famous musicians to campus and organizing student events.[154]
Transportation
Many students use bicycles to get around the 7000-acre campus.One of the double deckers in the city's student-run (and student-driven) bus system
Bicyclists are ubiquitous on campus and in the city. Both the university and municipality encourages this with bicycle-only infrastructure such as bike circles, large bike lanes, and traffic signals specifically for bikes. UC Davis has a road and mountain bike team which has won several national championship titles.[155] The campus police department also has some of its officers patrol on bicycles and take bicycling under the influence ("BUI") and bicycling without a headlight at night very seriously. All bikes on the UC Davis campus must be registered with a California Bicycle license or they risk being sold at the on campus bike auction. Students usually have their bicycles serviced on-campus at the ASUCD Bike Barn or at other bike shops around town.
UC Davis is also well known for its bus service, Unitrans, and its trademark London double decker buses. It has been in operation since 1968 and is believed to be the only general purpose (non-sightseeing) transit system in the U.S. to operate vintage double deck buses in daily service. The system is operated and managed entirely by students and offers fixed-route transportation throughout the city. There is also an inter-campus bus service[156] that ferries back and forth between UC Davis and UC Berkeley twice daily, from Monday to Friday. Davis is also one of the busiest stations of the Capitol Corridor intercity railroad service operated by Amtrak between the Bay Area and Sacramento.
The central campus is bounded by freeways on two sides (Highway 113 and Interstate 80). All other UC campuses are either somewhat distant from the closest freeway or are directly adjacent to only one freeway. Two freeway exits are entirely within UCD's boundaries. One, off Highway 113, is signed "UC Davis / Hutchison Drive" and the other, off Interstate 80, is signed exclusively as "UC Davis." Despite the university's extensive bicycle infrastructure and public transportation service, easy freeway access coupled with increasing housing costs in the city of Davis has led to increased numbers of students commuting via automobile. Some students choose to live in the neighboring communities of Sacramento, Dixon or Woodland, and use their own cars or the county-wide Yolobus to get to UC Davis. In addition, a private charter bus that connected the Davis and Sacramento campuses was replaced in 2020 by the Causeway Connection bus service, in partnership with Yolobus and Sacramento Regional Transit.[157] Other students also commute by motorcycle, but are also subject to similar parking rates as their four-wheeled counterparts.
The California Aggie
UC Davis publishes a weekly student newspaper, The California Aggie. The Aggie was first published in 1915 as the Weekly Agricola after its approval by the Associated Student Executive Committee. At this point, UC Davis was considered the University Farm, an extension of UC Berkeley.[158]
Initially, the Weekly Agricola was focused on both student news and farming-related topics. Novelist Jack London was one of the first readers of the Weekly Agricola. In 1922, it was renamed to match the school's athletic name.[158] Between March 2014 and October 2016, the Aggie was not in print but was still accessible online. The Aggie is in print and available on campus again as of October2016[update].[159]
Greek life
UC Davis' iconic water tower
Social fraternities and sororities have been a part of the University of California at Davis since 1913. Approximately 8% of the university's undergraduate students are involved in the school's fraternities and sororities. One sorority, Sigma Alpha Epsilon Pi, was featured during the first season of the MTV reality show Sorority Life.
The Phi chapter of Alpha Gamma Rho was locally established May 1, 1923, at UC Davis, making it the first continuously running national fraternity on campus. They started as the Kappa Tau fraternity, which was the first agricultural fraternity on campus. Many campus buildings are named after alumni of Alpha Gamma Rho such as Emil Mrak (Mrak Hall, Registrar's office), Orville Thompson (Thompson Hall, Segundo student housing), and Dean De Carli (the De Carli room, 2nd floor MU), Mel Olson Scoreboard (Aggie Stadium), and many more. The AGR Hall is an event space located inside the Buehler Alumni / Visitor Center and is commonly rented out as a conference room or banquet hall. There are both national and local fraternities and sororities at UCD with diverse backgrounds and histories.[162]
The UC Davis Men's Crew Club is one of the successful clubs both on campus and in the West. In 2008 the JV boat won first in nationals at the ACRA Championships in Tennessee and in 2009 the Varsity boat got second place in nationals at the ACRA Championships. They consistently compete against teams such as Stanford, the University of Washington and UC Berkeley.
The Aggies finished first in NCAA Division II six times in 2003 and won the NACDA Directors' Cup 4 years in a row from 1999 to 2003. In 1998, the UC Davis men's basketball team won the NCAA Division II national championship despite being one of the few non-scholarship institutions in Division II at that time. They have also won NCAA Division II championships in Softball (2003), Men's Tennis (1992), and Women's Tennis (1990, 1993). These and other achievements motivated a decision (following a year of heavy discussion by campus administrators, faculty, staff, students, alumni and the local community) in 2003 for the athletics program to re-classify to Division I.[163][164]
The highlight of UC Davis's 4-year transition to Division I occurred on September 17, 2005, when the Aggies defeated the heavily favored Stanford Cardinal at Stanford Stadium by a score of 20–17 on a touchdown pass with 8 seconds left in the game. The Aggies also pulled off an upset against Stanford in basketball just months later, beating the Cardinal 64–58 with a late rally at home on December 4, 2005.
The Aggie football team plays Sacramento State in the annual Causeway Classic for the Causeway Carriage. The team also plays Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in the annual Battle for the Golden Horseshoe. UC Davis students gather at sporting events to rally as the Aggie Pack, the largest student-run school spirit organization in the United States.{{[165]citation needed|date=November 2021}} The Aggie Pack cheers on the sports team along with the Spirit Squad to the music of the Cal Aggie Marching Band and its alumni band. Aggie Stadium is the home of the UC Davis football and lacrosse teams.
UC Davis had a wrestling program, which competed in the Pac-10 at the Division I level. In 2007, UC Davis wrestler Derek Moore gained All-American status, as well as winning the NCAA Division I Championships for his weight class. Moore also received the "Most Outstanding Wrestler" award of the NCAA tournament. In doing so, Derek Moore became the first UC Davis student-athlete to become an NCAA champion at the Division I level. That same year, UC Davis finished within the top 25 for Division I collegiate wrestling programs in the country.
Because of budget pressure, wrestling was cut from the athletic department in April 2010. Other cuts included men's swimming, men's indoor track, and women's rowing. The athletics department had to cut $1.79 million out of the budget. 14 women's teams and 9 men's teams were funded for the 2010–2011 school year.[166]
The official school colors are blue and gold. The blue is due to the UC's early connection to Yale[167] and as a result is often referred to as "Yale Blue" (e.g., see).[168] and[169] UCD's official blue, usually called "Aggie Blue", is Pantone 295,[170] which is distinct from Yale Blue (approximately Pantone 289).[171]
The official school mascot is the mustang. Students at UC Davis are referred to as Aggies in honor of the school's origins in agricultural studies. Unlike most colleges, there is a distinction between the name for students and the mascot. Some students supported changing the school mascot from the mustang to a cow, but alumni opposed this action. Many people call the mustang mascot of UC Davis an Aggie, but it is named Gunrock. The name dates to 1921 when the US Army brought a thoroughbred horse named Gunrock to UC Davis to supply high-quality breeding stock for the U.S. Cavalry remount program. The mustang mascot was selected to honor that cavalry horse.
Sustainability
UC Davis has implemented many environmentally sustainable features on campus. In the Fall of 2010, UCD opened a renovated Dining Commons in the Cuarto living area. The dining hall uses local produce and promotes sustainability. The university operates twenty LEED-certified buildings across three of the five overarching LEED categories.[172] Examples include the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, the first brewery, winery or food-processing facility in the world to achieve Platinum-level certification and the Tahoe Environmental Research Center (TERC) at Lake Tahoe, one of only five laboratories in the world to achieve Platinum-level certification.[173] It developed UC Davis West Village as a "zero net energy" community.[174]
The university received two Best Practice Awards at the 2009 annual Sustainability Conference, held by the University of California, California State University and the California Community Colleges, for the campus's lighting retrofit project and sustainable design in new construction.[175]
Gallagher Hall, one of the many LEED-certified buildings on campus
UC Davis harvests olives from the old trees on campus to produce olive oil[176] and table olives for use in campus dining rooms.[177] It has designed landscaping with drought-tolerant trees and other plants.[178] The campus operates its own landfill, where it converts landfill (methane) gas to energy.[179] For its efforts in campus sustainability, UC Davis earned an A− on the 2011 College Sustainability Report Card, one of 27 universities to achieve this, the highest grade awarded.[180]
In February 2014, UC Davis and Diamond Developers formed a joint venture to create a sustainable city in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.[181] The draft design for the sustainable city in Dubai called for an "eco-village" on 120 acres with enough housing for 1,200 people. The plan called for K-12 education, apartments, single family homes, and retail shops.[182] In May 2015, UC Davis and Diamond expanded the joint venture to include sustainability professional training program.[181]
UC Davis became the first university to implement requiring payment of a fee for all single-use bags distributed on campus; it is working to become the first university campus to ban plastic bags entirely.[183]
UC Davis is also home to the Agricultural Sustainability Institute (ASI),[184] which is part of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES). ASI provides leadership for research, teaching, outreach, and extension efforts in agricultural and food systems sustainability at the Davis campus and throughout the UC system.
UC Davis hosted the Governors' Global Climate Summit 3 (GGCS3),[185] an international climate forum for the top leaders of local, regional, national and international entities, as well as those from academia, business and nonprofits. The summit worked to broaden national partnerships in continuing to grow a clean, green economy. The summit included more than 1,500 attendees from more than 80 countries.
↑ The percentage of students who received an income-based federal Pell grant intended for low-income students.
↑ The percentage of students who are a part of the American middle class at the bare minimum.
Related Research Articles
Davis is the most populous city in Yolo County, California, United States. Located in the Sacramento Valley region of Northern California, the city had a population of 66,850 in 2020, not including the on-campus population of the University of California, Davis, which was over 9,400 in 2016. As of 2023, there were 40,850 students enrolled at the university.
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 centers abroad. The system is the state's land-grant university.
The California State University is a public university system in California, and the largest public university system in the United States. It consists of 23 campuses and seven off-campus centers, which together enroll 457,992 students and employ 56,256 faculty and staff members. In California, it is one of the three public higher education systems, along with the University of California and the California Community Colleges systems. The CSU system is officially incorporated as The Trustees of the California State University, and is headquartered in Long Beach, California.
The University of California, Davis School of Law is the professional graduate law school of the University of California, Davis. The school received ABA approval in 1968. It joined the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) in 1968.
The University of California, Santa Barbara is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an independent teachers' college, UCSB joined the University of California system in 1944. It is the third-oldest undergraduate campus in the system, after UC Berkeley and UCLA.
The University of California, Merced is a public land-grant research university in Merced, California, United States. 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. Large swaths of protected natural grasslands surround the university.
The University of California Davis School of Medicine is the medical school of the University of California, Davis. While the parent institution is located in Davis, California, the medical school is in Sacramento, California.
The UC Davis College of Engineering is one of four undergraduate colleges on the campus of the University of California, Davis. One of the largest engineering programs in the U.S., the UC Davis College of Engineering offers 11 ABET-accredited undergraduate engineering majors. The college offers majors from a broad scope of engineering disciplines, including aerospace science, biochemical, biological systems, biomedical, chemical, civil, computer science, electrical, materials science, and mechanical engineering.
UC Davis Medical Center (UCDMC) is part of UC Davis Health and a major academic health center located in Sacramento, California. It is owned and operated by the University of California as part of its University of California, Davis campus. The medical center sits on a 142-acre (57 ha) campus (often referred to as the Sacramento Campus to distinguish it from the main campus in nearby Davis) located between the Elmhurst, Tahoe Park, and Oak Park residential neighborhoods. The site incorporates the land and some of the buildings of the former Sacramento Medical Center (which was acquired from the County of Sacramento in 1973) as well as much of the land (and two buildings) previously occupied by the California State Fair until its 1967 move to a new location.
Robert Gordon Sproul was the first system-wide president (1952–1958) of the University of California system, and a president (11th) of the University of California, Berkeley, serving from 1930 to 1952.
The University Credit Union Center is an 7,600-seat indoor multi-purpose stadium on the campus of the University of California, Davis in unincorporated Yolo County, California.
Gunrock is the official mascot of the UC Davis Aggies, the athletic teams that represent the University of California, Davis, and was based on Gunrock (1914–1932), an American Thoroughbred stallion, and the son of English Triple Crown winner Rock Sand. He was related to the American Thoroughbred racehorse Man O' War (1917–1947), who was out of Mahubah (1910–1931), bay Thoroughbred mare by Rock Sand out of Merry Token. Gunrock was bred by Clarence Mackay, and likely born in Kentucky in 1914. He had an unsuccessful racing career as a 2-year-old, and was retired to stud by age 6 in 1920.
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.
Emil Marcel Mrak was an American food scientist, microbiologist, and second chancellor of the University of California, Davis. He was recognized internationally for his work in food preservation and as a world authority on the biology of yeasts.
Picnic Day is an annual open house event held in April at the University of California, Davis. Picnic Day was first held on May 22, 1909. It has grown to be what is believed to be the largest student-run event in the United States, typically drawing more than 50,000 visitors. In 2009, around 125,000 visitors attended Picnic Day – a new attendance record.
The history of the University of California, Berkeley, begins on October 13, 1849, with the adoption of the Constitution of California, which provided for the creation of a public university. On Charter Day, March 23, 1868, the signing of the Organic Act established the University of California, with the new institution inheriting the land and facilities of the private College of California and the federal funding eligibility of a public agricultural, mining, and mechanical arts college.
The UC Davis Aggies football team represents the University of California, Davis in NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). The football program's first season took place in 1915, and has fielded a team each year since with the exception of 1918 during World War I and from 1943 to 1945 during World War II, when the campus, then known as the University Farm, was shut down. The team was known as the Cal Aggies or California Aggies from 1922 to 1958 when UC Davis was called the Northern Branch of the College of Agriculture.
The UC Davis Aggies are the athletic teams that represent the University of California, Davis.
Gary Stephen May is a scholar, engineer, and the seventh chancellor of the University of California, Davis. From May 2005 to June 2011, he was the Steve W. Chaddick School Chair of the School of Electrical & Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech. He served as the Dean of the Georgia Tech College of Engineering from July 2011 until June 2017.
The UC Davis pepper spray incident occurred on November 18, 2011, during an Occupy movement demonstration at the University of California, Davis. After asking the protesters to leave several times, university police pepper sprayed a group of student demonstrators as they were seated on a paved path in the campus quad. The video of UC Davis police officer Lt. John Pike pepper-spraying demonstrators spread around the world as a viral video and the photograph became an Internet meme. Officer Alex Lee also pepper sprayed demonstrators at Pike's direction.
↑ Levin, Elaine (1988). The History of American Ceramics: From Pipkins and Bean Pots to Contemporary Forms, 1607 to the present. Ny, Ny: Harry N. Abrams. pp.227–230. ISBN0-8109-1172-8.
↑ Greene, Howard R.; Greene, Matthew W. (2001). The public ivies: America's flagship public universities (1sted.). New York: Cliff Street Books. ISBN978-0060934590.
↑ Joseph, Suad. "The Sustainable City-Dubai". Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis. Archived from the original on June 4, 2015. Retrieved June 4, 2015.
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