University of California, San Diego - History

History

When the Regents of the University of California originally authorized the San Diego campus in 1956, it was planned as first imagined by Roger Revelle, Director of Scripps, to start as a graduate school of science and engineering comparable in quality to Caltech. Citizens of San Diego supported the idea, voting the same year to transfer to the university 59 acres (24 ha) of mesa land on the coast near the Scripps Institute. The Regents requested an additional gift of 550 acres (220 ha) of undeveloped mesa land northeast of Scripps, as well as 500 acres (200 ha) on the former site of Camp Matthews, but Revelle jeopardized the site selection by making public La Jolla's exclusive real estate practices antagonistic to minority racial and religious groups, angering local conservatives as well as UC Regent Edwin W. Pauley. UC President Clark Kerr satisfied San Diego city donors by changing the proposed name from University of California, La Jolla, to University of California, San Diego. The city voted in agreement to its part in 1958, and the UC approved construction of the new campus in 1960. Because of the clash with Pauley, Revelle was not made chancellor—Herbert York, first director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, was designated instead. York worked out the planning of the main campus according to the "Oxbridge" model, relying on many of Revelle's ideas.

UC San Diego was the first general campus of the UC to be designed "from the top down" in terms of research emphasis. Local leaders disagreed on whether the new school should be a technical research institute, like the preexisting Scripps Institution of Oceanography, or a more broadly based school that included undergraduates as well. John Jay Hopkins of General Dynamics Corporation pledged one million dollars for the former while the City Council offered free land for the latter. In 1956, the UC Regents approved a "graduate program in science and technology" that included undergraduate programs, a compromise that won both the support of General Dynamics and the city voters' approval. Nobel laureate Harold Urey, a physicist from the University of Chicago, was an early recruit to the faculty in 1958. (Revelle and Suess published the first paper on the Greenhouse effect the year before.) Maria Goeppert-Mayer was appointed professor of physics in 1960; she later won the Nobel Prize in 1963. The graduate division of the school opened in 1960 with 20 faculty in residence; instruction was offered in the fields of physics, biology, chemistry and earth science. Classes initially met in the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

By 1963, new facilities on the mesa been finished for the School of Science and Engineering, and new buildings were under construction for Social Sciences and Humanities. Ten additional faculty in those disciplines were hired, and the whole site was designated the First College of the new campus. York resigned as chancellor in 1963 and was replaced by John Semple Galbraith in 1964. The campus accepted its first undergraduate class of 181 freshman in 1964, and was designated Revelle College the next year. Second College was also organized in 1964, on the land deeded by the federal government. It was renamed John Muir College in April 1966. The UC San Diego School of Medicine also accepted its first students in 1966.

Political theorist Herbert Marcuse joined the faculty in 1965. A champion of the New Left, he reportedly was the first protestor to occupy the administration building in a demonstration organized by his student, Angela Davis. The American Legion offered to buy out the remainder of Marcuse's contract for $20,000; the Regents censured Chancellor McGill for defending Marcuse on the basis of academic freedom, but further action was averted after local leaders expressed support for Marcuse.

In 1967, student unrest against the United States involvement in the Vietnam War began to be felt at UC San Diego, when a student raised a Viet Minh flag over the campus. Protests escalated as the war continued and were only exacerbated after the National Guard fired on student protesters at Kent State University in 1970. Over 200 students occupied Urey Hall while one student set himself on fire in protest of the war.

Under Richard C. Atkinson, chancellor from 1980 to 1995, UCSD strengthened its ties with the city of San Diego by encouraging technology transfer with developing companies, transforming San Diego into a world leader in technology-based industries. Private giving rose from $15 million to nearly $50 million annually, faculty expanded by nearly 50%, and enrollment doubled to about 18,000 students during his chancellorship. In 1995, the quality of UC San Diego graduate programs was ranked tenth in the nation by the National Research Council.

UCSD is taking out a $40 million dollar loan against itself to offset $84.2 million in state budget cuts in 2009.