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University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California)[10][11] is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Founded in 1868 and named after Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley, it is the state's first land-grant university and the founding campus of the University of California system. Berkeley is also a founding member of the Association of American Universities. It has been regarded as one of the top universities in the world.[12]

Not to be confused with Berkeley College (disambiguation).

Former names

University of California (1868–1958)

"Let there be light"

March 23, 1868 (1868-03-23)[1]

$6.9 billion (2022)[2][3]

23,524 (2020)[5]

45,307 (Fall 2022)[6]

32,479 (Fall 2022)[6]

12,828 (Fall 2022)[6]

Core Campus: 178-acre (72-hectare)[7][8]
Total: 8,164-acre (3,304-hectare)[3]

Berkeley is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities—Very high research activity" and has three national laboratories for the U.S. Department of Energy (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Los Alamos National Laboratory).[13][14] Between 2001 and 2010, it was the No. 1 recipient of National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships with 1,333 awards.[15] In 2021, the funding for research and development exceeded $1 billion.[16] Thirty-two libraries compose the Berkeley library system which is the sixth largest research library by number of volumes in the United States.[17][18][19] Berkeley's athletic teams, the California Golden Bears, compete in the Pac-12 Conference and have won 107 national championships and 223 Olympic medals (121 gold).[20][21]


Berkeley's alumni, faculty, and researchers include 260 American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows,[22] 190 recipients of the MacArthur Fellowship,[23] 144 members of the National Academy of Sciences,[24] 139 Guggenheim Fellows, 125 Sloan Fellows, 75 members of the National Academy of Engineering,[25] 68 recipients of the National Medal of Science, 34 Pulitzer Prize winners, 30 Wolf Prize winners, 25 Turing Award winners, 19 Academy Award winners, and 14 Fields Medalists.[26]

Various research ethics, human rights, and animal rights advocates have been in conflict with Berkeley. contended with the school over repatriation of remains from the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology.[66] Student activists have urged the university to cut financial ties with Tyson Foods and PepsiCo.[67][68][69] Faculty member Ignacio Chapela prominently criticized the university's financial ties to Novartis.[70] PETA has challenged the university's use of animals for research and argued that it may violate the Animal Welfare Act.[71][72]

Native Americans

Cal's reopened in September 2012 after renovations. The university incurred a controversial $445 million of debt for the stadium and a new $153 million student athletic center, which it financed with the sale of special stadium endowment seats.[73] The roughly $18 million interest-only annual payments on the debt consumes 20 percent of Cal's athletics' budget; principal repayment begins in 2032 and is scheduled to conclude in 2113.[74]

Memorial Stadium

On May 1, 2014, Berkeley was named one of fifty-five higher education institutions under investigation by the 's Office of Civil Rights "for possible violations of federal law over the handling of sexual violence and harassment complaints" by the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault.[75] Investigations continued into 2016, with hundreds of pages of records released in April 2016, showing a pattern of documented sexual harassment and firings of non-tenured staff.[76]

U.S. Department of Education

On July 25, 2019, Berkeley was removed from the for misreporting statistics. Berkeley had originally reported that its two-year average alumni giving rate for fiscal years 2017 and 2016 was 11.6 percent, U.S. News said. The school later told U.S. News the correct average alumni giving rate for the 2016 fiscal year was just 7.9 percent. The school incorrectly overstated its alumni giving data to U.S. News since at least 2014. The alumni giving rate accounts for five percent of the Best Colleges ranking.[77]

U.S. News Best Colleges Ranking

Berkeley community members have criticized UC Berkeley's increasing enrollment. Berkeley residents filed a lawsuit alleging that the university's expanding enrollment violated and that the area lacked the infrastructure to support more students.[78] Critics of the lawsuit accused these community members of NIMBYism.[79][80][81] In August 2021, a judge from the Superior Court of Alameda County ruled in favor of the residents, and on March 3, 2022, the California Supreme Court also ruled in favor of the residents, saying that the university needed to freeze its admission rates at 2020–2021 levels.[82] On March 11, 2022, state legislators released a proposal to change CEQA to exempt the university from its restrictions.[83] On March 14, Gavin Newsom signed the bill into law.[84] Berkeley has continued to face a housing shortage.[85]

California Environmental Quality Act

Organization and administration

Name

Officially named the "University of California, Berkeley" it is often shortened to "Berkeley" in general reference or in an academic context (Berkeley Law, Berkeley Engineering, Berkeley Haas, Berkeley Public Health) and to "California" or "Cal" particularly when referring to its athletic teams (California Golden Bears).[10][11][86] In August 2022, a university task force was formed which recommended renaming the athletic identity to "Cal Berkeley" to further tie the athletic brand to academic prestige, and reduce public confusion.[87]

Governance

The University of California is governed by a twenty-six member Board of Regents, eighteen of whom are appointed by the Governor of California to 12-year terms. The board also has seven ex officio members, a student regent, and a non-voting student regent-designate.[88] Prior to 1952, Berkeley was the University of California, so the university president was also Berkeley's chief executive. In 1952, the university reorganized itself into a system of semi-autonomous campuses, with each campus having its own chief executive, a chancellor, who would, in turn, report to the president of the university system. Twelve vice-chancellors report directly to Berkeley's chancellor, and the deans of the fifteen colleges and schools report to the executive vice chancellor and provost, Berkeley's chief academic officer.[89] Twenty-three presidents and chancellors have led Berkeley since its founding.[90][48]

The 2018–19 (CWUR) rated Berkeley the top public university in the nation and 4th overall based on quality of education, alumni employment, quality of faculty, publications, influence, and citations.[113]

Center for World University Rankings

For 2021, "World University Rankings: USA" placed Berkeley 4th among all US universities and 1st among publics.[114]

QS

In its 2022 list of , Forbes rated Berkeley the best public school and 2nd overall.[115]

America's top colleges

In the 2023–2024 national university rankings, Berkeley was the top public school and 15th overall.[116]

U.S. News & World Report

 – Physics professor J. Robert Oppenheimer was wartime director of Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Manhattan Project.

Atomic bomb

and photosynthesis – Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben first discovered carbon 14 in 1940, and Nobel laureate Melvin Calvin and his colleagues used carbon 14 as a molecular tracer to reveal the carbon assimilation path in photosynthesis, known as Calvin cycle.[140]

Carbon 14

 – Identified chemicals that damage DNA. The Ames test was described in a series of papers in 1973 by Bruce Ames and his group at the university.

Carcinogens

 – Sixteen elements have been discovered at Berkeley (technetium, astatine, neptunium, plutonium, americium, curium, berkelium, californium, einsteinium, fermium, mendelevium, nobelium, lawrencium, rutherfordium, dubnium, and seaborgium).[141][142]

Chemical elements

 – Gilbert N. Lewis in 1916 described the sharing of electron pairs between atoms, and invented the Lewis notation to describe the mechanisms.

Covalent bond

 – Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna discovered a precise and inexpensive way for manipulating DNA in human cells.[143]

CRISPR gene editing

 – Ernest O. Lawrence created a particle accelerator in 1934, and was awarded the Nobel Physics Prize in 1939.[144]

Cyclotron

 – Saul Perlmutter and many others in the Supernova Cosmology Project discover the universe is expanding because of dark energy 1998.

Dark energy

 – Wendell M. Stanley and colleagues discovered the vaccine in the 1940s.

Flu vaccine

 – Edward Teller, the father of hydrogen bomb, was a professor at Berkeley and a researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Hydrogen bomb

 – James P. Allison discovers and develops monoclonal antibody therapy that uses the immune system to combat cancer 1992–1995.

Immunotherapy of cancer

 – Allan Wilson discovery in 1967.

Molecular clock

 – Marian Diamond discovers structural, biochemical, and synaptic changes in brain caused by environmental enrichment 1964

Neuroplasticity

 – Peter Duesberg discovers first cancer causing gene in a virus 1970s.

Oncogene

 – Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol Greider, and Jack Szostak discover enzyme that promotes cell division and growth 1985.

Telomerase

 – Gladys Anderson Emerson isolates Vitamin E in a pure form in 1952.[145]

Vitamin E

, law journal published by Berkeley Law, est. 1912.

California Law Review

, national poetry journal, est. 1974.

Berkeley Poetry Review

, American literary magazine, est. 1981.

Berkeley Fiction Review

, satirical newspaper, est. 1991.

Heuristic Squelch

, conservative political magazine, est. 2000.

California Patriot

, nonpartisan political magazine, est. 2001.

Berkeley Political Review

Caliber Magazine, an "everything magazine", featuring articles and blogs on a wide range of topics, est. 2008.

B-Side, music magazine, est. 2013.

Smart Ass, magazine, est. 2015.

liberal

Berkeley Economic Review, journal, est. 2016.

economics

Business Berkeley, undergraduate journal.

Haas

Robert Reich, Professor of Public Policy, 22nd United States Secretary of Labor

Robert Reich, Professor of Public Policy, 22nd United States Secretary of Labor

Steve Wozniak, BS 1986, cofounder of Apple Inc.

Steve Wozniak, BS 1986, cofounder of Apple Inc.

Gordon Moore, BS 1950, cofounder of semiconductor company Intel

Gordon Moore, BS 1950, cofounder of semiconductor company Intel

Eric Schmidt, MS 1979, PhD 1982, Executive Chairman of Alphabet

Eric Schmidt, MS 1979, PhD 1982, Executive Chairman of Alphabet

Blake R. Van Leer, MS 1920, inventor, civil rights advocate, president of Georgia Tech

Blake R. Van Leer, MS 1920, inventor, civil rights advocate, president of Georgia Tech

Gregory Peck, BA 1939, Academy Award–winning actor

Gregory Peck, BA 1939, Academy Award–winning actor

Natalie Coughlin, BA 2005, multiple gold medal-winning Olympic swimmer

Natalie Coughlin, BA 2005, multiple gold medal-winning Olympic swimmer

Daniel Kahneman, PhD 1961, awarded the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his work in Prospect theory

Daniel Kahneman, PhD 1961, awarded the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his work in Prospect theory

Harold Urey, PhD 1923, Nobel laureate and discoverer of deuterium

Harold Urey, PhD 1923, Nobel laureate and discoverer of deuterium

Blockeley

Higher Education Recruitment Consortium

Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute

World Community Grid

(1999). Imperial San Francisco. UC Press Ltd. ISBN 0-520-21568-0.

Brechin, Gray

Cerny, Susan Dinkelspiel (2001). Berkeley Landmarks: An Illustrated Guide to Berkeley, California's Architectural Heritage. Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association.  0-9706676-0-4.

ISBN

Freeman, Jo (2003). . Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-21622-2.

At Berkeley in the Sixties: The Education of an Activist, 1961–1965

Helfand, Harvey (2001). University of California, Berkeley. Princeton Architectural Press.  1-56898-293-3.

ISBN

Rorabaugh, W. J. (1990). Berkeley at War: The 1960s. Oxford University Press.  0-19-506667-7.

ISBN

(Director) (2013). At Berkeley (Motion picture). Zipporah Films.

Wiseman, Frederick

Wong, Geoffrey (May 2001). A Golden State of Mind. Trafford Publishing.  1-55212-635-8.

ISBN

Edit this at Wikidata

Official website

California Bears Athletics website

. Collier's New Encyclopedia. 1921.

"California, University of" 

. The New Student's Reference Work . 1914.

"University of California" 

at Curlie

University of California, Berkeley