University of California, Berkeley

5 min readSep 30, 2021

The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California)[9][10] is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state’s first land-grant university and the first campus of the University of California system. Its fourteen colleges and schools offer over 350 degree programs and enroll some 31,000 undergraduate and 12,000 graduate students.[4][11][12] Berkeley is ranked among the world’s top universities by major educational publications.[13]

A founding member of the Association of American Universities, Berkeley hosts many leading research institutes, including the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and the Space Sciences Laboratory. It founded and maintains close relationships with three national laboratories at Berkeley, Livermore and Los Alamos,[14] and has played a prominent role in many scientific advances, from the Manhattan Project and the discovery of 16 chemical elements to breakthroughs in computer science and genomics.[15] Berkeley is also known for political activism and the Free Speech Movement of the 1960s.[16]

Berkeley’s athletic teams, which compete as the California Golden Bears primarily in the Pac-12 Conference, have won 107 national championships, and as of 2021 its students and alumni have won 223 Olympic medals (including 121 gold medals).[17][18]

Berkeley alumni and faculty count among their ranks 110 Nobel laureates, 25 Turing Award winners, 14 Fields Medalists, 28 Wolf Prize winners, 103 MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipients, 30 Pulitzer Prize winners, and 19 Academy Award winners. The university has produced seven heads of state or government; six chief justices, including Chief Justice of the United States Earl Warren;[19] 22 cabinet-level officials; 11 governors; and 25 living billionaires.[20] It is also a leading producer of Fulbright Scholars, MacArthur Fellows, and Marshall Scholars.[21] Berkeley alumni, widely recognized for their entrepreneurship, have founded numerous notable companies, including Apple, Tesla, Intel, eBay, SoftBank, AIG, and Morgan Stanley.[22][23]

1History
1.1Founding
1.220th century
1.321st century
2Organization and administration
2.1Name
2.2Governance
2.3Funding
3Academics
3.1Undergraduate programs
3.2Graduate and professional programs
3.3Faculty and research
3.4Library system
3.5Rankings
3.6Admissions and enrollment
4Discoveries and innovation
4.1Natural sciences
4.2Computer and applied sciences
4.3Companies and entrepreneurship
5Campus
5.1Architecture
5.2Natural features
6Student life and traditions
6.1Student housing
6.2Student-run organizations
6.3Athletics
7Notable alumni, faculty, and staff
7.1Faculty and staff
7.2Alumni
8Controversies
9See also
10References
11Further reading
12External links

History[edit]

View from Memorial Glade of Sather Tower (the Campanile), the center of Berkeley — the ring of its bells and clock can be heard from all over campus.

Sather Tower (the Campanile) looking out over the San Francisco Bay and Mount Tamalpais

Main article: History of the University of California, Berkeley

Founding[edit]

Made possible by President Lincoln’s signing of the Morrill Act in 1862, the University of California was founded in 1868 as the state’s first land-grant university, 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.[24] The Organic Act states that the “University shall have for its design, to provide instruction and thorough and complete education in all departments of science, literature and art, industrial and professional pursuits, and general education, and also special courses of instruction in preparation for the professions”.[25][26]

Ten faculty members and 40 male students made up the fledgling university when it opened in Oakland in 1869.[27] Frederick H. Billings, a trustee of the College of California, suggested that a new campus site north of Oakland be named in honor of Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley.[28] The university began admitting women the following year.[29] In 1870, Henry Durant, founder of the College of California, became its first president. With the completion of North and South Halls in 1873, the university relocated to its Berkeley location with 167 male and 22 female students.[30][31] The first female student to graduate was Rosa L. Scrivener in 1874, admitted in the first class to include women in 1870.

University of California, Berkeley

Contents

History[edit]

Founding[edit]

Written by Caxec