University of California, Berkeley

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University of California, Berkeley

Motto	Fiat lux (Let There Be Light)
Established	March 23, 1868
Type	Public
Endowment	$2.18 billion (2006)
Chancellor	Robert Birgeneau
Faculty	1,950
Undergraduates	22,144
Postgraduates	8,125
Location	Berkeley, California
Campus	Urban, 1,232 acres (5 km²)
Athletics	California Golden Bears
Mascot	Oski
Affiliations	University of California, Pacific Ten
Nobel Laureates	61[1]
Website	berkeley.edu

The University of California, Berkeley (also known as UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, and by other names, see below) is the oldest and flagship campus of the ten-campus University of California system. Founded in 1868, the campus is located in Berkeley, California, occupying about 200 acres on a wooded slope, plus an additional 1000 acres (4 km²) of largely undeveloped land in the Berkeley Hills overlooking San Francisco Bay.

Berkeley physicists played a key role in developing the atomic bomb during WWII and the hydrogen bomb soon afterwards, and the University has managed the nation's two principal nuclear weapons labs (now also used for more peaceful research) at Livermore and Los Alamos ever since. Berkeley scientists invented the cyclotron, discovered the anti-proton, played a key role in developing the laser, explained the processes underlying photosynthesis, isolated the polio virus, designed experiments that confirmed Bell's Theorem, and discovered numerous elements, including Seaborgium, Plutonium, Berkelium, Lawrencium and Californium. Berkeley computer scientists are also credited with creating BSD. But Berkeley faculty have a no less distinguished record in fields outside the sciences as well, including four Fields Medal winners in mathematics, and nine recipients of the prestigious James S. McDonnell Foundation award.

Berkeley still enjoys a certain notoriety for its history of student activism. The Free Speech Movement (1964), a protest that began when the university tried to remove political pamphleteers from campus^[2], and the People's Park riots (1969) were part of a wave of international student protest that took place during the 1960s, associated with an accompanying "hippie" counterculture. For all of its student activism and rebellious history, however, the Berkeley campus is remarkably serene, with numerous quiet, green areas on campus and many architecturally distinguished buildings.

Contents 1 History 2 Military history 3 Campus architecture and architects 4 Organization 4.1 Chancellors 4.2 Colleges and schools 4.3 Labor unions representing UC Berkeley employees 5 Names 6 Academics 6.1 Campus Enrollment 6.2 Rankings 6.3 Admissions 6.4 Library system 6.5 Contributions to computer science 7 Distinguished Berkeley people 8 Student life 8.1 Athletics and traditions 8.2 Student housing 8.3 Student groups 8.4 Greek Life 9 Criticism 10 References in pop culture 11 Notes 12 References 13 Further reading 14 See also 15 External links 15.1 Official websites 15.2 Other

[edit] History

In 1866, the land that comprises the current Berkeley campus was purchased by the private College of California. Because it lacked sufficient funds to operate, it eventually merged with the state-run Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts College to form the University of California. The university's charter was signed by California Governor Henry H. Haight on March 23, 1868 and Henry Durant, the founder of the College of California, became its first president. The university opened in 1869 using the former College of California's buildings in Oakland as a temporary home while the new campus underwent construction.^[3] With the completion of North and South Halls in 1873, the university relocated to its Berkeley location with 167 male and 222 female students.^[4]

The university came of age under the direction of Benjamin Ide Wheeler, who was University President from 1899 to 1919. Its reputation grew as President Wheeler succeeded in attracting renowned faculty to the campus and procuring research and scholarship funds.^[3] The campus began to take on the look of a contemporary university with Beaux-Arts and neoclassical buildings, including California Memorial Stadium (1923) designed by architect John Galen Howard.^[5] These buildings form the core of UC Berkeley's present campus architecture.

Robert Gordon Sproul assumed the presidency in 1930 and during his tenure of 28 years, UC Berkeley gained international recognition as a major research university. Prior to taking office, Sproul took a six month tour of other universities and colleges to study their educational and administrative methods and to establish connections through which he could draw talented faculty in the future.^[6] The Great Depression and World War II led to funding cutbacks, but Sproul was able to maintain academic and research excellence by campaigning for private funds. By 1942, the American Council on Education ranked UC Berkeley second only to Harvard University in the number of distinguished departments.^[7]

During World War II, Ernest Orlando Lawrence's Radiation Laboratory in the hills above Berkeley began to contract with the U.S. Army to develop the atomic bomb, which would involve Berkeley's cutting-edge research in nuclear physics, including Glenn Seaborg's then-secret discovery of plutonium (Room 307 of Gilman Hall, where Seaborg discovered plutonium, would later be a National Historic Landmark). UC Berkeley physics professor J. Robert Oppenheimer was named scientific head of the Manhattan Project in 1942.^[8][9] Along with the descendant of the Radiation Lab, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of California manages two other labs of similar age, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which were established in 1943 and 1952, respectively.

During the McCarthy era in 1949, the Board of Regents adopted an anti-communist loyalty oath to be signed by all University of California employees. A number of faculty members objected to the oath requirement and were dismissed.^[10] They were reinstated with back pay ten years later.^[11] One of them, Edward C. Tolman—the noted comparative psychologist—now has a building on campus named after him housing the departments of psychology and education. An oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic” is still required of all UC employees.^[12][13]

In 1952, the University of California became an entity separate from the Berkeley campus as part of a major restructuring of the UC system. Each campus was given relative autonomy and its own Chancellor. Sproul assumed the presidency of the entire University of California system, and Clark Kerr became the first Chancellor of UC Berkeley.^[14]

The University's academic achievements were partly upstaged by its student activism during the Free Speech Movement in 1964^[15] UC Regent Edwin Pauley turned to CIA Director John McCone and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover for assistance, and FBI files were revealed to him to discredit UC Chancellor Clark Kerr and others. (This information was not confirmed until 2002, after a 17-year FOIA legal battle.)^[16] Student protests continued into the early 1970s, with some more violent in tone than those of the Free Speech Movement. In 1969, a group of Berkeley students claimed an empty lot that the University was going to convert into a dormitory as "People's Park". California governor Ronald Reagan – who had said in his gubernatorial election campaign that he would "clean up the mess" at Berkeley, and who managed to get Chancellor Clark Kerr fired weeks after he took office because Kerr refused to crack down on the Free Speech Movement – called in National Guard troops. The University eventually gave in to the protesters, but not until over a dozen people were hospitalized, a police officer stabbed, and one student killed.^[17]

Today, students at UC Berkeley are less politically active and liberal than their predecessors and have opinions similar to students at most other American universities.^[18] More students at UC Berkeley are identifying themselves as "moderate" or "conservative" than in the past decades.

[edit] Military history

The military has been and continues to be an integral part of UC Berkeley's history since the university's birth. In fact, military training was compulsory at the university from 1870 to 1962.

The University of California came into being in 1868 as a merger between the College of California (a private institution incorporated in 1855 that was constrained by its limited finances) and the Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts College (a public institution formed in 1866). The latter was created by the state legislature after it took advantage of the federal Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act of 1862, which offered states a grant of public land if they would establish a public college teaching agriculture, mechanical arts, and military tactics.

Thus the precursor to the army's Reserve Officer Training Corps was born. In exchange for California's share of 150,000 acres (600 km²), the first male undergraduates at the new University of California were required to serve two hours per week for four years being trained in tactics, dismounted drill, marksmanship, camp duty, military engineering, and fortifications. North Hall, which no longer exists, housed an armory.

The university president's report from 1902 states that "The University Cadets from last year numbered no less than 866. Appointments as second lieutenants in the regular army have been conferred upon several men who have distinguished themselves as officers in the University Cadets. It is very much to be hoped that the War Department will establish permanently the policy of offering such appointments to the graduates of each year who show the highest ability in military pursuits."

In 1904, the service requirement was dropped to two years, and in 1917, Cal's ROTC was established more or less as it exists today with ROTC programs for the four main branches of the military.

Commander Chester W. Nimitz established the Naval ROTC at Cal in the fall of 1926. Transferred in June 1929, Captain Nimitz left a unit of 150 midshipmen enrolled with a staff of six commissioned and six petty officers. Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz never lost his admiration of Cal, he retired in Berkeley.

During World War II, the military increased its presence on campus to churn out recruits from the officer training corps. The army program took over Bowles Hall, a dormitory, and the naval program took over the International House and several fraternities for its trainees. By 1944, more than 1,000 navy personnel were studying at Cal, roughly one out of every four male Berkeley students.

With the end of the war and the subsequent rise of student activism, the California Board of Regents succumbed to pressure from the student government and ended compulsory military training at Berkeley in 1962.

Former secretary of defense Robert McNamara and former Army chief of staff Frederick C. Weyand are both graduates of Cal's ROTC program. To learn more about ROTC's history at UC Berkeley, visit Hearst Gymnasium's first-floor exhibits, which showcase historical photographs and memorabilia — including ship's wheels and antique machine guns.

[edit] Campus architecture and architects

Main article: University of California, Berkeley Campus Architecture

The campus is approximately 1,232 acres (5 km²) in its entirety, though the main campus is on the western 178 acres (0.7 km²). The campus is bordered on the west by Downtown Berkeley, on the north by older neighborhoods, and on the east by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Berkeley Hills. The south campus area includes student housing and Telegraph Avenue, a raffish shopping strip that was heavily populated by "street people" during the 1990s.

The campus is divided by two branches of Strawberry Creek. The south fork enters a culvert upstream of the recreational complex at the mouth of Strawberry Canyon, and passes beneath California Memorial Stadium before appearing again in Faculty Glade. It then runs through the center of the campus before disappearing underground at the west end of campus. The north fork appears just east of University House and runs through the glade north of the Valley Life Sciences Building, the original site of the Campus Arboretum.

Trees in the area date from the founding of the University in the 1870s. The campus also contains numerous wooded areas; including: Founders' Rock, Faculty Glade, Grinnell Natural Area, and the Eucalyptus Grove, said to be the tallest stand of hardwood trees in North America.

Several research units overlook the campus from the rugged eastern foothills, notably the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Space Sciences Laboratory, the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, and the Lawrence Hall of Science.

Residential halls and administrative buildings dot the city of Berkeley, mostly south of the main campus.

The campus and surrounding community are home to a number of buildings designed by early 20th century campus architect John Galen Howard, his peer Bernard Maybeck (best known for the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco), and Maybeck's student Julia Morgan. Later buildings were designed by architects such as Charles Willard Moore (Haas School of Business) and Joseph Esherick (Wurster Hall).

Very little of the original University of California (c. 1868–1903) remains, with the Victorian Second Empire-style South Hall and Piedmont Avenue (designed by Frederick Law Olmsted) being notable exceptions.

Built in 1873, South Hall is the oldest university building in California. What is considered the historic campus today was the eventual result of the 1898 "International Competition for the Phoebe Hearst Architectural Plan for the University of California," funded by William Randolph Hearst’s mother and initially held in the Belgian city of Antwerp (eleven finalists were judged again in San Francisco, 1899).^[19]

Much of the older campus is built in the Beaux-Arts Classical style, today referred to as the “classical core” of the campus.

Howard designed over twenty buildings, which set the tone for the campus up until its expansion in the 1950s and 1960s. These included the Hearst Greek Theatre, the Hearst Memorial Mining Building, Doe Memorial Library, California Hall, Wheeler Hall, (Old) Le Conte Hall, Gilman Hall, Haviland Hall, Wellman Hall, Sather Gate, and the 307-foot Sather Tower (nicknamed "the Campanile" after its architectural inspiration, St Mark's Campanile in Venice).

Buildings he regarded as temporary, nonacademic, or not particularly "serious" were designed in shingle or Collegiate Gothic styles, such as North Gate Hall, Dwinelle Annex, and Stephens Hall.

Many of these and other campus buildings are recognized California Historical Landmarks and are now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.^[20]

[edit] Organization

[edit] Chancellors

The position of Chancellor was created in 1952 during the reorganization and expansion of the University of California; there have since been nine inaugurated chancellors (one was acting chancellor):

	Chancellors of UC Berkeley	Years as Chancellor
1	Clark Kerr	(1952–58)
2	Glenn T. Seaborg	(1958–61)
3	Edward W. Strong	(1961–65)
4	Martin E. Meyerson	(1965, acting)
5	Roger W. Heyns	(1965–71)
6	Albert H. Bowker	(1971–80)
7	Ira Michael Heyman	(1980–90)
8	Chang-Lin Tien	(1990–97)
9	Robert M. Berdahl	(1997–2004)
10	Robert J. Birgeneau	(2004–present)

[edit] Colleges and schools

Berkeley's 130-plus academic departments and programs are organized into 14 unique colleges and schools. ("Colleges" are both undergraduate and graduate, while "Schools" are generally graduate only, though some offer undergraduate majors, minors, or courses):

• Haas School of Business
• College of Chemistry
• Graduate School of Education
• College of Engineering
• College of Environmental Design
• Graduate School of Journalism
• Boalt Hall School of Law
• School of Information
• College of Letters and Science
• College of Natural Resources
• School of Optometry
• School of Public Health
• Richard & Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy
• School of Social Welfare

[edit] Labor unions representing UC Berkeley employees

• UPTE University Professional and Technical Employees - health care, technical and research workers
• CUE Coalition of University Employees - clericals
• UC-AFT University Council-American Federation of Teachers - faculty and librarians
• UAW United Auto Workers - Academic student employees
• AFSCME American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees- service workers and patient care technical employees.
• CNA California Nurses Association - Nurses

[edit] Names

At the time of its founding, Berkeley was the first full-curriculum public university in the state of California, and thus was known as the University of California. As occurred in other states with only a single major public university, University of California was frequently shortened to California or Cal, for ease of identification. Because the school's long sports tradition stretches back to an era before the founding of the other UC branches and the growth of the University of California into a university system, its athletic teams continue to be designated as California Golden Bears or simply Cal Bears, but rarely by the newer official name University of California, Berkeley or its shortened version, Berkeley.

However, as a reflection of the University of California's development into a university system, the term University of California is no longer applied to the campus outside of varsity sports. The official name of the campus is University of California, Berkeley. Informally, the campus is usually called UC Berkeley, Berkeley, or Cal, which are all official variations. Outside of athletics, University of California usually refers to the entire University of California system. The campus office for trademarks disallows the use of Cal Berkeley,^[21] though it is occasionally used colloquially. Unlike most University of California campuses, which are commonly known by their initials, usage of UCB is discouraged (as is University of California at Berkeley), and the registered domain name is berkeley.edu.

This use of Cal for its athletics program and Berkeley for its academics has led to some mild sniping from others in the UC system. Specifically, critics maintain that the school exploits the naming dichotomy to limit damage to the prestige of its research programs, by semantically avoiding linkage to the 'dumb jock' stereotypes that accompany successful sports programs,^[22][23] while also inherently depreciating the sports programs of other UC schools by laying claim to the name California for itself. ^[24]

Berkeley is sometimes confused but unaffiliated with Berklee College of Music, a private music school in Boston, Massachusetts, or Berkeley College, a private college with campuses in New York and New Jersey.

[edit] Academics

Berkeley's academic programs have been considered among the best in the world since the end of World War II, and surveys such as those by the National Research Council and the American Council on Education have praised the university for its broad range of academic strengths, not just in mathematics, science and engineering, but in the arts, humanities and social sciences as well.

Berkeley is an exceptionally comprehensive university, offering over 7,000 courses in nearly 300 degree programs. The university awards over 5,500 bachelor's degrees, 2,000 master's degrees, 900 doctorates, and 200 law degrees each year. The student-faculty ratio is 15.5 to 1, among the lowest of any major public university, and the average class consists of 30 students (not including discussion sections led by graduate student instructors). However, introductory classes consisting of hundreds of students are not unusual, and some Berkeley professors are criticized for being more interested in research than in undergraduate teaching.

Berkeley's faculty includes 221 American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows, 83 Fulbright Scholars, 139 Guggenheim Fellows, 87 members of the National Academy of Engineering, 132 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 8 Nobel Prize winners, 3 Pulitzer Prize winners, 84 Sloan Fellows, and 7 Wolf Prize winners.^[25]. 61 Nobel Laureates are associated with the university, the sixth most of any university in the world. Twenty have served on its faculty. (see list of distinguished Berkeley faculty)

Berkeley has graduated more students who go on to earn doctorates than any other university in the United States^{[citation needed]}, and its enrollment of National Merit Scholars was third in the nation until 2002, when participation in the National Merit program was discontinued.^[26] Berkeley's acceptance rate to medical school of 63.4% is among highest of all public universities.^[27]

[edit] Campus Enrollment

The following statistics are calculated from the Fall 2005 enrollment and were released by the University of California system (the 2006 statistics will be released Fall 2007):

• Total Enrollment: 33,558
• Undergraduate Enrollment: 23,482

Women: 12,640

Men: 10,842

• Graduate Enrollment: 10,076

Women: 4,643

Men: 5,433

• Undergraduates by Ethnicity:

African American: 3.5%

Native American: 0.5%

Asian/Pacific Islander: 41.4%

Chicano/Latino: 10.6%

White: 31%

Other: 1.6%

Not Stated: 8.1%

International: 3.3%

• Undergraduates Living on Campus: 28%

[edit] Rankings

According to the National Research Council, Berkeley ranks first nationally in the number of graduate programs in the top ten in their fields (97%, 35 of 36 programs) and first nationally in the number of "distinguished" programs for the scholarship of the faculty (32 programs).^[28] Berkeley is the only university in the nation to achieve top 5 rankings for all its PhD programs in those disciplines covered by the US News and World Report graduate school survey. US News also consistently ranks Berkeley as the nation’s top public university and within the top three for both Undergraduate Business and Undergraduate Engineering. U.S. News & World Report recently ranked Berkeley's undergraduate program twentieth nationally in terms of "academic excellence."

The World Universities Rankings performed in 2005 by the The Times Higher Education Supplement ranked Berkeley sixth in the world [6], and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Institute for Higher Education ranked Berkeley fourth in the world [7] in its 2005 and 2006 rankings. Those rankings were based upon alumni and faculty quality defined by academic reputation, as well as awards won, papers published, international presence, student to faculty ratio, frequency of citation by peers, and performance relative to size.

[edit] Admissions

Main article: University of California, Berkeley Student Admissions

UC Berkeley is perennially the most selective school in the UC system and one of the most selective universities in the United States. In 2006, Berkeley admitted 9,836 freshmen from an application pool of just under 42,000 applicants, an acceptance rate of 23.5%. The average person admitted to the university as a freshman in 2005 had a weighted GPA of 4.33, and those who matriculated in 2006 had an average GPA of 4.26 [8] and average score of 1975 out of 2400 (approximately 94th percentile) on the SAT admissions test.

Graduate admissions vary by department, although in 2005 the university's graduate program admitted 3,444 students from a pool of 18,333 applicants, an overall acceptance rate of 18.3%.^[29]

[edit] Library system

Main article: University of California, Berkeley Library System

Berkeley’s 32 libraries together tie for fourth largest academic library in the United States with University of Illinois, surpassed only by the Library of Congress, Harvard, and Yale. In 2003, the Association of Research Libraries ranked it as the top public and third overall university library in North America based on various statistical measures of quality.^[30]As of 2006, Berkeley’s library system contains over 10 million volumes and maintains over 70,000 serial titles.^[31] The libraries together cover over 12 acres of land and comprise one of the largest library complexes in the world.^[32] Doe Library serves as the library system's reference, periodical, and administrative center, while most of the main collections are now housed in the subterranean Gardner Main Stacks and Moffitt Undergraduate Library. The Bancroft Library an outstanding collection of: the western part of North America, with emphasis on California, Mexico and Central America. The holdings of the Bancroft Library, over 400,000 printed volumes.

[edit] Contributions to computer science

UC Berkeley has nurtured a number of key technologies associated with the early development of the Internet, Free software movement and the Open Source Software movement. The original Berkeley Software Distribution, commonly known as BSD Unix, was assembled in 1977 by Bill Joy, a graduate student in the computer science department. Joy also developed the original version of vi. PostgreSQL emerged from faculty research begun in the late 1970s. Sendmail was developed at Berkeley in 1981. BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Domain package) was written by a team of graduate students around the same time period. The Tcl programming language and the Tk GUI toolkit were developed by faculty member John Ousterhout in 1988. SPICE and espresso, popular tools for IC Designers, were invented at Berkeley under the direction of Professor Donald Pederson. The RAID and RISC technologies were both developed at Berkeley under David Patterson.

Perhaps the most influential contributions to computing from UC Berkeley have been the algorithms and analysis of floating-point arithmetic, led by Professor William Kahan. They include extensive and ongoing contributions to the IEEE 754 standard.

The XCF, an undergraduate research group located in Soda Hall, has been responsible for a number of notable software projects, including GTK+, The GIMP, and the initial diagnosis of the Morris worm. In 1992 Pei-Yuan Wei, an undergraduate at the XCF, created ViolaWWW, one of the first graphical web browsers. ViolaWWW was the first browser to have embedded scriptable objects, stylesheets, and tables. In the spirit of Open Source, he donated the code to Sun Microsystems, inspiring Java applets. ViolaWWW would also inspire researchers at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications to create the Mosaic web browser.

SETI@home was one of the first widely disseminated distributed computing projects, allowing hobbyists and enthusiasts to participate in scientific research by donating unused computer processor cycles in the form of a screen saver.

In an interesting example of the confluence of disparate ideas, many of the arguments for the efficacy of Open Source software development, and of the Wikipedia project itself, find parallels in writings on urban planning and architecture published in the late 1970s by Christopher Alexander, a Berkeley professor of architecture. At the same time, John Searle, a Berkeley professor of philosophy, introduced a critique of artificial intelligence using the metaphor of a Chinese Room.

Berkeley has established partnerships with Google, Intel, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, and Yahoo!. Intel Research Berkeley's small industrial lab near the main UC Berkeley campus brings together researchers from Intel and Berkeley to pursue open and collaborative research into realms including Technology and Infrastructure for Emerging Regions, Delay Tolerant Networking, rural connectivity and networks as databases. Yahoo! Research Berkeley Labs focuses on mobile media technology and social media in a facility adjacent to the campus. Sun Microsystems, Google, and Microsoft are funding a $7.5 million dollar Reliable, Adaptive and Distributed Systems Laboratory to develop more reliable computing systems.

List of research projects conducted at Berkeley:

• Daedalus project
• Digital library project
• GiST: A Generalized Search Tree for Secondary Storage
• Harmonia research project: Open interactive programming tools
• Sather: Object-oriented language derived from Eiffel programming language
• Not Another Completely Heuristic Operating System: Instructional software for teaching undergraduate and graduate operating systems courses.

[edit] Distinguished Berkeley people

Nobel Prizes have been awarded to nineteen past and present faculty, among the 60 Nobel laureates associated with the university.

• List of UC Berkeley alumni
• List of UC Berkeley faculty
• List of Nobel laureates associated with University of California, Berkeley

See also:

• List of University of California, Berkeley alumni: Turing Award laureates
• Technology alumni
• Business alumni

[edit] Student life

[edit] Athletics and traditions

Main article: California Golden Bears

Cal's sports teams compete in intercollegiate athletics as the California Golden Bears. They participate in the NCAA's Division I-A as a member of the Pacific Ten Conference. The official school colors, established in 1873 by a committee of students, are Yale Blue and California Gold.^[33] Yale Blue was chosen because many of the university's founders were Yale University graduates, (Henry Durant, Yale, Class of 1827, first university president) while California Gold was selected to represent the Golden State of California. Cal has a long history of excellence in athletics, having won national titles in football, men's basketball, baseball, softball, men's and women's crew, men's gymnastics, men's tennis, men's and women's swimming, men's water polo, men's track, and rugby. In addition, Cal athletes have won numerous individual NCAA titles in track, gymnastics, swimming and tennis.

The official university mascot is Oski the Bear, who first debuted in 1941. Previously, live bear cubs were used as mascots at Memorial Stadium. It was decided in 1940 that a costumed mascot would be a better alternative to a live bear. Named after the Oski-wow-wow yell, he is cared for by the Oski Committee, who have exclusive knowledge of the identity of the costume-wearer.^[34]

The Golden Bears' traditional arch-rivalry is with the Stanford Indians/Cardinal. The most anticipated sporting event between the two universities is the annual football game dubbed the Big Game, and it is celebrated with spirit events on both campuses. Since 1933, the winner of the Big Game has been awarded custody of the Stanford Axe. One of the most famous moments in Big Game history occurred during the 85th Big Game on November 20, 1982. In what has become known as "the band play" or simply The Play, Cal scored the winning touchdown in the final seconds with a kickoff return that involved a series of laterals and the Stanford marching band rushing onto the field.

The University of California Marching Band, which has served the university since 1891, performs at every home football game and at select road games as well. A smaller subset of the Cal Band, the Straw Hat Band, performs at basketball games, volleyball games, and other campus and community events.^[35]

The UC Rally Committee, formed in 1901, is the official guardian of California's Spirit and Traditions. Wearing their traditional blue and gold rugbies, Rally Committee members can be seen at all major sporting and spirit events. Committee members are charged with the maintenance of the five Cal flags, the large California banner overhanging the Memorial Stadium Student Section, the California Victory Cannon, Card Stunts and the Big C among other duties. The Rally Committee is also responsible for safekeeping of the Stanford Axe when it is in Cal's possession.^[36] The Chairman of the Rally Committee holds the title "Custodian of the Axe" while it is in the Committee's care.

Overlooking the main Berkeley campus from the foothills in the east, the Big C is an indelible symbol of California school spirit. The Big C has its roots in an early 20th century campus event called "Rush," which pitted the freshman and sophomore classes against each other in a race up Charter Hill that often ensued in a wrestling match. It was eventually decided to discontinue Rush and, in 1905, the freshman and sophomore classes banded together in a show of unity to build the Big C. ^[37] Owing to its prominent position, the Big C is often the target of pranks by rival Stanford University students who paint the Big C red and also Fraternities and Sororities who paint it their organization's colors. One of the Rally Committee's functions is to repaint the Big C to its traditional color of King Alfred Yellow.

Cal students invented the college football tradition of card stunts. Then known as Bleacher Stunts, they were first performed during the 1910 Big Game and consisted of two stunts: a picture of the Stanford Axe and a large blue "C" on a white background. The tradition continues today in the Cal student section and incorporates complicated motions, for example tracing the Cal script logo on a blue background with an imaginary pen.^[38]

The California Victory Cannon, placed on Tightwad Hill overlooking the stadium, is fired before every football home game, after every score, and after every Cal victory. First used in the 1963 Big Game, it was originally placed on the sidelines before moving to Tightwad Hill in 1971. The only time the cannon ran out of ammunition was during a game against the Pacific in 1991, when Cal scored 12 touchdowns.^[39]

California finished in seventh place[9] in the NACDA Director's Cup standings (Formerly the Sears Cup), which measures the best overall collegiate athletic programs in the country, with points awarded for national finishes in NCAA sports. With 865.5 points, Cal's seventh place finish is the highest in the school's history.

Cal National Champions

• Baseball

2 College World Series championships (1947, '57)

• Men's Basketball

1 NCAA Championship (1959) 1 NIT Championship (1999)

• Men's Crew

15 national championships (1928, '32, '34-35, '39, '49, '60-61, '64, '76, '99-02, '06)

• Women's Crew

3 national championships (1980, 2005, 2006)

• Football

2 national championships (1920, '37)

• Men's Golf

1 NCAA Championship (2004)

• Men's Gymnastics

4 team NCAA championships (1968, '75, '97-98) 21 individual NCAA champions

• Men's Lacrosse[10]

1 USLIA MDIA national championship (1998)

• Rugby

22 national championships (1980-83, '85-86, '88, '91-02, 2004-06)

• Softball

1 NCAA championship (2002)

• Men's Swimming

2 team NCAA championships (1979, '80) 42 individual NCAA champions 12 NCAA relay championships

• Women's Swimming

21 individual NCAA champions 2 NCAA relay championships

• Men's Tennis

1 NCAA championship (1925) 2 NCAA singles champions (1925, '26) 9 NCAA doubles championships (1925, '26, '30, '35, '37, '39, '52, '90, '91)

• Women's Tennis

4 NCAA doubles championships (1998-00) 1 NCAA singles champion (2006)

• Men's Track & Field

1 NCAA team championship (1922) 30 individual NCAA champions

• Women's Track & Field

4 individual NCAA champions

• Men's Water Polo

12 NCAA championships (1973-75, '77, '83-84, '87-88, '90-92, 2006)

Total NCAA Team Championships 67

[edit] Student housing

Main article: UC Berkeley student housing

UC Berkeley's student housing accommodates a variety of personal and academic preferences and styles. Presently, the university offers two years of guaranteed housing for entering freshmen, and the immediately surrounding community offers apartments, Greek (fraternity and sorority) housing, and Co-ops.

There are four dormitory complexes south of campus in the City of Berkeley: Units 1, 2, 3, and Clark Kerr. Units 1, 2 and 3 offer high-rise accommodations with common areas on each floor. Dining commons and other central facilities are shared by the high-rises. Because of their communal design and location in the city, these dormitories tend to be the more social of the housing options. Units 1 and 2 also have many of the newest dormitory buildings, which are intended for continuing and transfer students.^[40] Just outside these complexes are the Channing-Bowditch and Ida Jackson apartments, also intended for older students.^[41][42] Farther away from campus is Clark Kerr, a dormitory complex that houses many student athletes and was once a school for the deaf and blind. This complex is considered the most spacious and luxurious accommodation south of campus.

In the foothills, east of the central campus, there are three additional dormitory complexes: Foothill, Stern, and Bowles.

Foothill is a co-ed suite-style dorm reminiscent of a Swiss chalet. Just south of Foothill, overlooking the Hearst Greek Theatre, is the all-girls traditional-style Stern Hall, which boasts an original mural by Diego Rivera. Because of their proximity to the College of Engineering and College of Chemistry, these dorms often house science and engineering majors. They tend to be quieter than the southside complexes, but because of their location next to the theatre, often get free glimpses of concerts.

Bowles Hall, the oldest state-owned dormitory in California, is located immediately north of California Memorial Stadium. Dedicated in 1929 and on the National Registry of Historic Places, this all-men’s dormitory has large quad-occupancy rooms and looks like a castle. This dorm is not unlike a fraternity, with many of its residents staying all four years. However, in 2005 the university decided to limit Bowles to freshmen because of complaints that it had become too raucous and was jeopardizing the learning environment.^[43] Bowles houses what was once ranked one of Playboy Magazine's top-10 college parties during Halloween, although the university has cracked down on this activity. Currently, the residence is being courted by the Haas School of Business to become housing for scholars and business professionals who visit Berkeley.^[44] There is a great deal of opposition to this plan, and no final decisions have been made.

• UC Berkeley Housing and Residential Student Services
• UC Berkeley Fraternaties and Sororities
• University Students Cooperative Association

[edit] Student groups

UC Berkeley has over 700 established student groups.

• Office of Student Life Homepage

UC Berkeley has a reputation for student activism, stemming from the 1960s and the Free Speech Movement. Today, Berkeley is known as a lively campus with activism in many forms, from email petitions, presentations on Sproul Plaza and volunteering, to the occasional protest. Political student groups on campus numbered 94 in 2006-2007 school year, including Berkeley ACLU, Berkeley Students for Life, Campus Greens, Cal Berkeley Democrats, and the Berkeley College Republicans. Berkeley sends the most students to the Peace Corps of any university in the nation.^[45]

The IDEAL Scholars Fund was established by four alumni to increase the number of qualified, underrepresented students of color at UC Berkeley. The Fund tries to counter the effects of California Proposition 209, which ended Affirmative Action in California and in the University of California system. The consequent reduction in the numbers of Latino, African American and Native American students rekindled activism on campus concerning issues of race. However, supporters of Proposition 209 have noted that the number of Asian American students has dramatically increased following its passage. Racial preferences remain a controversial topic, with some students supporting them while others are opposed.

The Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC) is the student government organization that controls funding for student groups and organizes on-campus student events. It is considered one of the most autonomous student governments at any public university in the U.S.

UC Berkeley's independent student-run newspaper is the Daily Californian. Founded in 1871, The Daily Cal became independent in 1971 after the campus administration fired three senior editors for encouraging readers to take back People's Park.

Berkeley's FM radio station, KALX, broadcasts on 90.7 MHz. It is run largely by volunteers, including both students and community members.

Democratic Education at Cal, or DeCal, is a program that promotes the creation of professor-sponsored, student-facilitated classes through the Special Studies 98/198 program. DeCal arose out of the 1960's Free Speech movement and was officially established in 1981. The program offers some 150 courses on a vast range of subjects that appeal to the Berkeley student community, including classes on The Simpsons, Poker, South Park, Superman, Batman, conspiracy theories, political debate and DJing.[11]

[edit] Greek Life

Alpha Kappa Lambda, the only men's fraternity founded west of the Mississippi river, was founded at Berkeley in 1914.

Many other fraternities and sororities have existed at Berkeley over the years:

Sororities Kappa Kappa Gamma 1880, later recolonized Kappa Alpha Theta 1890 Gamma Phi Beta 1894 Pi Beta Phi 1900 Delta Delta Delta 1900 Alpha Phi 1901 Chi Omega 1902 Alpha Omicron Pi 1907 Delta Gamma 1907 Alpha Xi Delta 1909 (closed since 1969) Alpha Chi Omega 1909 Sigma Kappa 1910 Alpha Delta Pi 1913 Alpha Gamma Delta 1915 (closed) Delta Zeta 1915 (closed since 1969) Zeta Tau Alpha 1915 (closed since 1969) Phi Mu 1916 (closed) Kappa Delta 1917 (closed since 1969) Delta Sigma Theta 1921 Alpha Kappa Alpha 1921 Alpha Epsilon Phi 1923 (closed) Alpha Delta Chi 1929 Delta Phi Epsilon 1948 (closed since 1968) Alpha Kappa Delta Phi Sigma Omicron Pi Sigma Phi Omega

Fraternities Acacia 1905 Alpha Delta Phi 1908 Alpha Epsilon Pi 1949 Alpha Gamma Omega 1938 Alpha Kappa Lambda 1914 (Rechartered as Alpha Xi Omega 1997) Alpha Phi Omega 1939 (Co-ed Community Service) Alpha Xi Omega 1997 Alpha Sigma Phi 1913 Alpha Tau Omega 1900 Alpha Phi Alpha 1922 Beta Theta Pi 1879 Chi Phi 1875 Chi Psi 1895 Delta Kappa Epsilon 1876 Delta Chi 1910 Delta Tau Delta Delta Upsilon 1896 Kappa Sigma 1901 Kappa Alpha Psi 1947 Kappa Delta Rho 1905 Lambda Chi Alpha 1913 Lambda Phi Epsilon 1988 Phi Delta Theta 1873 Phi Gamma Delta 1881 Phi Kappa Tau 1921 (1916 as Orund Club [citation needed]) Pi Alpha Phi 1926 Pi Kappa Alpha Pi Kappa Phi (suspended 2005) Pi Lambda Phi 1922 Sigma Alpha Epsilon Sigma Alpha Mu Sigma Chi Sigma Nu 1892 Sigma Pi 1913 (1894 as Pirate Club[citation needed]) Sigma Phi Epsilon 1910 (refounded 2003) Tau Kappa Epsilon Theta Chi Theta Delta Chi Theta Xi Zeta Beta Tau 1921 Zeta Psi 1870

[edit] Criticism

UC Berkeley has been criticized by residents and the City of Berkeley because projects that the UC has wanted to carry often do so with little or no consideration to the surrounding communities.^{[citation needed]}, such as People's Park. On December 2, 2006, residents Zachary Running Wolf, Jess Walsh, and Aaron Diek began their residence in The Memorial Oak Grove near Memorial Stadium with the hopes that the UC Regents would halt the cutting of the trees to build a renovated stadium and related facilities. On December 5, the Regents voted to approve construction, which would cut the trees. However, no cutting has taken place as of yet.^[46]

[edit] References in pop culture

See also: List of University of California Berkeley alumni: Fictional

• Early scenes in the 1995 film Congo that are set on a university campus that is labeled "Berkeley" on the screen were actually shot at UCLA.
• The historic Campanille (or Sather Tower) can be seen in the movie National Lampoons Van Wilder during the judicial hearing scene out the window.
• A brief shot of the Berkeley campus appears in the movie The Andromeda Strain as scientists around the world grapple with the appearance of a deadly new virus.
• Parts of the movie The Graduate are set in Berkeley, with star Dustin Hoffman running through the campus and the Berkeley town center in search of his lover, Elaine Robinson (played by Katharine Ross). Although set in Berkeley, many of the scenes were filmed at the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Southern California. The same film contains a scene shot near the campus on Telegraph Avenue (showing Moe's Books in the background). It has Hoffman join Ross on a bus going to San Francisco; however, their bus is actually heading north on Telegraph, not toward San Francisco.
• The comedy Junior includes scenes that were filmed on the UC Berkeley campus. Strangely, the fictional school in the movie is called "Leland University", which calls to mind the full name of Berkeley's traditional rival school, Leland Stanford Jr. University.
• In Forrest Gump, Forrest (Tom Hanks) meets Jenny (Robin Wright Penn) and her boyfriend Wesley (Geoffrey Blake) during an anti-Vietnam War protest rally in Washington, D.C. Jenny tells Forrest that she lives with Wesley in Berkeley, where he is president of the Berkeley chapter of Students for a Democratic Society. In a later scene, a protest bus flies a banner proclaiming "Berkeley to DC".
• Fictional alumni have appeared in movies and television shows such as Mona Lisa Smile, The OC, Grey's Anatomy, 24, and The West Wing. For a list of such characters, refer to List of University of California Berkeley alumni: Fictional.
• In the opening scene of Made in America, Whoopi Goldberg rides her bike through UC Berkeley's south campus and then precariously weaves through heavy traffic on Telegraph Avenue.
• Even though a recent episode of the popular teen dramedy The OC was set at Berkeley, the scenes were shot at the University of California, Los Angeles due to budget constraints. However, there is a lone shot of the Valley Life Sciences Building during the episode.
• One scene of the film in National Lampoon's Van Wilder, when Van's peers and professors are deciding his graduation fate, has the Campanile shown in the background.
• A shot of the Campanile and surrounding buildings with the caption "An Average College Somewhere in Texas" appears in the independent stoner-comedy Rolling Kansas
• Parts of the film Boys and Girls starring Freddie Prinze Jr. and Claire Forlani, were filmed on the Berkeley campus. The characters fatefully, after meeting twice before in their lives, both end up studying at the same university.
• Several interior classroom scenes from the film Patch Adams were filmed on the Berkeley campus in Le Conte Hall
• Ang Lee's "Hulk" centers Bruce Banner's work at a ficticious lab located on the Berkeley campus, likely as a part of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory judging from the location of Banner's lab in the hills on the east side of campus. Several shots show the Berkeley campus and the surrounding San Francisco Bay area in the background as Bruce mountain bikes to his lab up what is known as "the fire trail," which leads into the hills.
• Sharon Stone's famous movie Basic Instinct was based on San Francisco. In the movie, Catherine Tramell (played by Stone) was a UC Berkeley graduate. She was suspected of killing her own professor.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Owens, Eric (2004). America's Best Value Colleges. The Princeton Review. ISBN 0-375-76373-2.
• A Brief History of the University of California, Berkeley
• Brief History of the University from official website
• Berkeley: Historical Overview from University of California Digital Archives
• Atomicarchive.com
• Manhattan Project Heritage Preservation Association
• Cal Traditions 101
• Cal Band
• University of California Rally Committee
• Cal Athletics
• UC Berkeley Residential and Student Programs
• Landscape plan

[edit] Further reading

• Brechin, Gray (1999). Imperial San Francisco. UC Press Ltd. ISBN 0-520-21568-0.
• Cerny, Susan Dinkelspiel (2001). Berkeley Landmarks: An Illustrated Guide to Berkeley, California's Architectural Heritage. Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association. ISBN 0-9706676-0-4.
• Freeman, Jo (2003). At Berkeley in the Sixties: The Education of an Activist, 1961-1965. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-21622-2.
• Helfand, Harvey (2001). University of California, Berkeley. Princeton Architectural Press. ISBN 1-56898-293-3.
• Rorabaugh, W. J. (1990). Berkeley at War: The 1960s. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-506667-7.
• Wong, Geoffrey (May 2001). A Golden State of Mind. Trafford Publishing. ISBN 1-55212-635-8.

[edit] See also

• University of California Museum of Paleontology

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: University of California, Berkeley

[edit] Official websites

• Berkeley Main Website
• Berkeley in the News
• Berkeley NewsCenter
• ASUC student government
• The Berkeleyan faculty and staff newsletter
• Cal Bears athletics
• The Daily Californian independent student newspaper
• General Course Catalog
• Library System Homepage
• Office of Planning and Analysis: Campus Statistics
• ScienceMatters @ Berkeley online science-oriented magazine
• Institute of International Studies
• @cal online alumni community
• Open Computing Facility free, volunteer-run computer center
• DeCal Home Page
• Maps and aerial photos Coordinates: 37.870259° -122.25947°
  • Street map from Google Maps or Yahoo! Maps
  • Topographic map from TopoZone
  • Aerial image or topographic map from TerraServer-USA
  • Satellite image from Google Maps or Microsoft Virtual Earth

[edit] Other

• UCWiki.com – a wiki for and by Cal students, with information about some campus organizations and nearby points of interest
• Berkeley Lectures on iTunes
• Calwiki – another Cal wiki, with mostly advising information
• A. Twu's Tour of UC Berkeley
• A Loafer's Guide to the UC Berkeley Campus by Carolyn Dougherty
• Berkeley Police Department Crime Statistics Map
• CSUA (Computer Science Undergraduate Association) web site
• Tau Beta Pi Unofficial Guide to Engineering
• TerraServer-USA aerial image of campus
• "We're No. 2! Now What?"— Berkeleyan article about Berkeley's rankings and their validity
• UC Berkeley Cafeterias go Organic
• Oski: School Mascot
• Free UC Berkeley lecture videos

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