College of Creative Studies

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A CCS student, Ryan Steinberg, standing at the entrance of the building.

The College of Creative Studies (CCS) is one of three undergraduate colleges at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). It is one of a kind within the UC system in terms of education, size and philosophy. With less than 350 students in 8 majors and about 60 professors and lecturers, the College offers an unparalleled guided yet self-motivated hands-on and research based education. The College is often boasted as a “graduate school for undergraduates.”

1 History
2 Philosophy
3 Privileges
4 The Building
5 Applying
6 External links

[edit] History

In the late 1960s, then Chancellor of UCSB, Vernon I. Cheadle, was looking for an alternative education program for undergraduate students which could embody the new thinking of the 60s and also attract attention to his growing university. He contacted a Professor in the English department, Marvin Mudrick, to come up with ideas for this new program. Mudrick returned to Cheadle with a variety of ideas and in 1967 Cheadle allowed Mudrick to start up the most promising of them, the College of Creative Studies.

The program started with 50 students in 7 majors: Art, Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, Music Composition, Literature and Physics. The program, being experimental in nature, was never expected to last long, yet it struck a chord with its students, faculty and UC wide administration and along with the powerful pushing of Mudrick as its provost, secured its place at UCSB.

The program grew over the year in student and faculty size and in 1975 found its home in one of the oldest buildings at UCSB, a remnant commissary from when the campus was a World War II marine base. It also began to gain stature within the UC system and through the nation under the leadership of its line of provosts. In 1995 the major of Computer Science was added.

Lately the program has gained much notoriety for having one of the best undergraduate Physics programs in the nation, which complement its host of other spectacular majors. The CCS graduates students to the best graduate schools in the country with percentages resembling those of Ivy Leagues.

In 2005, with the retirement of Provost William Ashby, the title of the Provost was changed to Dean and the College was placed under the leadership of Dr. Bruce Tiffney.

[edit] Philosophy

The basic philosophy of the College of Creative Studies is that certain undergraduate students are capable of rigorously exploring and changing a field of knowledge. The faculty of the college consider the students to be junior colleagues in their fields, and help the students accomplish whatever goals they set for themselves. Almost all students have accomplished some sort of “creative” work before they graduate: Literature students compile a novel-length portfolio of writing, art students put on a minimum of two shows displaying their work, music students perform their own compositions, and science students are put in labs by their sophomore years to conduct (not only participate in) leading edge research and write scholarly papers for publication.

It has been said that the College was founded as a place where the students are the most important people involved, not the faculty or the bureaucracy. With a student teacher ratio of less than 6-to-1, this goal is very well accomplished. All students are paired with a faculty adviser when they enter the college with whom they are required to meet every quarter about their academic progress, research opportunities and even social lives. Often very strong bonds are built between a student and his adviser.

Students admitted into a major within the College of Creative Studies are expected to have a marked interest in their field. Faculty choose students who show promise and enthusiasm in a field, whether it be Shakespeare, Theory of Computation or Invertebrate Biology, so that they can get started right away learning what they like. Students are placed on an accelerated path to learning their field, often skipping preliminary introductory courses that other students are required to take. Additionally, the college tries to burden its students as little as possible with requirements outside their field; There is a very liberal general education requirement for CCS students. Yet, the students are also allowed to take whatever classes they want outside of their fields as well, so that even though a literature student would never be forced to take a math class ever again, she would have all the resources of all of UCSB open to her and she may choose to pursue an interest in Partial Differential Equations.

The college employs a no grade policy for all its classes. Students are evaluated on how much work they complete rather than the quality of the work. This is because all students are expected to complete high quality work and anything below the faculty's expectations are ignored. The college instead uses a sliding unit scale where if a student completes all the work for a class at a satisfactory level, he will receive a full 4 units for most classes. If the student completes less work, he would receive less than that, and if he goes above and beyond expectations, a professor may choose to reward him with even more units. This system promotes a non-competitive atmosphere which focuses more on the student learning the material rather than learning how to take the test.

[edit] Privileges

CCS students are afforded many privileges to help in the pursuit of their education.

Fewer prerequisites: If a CCS student can show that she is capable of taking an upper division or graduate class, even if she hasn't taken the prerequisites, the college greatly facilitates the process of getting her in that class.
Drop class and change grading: CCS students may drop any class up until the last day of instruction. This privilege is given as a backup if a student happens to try taking advanced classes or more classes than the usual student. They may also change their grading between letter grade or pass/no-pass for classes outside CCS.
Priority registration: CCS students are among the first students at UCSB to sign up for classes each quarter. They sign up at the same time as honors students and athletes.
Higher unit cap: CCS students have a unit cap of 95.5 units per quarter. It should be noted that it is uncommon for students to go over 25 units and rare to go over 30.
Building access: All CCS students get a key to the CCS building and have 24-hour access to it.
Computer Lab: CCS students have 24-hour access to their own computer lab where they have free internet access, printing and photocopying.
Library checkout: CCS students get quarter-long check-out from the UCSB library and may renew materials up to five times.

[edit] The Building

The College of Creative Studies is housed in its own single story building nestled between campus dorms, dining commons and the University Center. The building was built during World War II and shares the title as the oldest building at UCSB with the other buildings left from when the campus was a marine base.

The building houses various classrooms, art studios, faculty and administrative offices, an art gallery, computer labs, print and wood shops and a small 100 person theater. For most of its life it was painted brown, but in early 2005 the administrative offices were painted yellow, the college proper was painted green and the Old Little Theater was painted raspberry red.

The building acts as a home base for most of its students. Students spend time in the building studying and socializing at all times of the day and night. Because of its physical degradation, students have been able to personalize the building without worries of backlash from the authorities. The walls are covered with stickers and art, classrooms contain couches and modified desks and there are roaming stuffed animals.

Although everyone in the college loves its current building, campus planners are looking to take it down. The college has also outgrown its facilities and can no longer appropriately house all its students. The college is currently looking for funds to build a new building.

[edit] Applying

The College of Creative Studies accepts applications for admissions all year long. There is a additional application process to the standard UCSB admission for prospective CCS students.