Oakes College is a

residential college A residential college is a division of a university that places academic activity in a community setting of students and faculty, usually at a residence and with shared meals, the college having a degree of autonomy and a federated relationship wi ...

at the

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California syste ...

. It is on the southwestern corner of the campus, south of

Rachel Carson College Rachel Carson College is a residential college at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Named in honor of conservationist Rachel Carson, it is on the west side of campus, north of Oakes College and southeast of Porter College. The current pro ...

and east of the Family Student Housing complex. Oakes was founded in 1972 as College Seven by Professors Herman J. Blake and Ralph C. Guzmán. In 1968, the Black Liberation Front, a black power group, demanded an all-black college. Blake, UCSC's only

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

faculty member at the time, along with Guzmán, one of the few

Mexican-American Mexican Americans ( es, mexicano-estadounidenses, , or ) are Americans of full or partial Mexican heritage. In 2019, Mexican Americans comprised 11.3% of the US population and 61.5% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexica ...

faculty on campus, proposed a compromise in which College Seven's academic program would focus on

ethnic studies Ethnic studies, in the United States, is the interdisciplinary study of difference—chiefly race, ethnicity, and nation, but also sexuality, gender, and other such markings—and power, as expressed by the state, by civil society, and by indivi ...

, particularly the studies of minority groups in California. Though the term ''ethnic studies'' was dropped in the planning phases, the college has always stressed racial, ethnic and cultural diversity, along with the representation and support of students from historically disadvantaged groups. Oakes is perceived by some students as a "minority college", partly due to its roots in radical elements of the

Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...

. Comparative racial and ethnic statistics do show that Oakes' student body has slightly higher percentages of minorities than a number of other UCSC colleges and UCSC's student body as a whole. For example, 9.8% of Oakes's students are African American and 12.2% are Filipino American, compared with 2.7% and 4.5%, respectively, among UCSC's general student body. College Seven was renamed Oakes in 1975 after philanthropists Roscoe and Margaret Oakes, whose endowment contributed significantly to the founding of the college. Noted political activist

Angela Davis Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American political activist, philosopher, academic, scholar, and author. She is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A feminist and a Marxist, Davis was a longtime member of ...

, an Oakes affiliate, is a professor of

history of consciousness History of Consciousness is the name of a department in the Humanities Division of the University of California, Santa Cruz with a 50+ year history of interdisciplinary research and student training in "established and emergent disciplines and fiel ...

, an unconventional program centering on the history of struggles for racial, economic and social justice and equality.

Theme housing

Oakes College provides theme housing for their students that want to live on campus. There are four dormitory buildings and four apartment blocks.UCSC statistics by residential college
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Dormitory buildings

''Biko House'' – African American theme and STEM Community
''Hong-Lim House'' - Asian American/Pacific Islander themes
''Bayit Wiesel'' - Jewish, GLBTI themes
''Casa Huerta'' - Chicano/Latino theme

Apartment blocks

''Casa Kahlo'' - Chicano/Latino Theme
''Shabazz Block'' - African American Theme
''Milk Block'' - Jewish, GLBTI Themes
''Lili'uokalani Minami Block'' - Asian American/Pacific Islander Themes

Notes

External links

* {{coord, 36.98925, N, 122.06433, W, source:placeopedia, display=title University of California, Santa Cruz colleges