University of California, Irvine

University of California, Irvine

UCI Campus Logo (Trademark of UC Regents)
Motto	Fiat lux (Let There Be Light)
Type	Public
Established	1965
Endowment	147 million (FY 2004)
Chancellor	Michael V. Drake, M.D.
Academic staff	1,453
Undergraduates	18,837
Postgraduates	4,891
Location	Irvine , California
Campus	Suburban, 1,489 acres (6 km²)
Mascot	Anteater
Website	www.uci.edu
File:Ucirvine logo.gif

The University of California, Irvine is a public university situated in suburban Irvine, California. It is one of ten University of California campuses and is commonly known as UCI or UC Irvine. UC Irvine is named after the Irvine Company, which donated 1,000 acres (4 km²) and sold another 500 acres (2 km²) to the University of California in 1959. Together, the University of California and the Irvine Company planned out a city around the campus, which was later incorporated as the city of Irvine in 1971.

History

During the 1950s, the University of California saw the need for new campuses to handle both the large number of college-bound World War II veterans (largely due to the G. I. Bill) and the expected increase in enrollment from the post-war baby boom. One of the new campuses was to be in the Los Angeles area; the location selected was Irvine Ranch, an area of land bisecting Orange County from north to south. The Irvine Company donated one thousand acres of Irvine Ranch for the new campus, and the University purchased an additional 510 acres. Irvine was one of three new campuses established in the 1960s under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the others being San Diego and Santa Cruz.

Architecture

Murray Krieger Hall, an example of the architecture of the campus

The first buildings were designed by a team of architects led by William Pereira and including A. Quincy Jones and William Blurock. The central park (now, Aldrich Park), designed by an association of three firms led by renowned landscape architect Robert Herrick Carter, was modeled after Frederick Law Olmsted's designs for New York City's Central Park. The campus opened in 1965 with the inner circle and park only half-completed. There were only nine buildings and a dirt road connecting the main campus to the housing units. Only three of the six "spokes" that radiate from the central park were built, with only two buildings each. Pereira was retained by the university to maintain a continuity of style among the buildings constructed in the inner ring around the park, the last of which was completed in 1972. Construction on the campus all but ceased after the Administration building was completed in 1974, and then resumed in the late 1980s, beginning a massive building boom that still continues today. This second building boom continued the futuristic trend, but emphasised a much more colorful, postmodern approach that somewhat contradicted the earthy, organic designs of the early buildings. Architects such as Frank Gehry and Arthur Erickson were brought in to bring the campus more "up to date".

Academics

UCI's academic year is divided into three quarters each with ten weeks of instruction and one week of finals. The university requires a minimum of 12 units a quarter (about 3 classes) to be considered full-time status to a maximum of 20 units. (The maximum can be exceeded by petition or by enrollment in the honors program.) Courses offered are usually worth between 1 to 5 quarter units. Summer courses are offered in either the quarter format of 11 weeks or two summer sessions of roughly half the time for a standard quarter.

In total, at least 180 quarter units are required to graduate. Many of the units come from the graduation requirements of a certain major but a substantial amount come from the general education requirement called the "breadth requirement" at the university. The breadth requirement consists of seven subject categories:

1. Writing
2. Natural Sciences
3. Social and Behavioral Sciences
4. Humanistic Inquiry
5. Mathematics and Symbolic Systems
6. Language Other Than English
7. Multicultural Studies and International/Global Issues

The sixth category, Language Other Than English, is usually fulfilled through taking four years of a foreign language in high school, passing an AP test on a language other than English with a 4 or 5, or scoring a 620 or better on an SAT II exam on a language other than English. The seventh category, Multicultural Studies and International/Global Issues, contains two subcategories, Multicultural Studies and International/Global Issues.

UCI's most popular undergraduate majors are Biological Sciences (621 degrees awarded in the 2004-2005 academic year), Economics (417), Information & Computer Science (478) and Psychology and Social Behavior (324). In 2005 the university awarded a total of 5,242 bachelors degrees, 943 masters degrees, and 276 doctorates.

UC Irvine operates the prestigious Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, which provides undergraduate students with the opportunity to gain valuable research experience. Better known on campus as UROP (pronounced you-ROP), the program provides funding and credit to undergraduate students who volunteer for faculty-mentored research projects pertaining to all academic disciplines. Launched in 1995, UROP has grown sharply in recent years and has received wide support from the faculty, including the active involvement of the UROP Faculty Advisory Board. Upon completion of the year-long research project, students are expected to present their findings at the school's research symposium. Although not a requirement, some students may submit their written reports (ranging from 15-25 pages) to the faculty committee in order to be considered for publication in the university's research journals. Publication in the UROP Undergraduate Research Journal is known to be extremely competitive. In many cases, students are asked to submit numerous drafts to the faculty committee for review, only to find out that their papers are later denied publication. In the past, a mere 5% of all submissions were accepted for publication in the journal. UROP is comparable to similar programs at other prestigious universities, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston University, and the University of Michigan.

UCI's library system consists of the main Langson Library which houses general media and electronic resources, the Science Library (the largest consolidated science and medical library in California), and the Grunigen Medical Library at the Medical Center.

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Ring Road encircles the campus as a main artery for students and other pedestrians

Rankings and Distinctions

In the 2006 U.S. News & World Report survey, UCI is ranked 4th among public universities in California, 10th among all public universities in the U.S., and 40th among all universities in the U.S., public or private. UCI is fourth in applications received in the UC system, behind UCLA, UCSD, and Berkeley, and was tied with UC Davis as the fourth-most selective UC school in freshman admissions for Fall 2005. UCI's Master of Fine Arts degree program in creative writing is ranked 6th nationally by US News and World Report, and has graduated such authors as Richard Ford, Michael Chabon, and Alice Sebold.

Following are the most current national rankings for UCI graduate programs by U.S. News & World Report: literary criticism and theory (2), criminology (4), behavioral neuroscience (5), creative writing (6), health care management (9), information systems (11), organic chemistry (11), drama and theater (12), third-world literature (12), cognitive psychology (13), English (16), psychology – neurobiology and behavior (16), experimental psychology (19), gender and literature (19), executive M.B.A. (20), cell biology/developmental biology (21), 19th- and 20th-century literature (22), psychology – cognitive science (22), sociology (27), aerospace engineering (29), computer science (29), chemistry (30), mechanical engineering (30), civil engineering (31), history (32), environmental engineering (34), fine arts (34), political science (35), biology (36), materials physics (38), biomedical engineering (40), engineering (40), materials science engineering (45), medicine (46), mathematics (47), psychology and social behavior (47), economics (48), business management (49) and electrical engineering (49).

UC Irvine is a member of the Association of American Universities. In the Academic Ranking of World Universities 2005 by Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Institute of Higher Education, UCI is ranked 35th in the U.S., 37th in the Americas and 47th in the world.

Three faculty have been named National Medal of Science recipients. Additionally, three researchers from UCI's faculty received the Nobel Prize during their tenure at UCI: Frank Sherwood Rowland (Chemistry, 1995), Frederick Reines (Physics, 1995) (deceased), and Irwin Rose (Chemistry, 2004). Dr. Rowland's Nobel-winning research was conducted exclusively at UC Irvine.

UCI's faculty are also members of the following U.S. learned societies:

• American Academy of Arts and Sciences (33 members)
• American Association for the Advancement of Science (75 members)
• American Philosophical Society (7 members)
• American Physical Society (30 members)
• American Psychological Association (20 members)
• Institute of Medicine (4 members)
• National Academy of Engineering (7 members)
• National Academy of Sciences (17 members)

As the second-largest employer in Orange County, UCI contributes an annual economic impact of $3 billion.

Organization

Chancellors

• Daniel G. Aldrich (1962-1984)
• Jack W. Peltason (1984-1992)
• Laurel L. Wilkening (1993-1998)
• Ralph J. Cicerone (1998-2005)
• Michael V. Drake (2005-)

Academic Units

A picture of the School of Social Sciences from Aldrich Park

.

1. Claire Trevor School of the Arts
2. School of Biological Sciences
3. The Paul Merage School of Business
4. Department of Education
5. The Henry Samueli School of Engineering
6. School of Humanities
7. Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences
8. Interdisciplinary Studies
9. School of Medicine
10. School of Physical Sciences
11. School of Social Ecology
12. School of Social Sciences
13. Summer Session
14. UC Irvine Extension

Campus

UCI and surrounding areas. Aldrich Park is the green circle in the center

Layout

The campus is primarily composed of 1960s Modernist/Futurist buildings set in a circle around a large central park. Satellite parking lots lie in another circle outside the main circle of buildings. The park is completely encircled by a pedestrian walkway known as Ring Road. Each school at UCI is located on its own segment of the ring (except for the School of the Arts and the Medical School). Starting from the main Langson Library and Administration building and going clockwise, Ring Road passes through Social Sciences, Engineering, Physical Sciences, Biological Sciences, and Humanities.

The campus was designed favoring large open spaces and decentralized facilities over the dense layout of older campuses. On campus there is residence hall space for about only 3,200 undergraduates, and some on-campus apartment housing.(Note: As of Fall 2004, Vista del Campo opened providing an additional 1,500 beds for both Undergraduate [approx 1,200 beds] and Graduate students. A second, larger phase is scheduled to open fall term of 2006). The local economy is vibrant, and provides jobs in all ranges of skills and earnings, from unskilled service work to skilled professions.

Surroundings

Although the campus is located in the city of Irvine, it is located very close to the city of Newport Beach; in fact, the campus itself is directly bounded by the city of Newport Beach on many sides.

Despite the suburban environment, a variety of wildlife inhabits the University's central park and wetlands. The university has bobcats, mountain lions, hawks, golden eagles, great blue herons, peregrine falcons, rabbits, raccoons, owls, skunks, weasels, bats, and coyotes. The University of California, Irvine, Arboretum hosts a collection of plants from California and Mediterranean climates around the world. The small rabbits in particular are very numerous and can be seen across campus in high numbers, especially during hours of low student traffic.

Transportation

Due to the facts that the city of Irvine is very suburban and that UCI students have little motivation to secure on-campus housing, the majority of students are commuters. Additionally, dorming freshmen can purchase residential parking permits. These factors have created a huge daily volume of cars, creating a severe parking shortage; methods such as stack parking have had limited success to alleviate the situation. However, UCI has both raised the typical parking citation to $50 and has increased enforcement of parking regulations in an effort to secure more revenue from parking. The usage of bikes and the student-run shuttle service has helped somewhat; however, the majority of the users of these are residents of on-campus or near-campus housing and do not commute.

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The Paul Merage School of Business

The parking permits for students that exist are:

• R - Residential
• S - Student Commuter
• P - Student Commuter Preferred
• F - Freshman Commuter

The parking permits for employees (faculty/staff) that exist are:

• C - Employee Commuter
• AR - Employee Reserved (these are similar to Employee Commuter, but have special allocated parking spaces)
• ?? - Employee Reserved Preferred
• X - Executive Permit (for Deans, the Chancellor, the Executive Vice Chancellor, and other high level management positions)
• ?? - Emeritus/Retiree
• CP - Carpool

There are also permits/spaces for motorcycles, special staff, vendors, and service vehicles. A special permit called "Nobel Parking Pass" is only given to Nobel Prize recipients and has access to any parking space on campus, except for the service vehicle or disabled parking spaces. The student-run shuttle service is used by students to travel between the distantly located parts of campus; certain routes of the shuttle service cater to on-campus residents who live in communities located on the fringe of campus.

Cars are the most popular form of transportation; motorcycles and scooters also have some popularity. Bicycles are used mainly by residents of on-campus or near campus housing. Public transportation is used by a few students to commute although bus fare is provided free of charge to the surrounding areas.

Public transportation is provided by the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA); all the bus routes are available to the students for free. Through the U-Pass program, the student ID is used as a bus pass. This service is paid for by parking tickets at UCI. UCI is located close to John Wayne Airport, a major Southern California hub.

The city of Irvine has a train station that services both Amtrak and Metrolink lines, although OCTA bus service is inconvenient. Like the Irvine Station, the Tustin Metrolink station is approximately 8 miles away, but easier to get to by bus. As a result, the Santa Ana Depot and Tustin Station are the closest train stations (in terms of bus travel time) for Amtrak and Metrolink respectively. Irvine does have an system of bicycle paths, including the San Diego Creek Bicycle Path which make bicycle transportation to and from either the Tustin or the Irvine station fun, safe, and effective.

UCI is close to three freeways: the 405 (a major artery), the CA 55, and the CA 73 (which splits off southbound from the 405 and is a toll road south of the university). The streets of Irvine have speed limits that range from 45 to 55 mph, making them conveniently fast during their non-peak hours. Traffic is notoriously endemic in the region, with peak hours consuming most of the late afternoon and early night.

Student life

Graduate students are housed at the Verano and Palo Verde apartments; although parking is abundent in these places, the Palo Verde administration has instructed the parking authority to frequently patrol and ticket residents for minor infractions such as not displaying permits as exactly prescibed by law. It is suspected that this is simply a means by which to raise some additional revenue from the students, as most fines are $50 or more. In fact, Palo Verde's operating budget shows that the administration collects 4% more in rent than it costs to run the complex.

Freshmen are typically assigned to live in either the Middle Earth or Mesa Court residence halls, while non-freshmen undergraduates live in the Campus Village, Arroyo Vista, or Vista Del Campo housing complexes, or in one of the many apartment complexes off-campus. Because of increasing enrollment in recent years, on-campus housing is only guaranteed for freshmen and transfer students. However, plans for two-year guaranteed housing are in motion with the opening of the latest on-campus housing complex, Vista Del Campo, and the construction of another housing complex, Vista Del Campo Norte. Two-year guaranteed housing will begin in the Fall 2006 quarter.

Due to its location in a preplanned suburban community, general student apathy, reputation as an academic or suitcase school (students tend to go home on the weekends, but stay on campus during the week nights), UCI has had a reputation as a quieter college town. Newport Beach, which is less than 10 minutes away, is home to a vibrant night life.

The Anteater Recreation Center boasts several recreational and sporting facilities and is popular among students (and some faculty). The University Town Center has been heavily developed to provide shopping, entertainment, and dining next to the school. The campus is within driving distance of local attractions such as the Irvine Spectrum Center, South Coast Plaza, The Block, shopping malls, as well as some of Southern California's most popular beaches and surfing spots at Newport and Huntington Beach.

UCI's Student Center is currently undergoing a major expansion. The project will expand the center to 300,000 sq feet nearly doubling its size. Two new food courts, a large ballroom, and several conference centers and stores are among the additions that will become part of the larger renovated center. Completion is scheduled for fall 2007.

Wayzgoose, held each April, is a popular university event. This medieval fair and open house features student organization booths, live bands, food, car show, and costumed people in the university community. The event is open to the public and also functions as an open house for incoming and prospective students.

UCI's student newspaper, the New University, is published weekly. There are two ideologically oriented student magazines, the Irvine Review and The Irvine Progressive, as well as Alkalima, the Muslim student paper, and other independent publications.

Allegations of anti-semitism

Due to hostile demonstrations held by the Muslim Student Union regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, some Jewish students and leaders, most prominently the Zionist Organization of America, have alleged that the campus is hostile to Jews. University officials defended their hands off attitude on allowing the demonstrations by the MSU to proceed as supporting freedom of speech. It was also pointed out that other recent demonstrations on campus have included material offensive to other groups (in this case, Muslims), such as the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons.

As of 2006, UCI was under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights regarding these allegations.

Sports

UCI sign at Crawford Hall - the athletic complex.

Main article: UC Irvine Anteaters

UCI's sports teams are known as the Anteaters. They participate in the NCAA's Division I, as members of the Big West Conference and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation.

UCI fields nationally competitive teams in cross country, track and field (men's throws), basketball, baseball, volleyball, water polo, soccer, swimming, rowing, and sailing.

Notable UC Irvine people

Main article: List of University of California, Irvine people

As with any major public university, many UC Irvine alumni have achieved fame or notoriety after graduating. These people include athletes (Steve Scott, Greg Louganis and 34 Olympians), film and television actors (Jon Lovitz), and technological innovators. UC Irvine also boasts a number of authors, such as Michael Chabon, James McMichael, Alice Sebold, Richard Ford, and Yusef Komunyakaa who earned MFA degrees from the school's creative writing program.

Several members of the faculty have been honored with the Nobel and Pulitzer. Ralph Cicerone, an earth system science professor and former chancellor, is currently president of the National Academy of Sciences.

Prior to the death of Jaques Derrida, best known as the creator of Deconstructionist theory, in 2004, UC Irvine was ranked number one in the nation in Critical Theory. Derrida and Wolfgang Iser, best known for his Reader Response theory, are legends in the field of Critical Theory.

Trivia

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UCI

Student traditions & culture

• The OPY's (Outstanding Professors Awards) were started in 1991. Professors are voted on by the graduating senior class. Winning professors are honored at a ceremony in spring quarter.

• One of the biggest traditions at UCI is the Wayzgoose Medieval Faire in April, which includes student organization booths, live bands, food, costumed individuals, games and rides for children, an Earth Day celebration, academic information, car show, and campus tram tours. The event is free and open to the public. The day also functions as an Open House for incoming and prospective students.

• The acronym UCI has often been jokingly claimed to stand for "Under Construction Indefinitely" (due to the recent surge of growth and construction activity on campus). It has also been said to stand for "University of Civics and Integras" because of the predilection for these two types of cars (popular as rice rockets) among the highly Asian student population. Furthermore UCI has been called the "University of Chinese Immigrants", "Under Chinese Invasion", as well as "UCA" (UC Asia), mocking the abundance of said people.

• Buildings in the Middle Earth student housing community are named after places and characters from the fictional world of J.R.R. Tolkien, author of the Lord of the Rings fantasy novels. Additionally, although possibly unrelated, the main circular road on campus is called Ring Road.

• During the annual E-Week celebrations held by the Engineering Student Council, several engineering related contests are held including an egg-dropping contest from the roof of the 140-foot Engineering Tower (the tallest building on campus) and the construction of Rube Goldberg machines.

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The UCI mascot is the Anteater.

Movies

• Neuroscience labs and exteriors of UCI were featured in the 1985 science fiction/comedy film Creator starring Peter O'Toole, Mariel Hemingway, Virginia Madsen, David Ogden Stiers, and Vince Spano.

• Several of the Futurist buildings at UCI were involved in the production of the 1973 movie Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.

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UCI as backdrop for "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes". Social Science Tower, which was brand new at the time, is in the background.

• Aldrich Park (in the middle of the campus) was shown during the wheelchair chase scene in the Mel Brooks film Silent Movie.

• The school was featured in the 2001 production of Ocean's Eleven. In the movie, the building where the crew steals the EMP device is actually the Gillespie Neuroscience Research Facility located in the College of Medicine.

• Exterior shots of the Langson library were used in the 1982 film "Poltergeist".

Miscellaneous

• Blizzard Entertainment, a PC game developer, has its headquarters on UCI land.

• Broadcom Corporation, one of the top technology companies in the world, has its Irvine operations located in UCI's University Research Park.

• There exists an official "North Campus" that consists of several small buildings and trailers and has no academic use. It is located next to the UCI Arboretum; both the North Campus and the arboretum are located a considerable distance from the main campus.

• The origin of the UCI College of Medicine predates the university by more than 60 years. The College of Medicine originated from the Pacific College of Osteopathy, established in 1896.

• A series of tunnels beneath Ring Road were the subject of much rumor and debate -some believing they functioned as a sort of emergency escape passage (see below). However, they were as maintenance tunnels containing utility pipes from the central plant to be used for any future expansion of the university.

• In October 1970, a Bank of America branch across from campus was burned down as part of an apparent string of California bank arsons that year. The arsonists left radical slogans on graffiti and signs. Student and faculty public reaction was uniformly negative.

• The Department of Chemistry operates a 250 kilowatt steady-state Mark I TRIGA reactor, used for radiochemistry research.

See also

• UCI Arboretum
• UCI Medical Center
• University Hills

External links

• University of California, Irvine
• UCI Medical Center
• University of California Digital History Archives
• UCI Sceneries
• UC Irvine Athletics
• UCI Office of Institutional Research — Campus statistics

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Schools

• Claire Trevor School of the Arts
• School of Biological Sciences
• The Paul Merage School of Business
• The Henry Samueli School of Engineering
• School of Humanities
• Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences
• School of Medicine
• School of Physical Sciences
• School of Social Ecology
• School of Social Sciences

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Student Media

• Anthology Yearbook (Official Yearbook)
• KUCI 88.9 FM
• New University (UCI Student Newspaper)
• Med Times (Medical Field Newspaper)
• Irvine Progressive (Liberal Newspaper)
• Irvine Review (Conservative newspaper)
• Jaded Magazine (Asian-American Magazine)
• The Koala (Comedy Magazine)
• Forest Fire Magazine (Music and Alt. Culture)
• New Forum (Creative Writing Journal)

Student Clubs and Organizations

• Directory of student clubs and organizations