The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California)
is a
public land-grant
A land grant is a gift of real estate—land or its use privileges—made by a government or other authority as an incentive, means of enabling works, or as a reward for services to an individual, especially in return for military service. Grants ...
research university in
Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant university and the founding campus of the
University of California system. Its fourteen colleges and schools offer over 350 degree programs and enroll some 31,800 undergraduate and 13,200 graduate students.
Berkeley ranks among the world's top universities.
A founding member of the
Association of American Universities
The Association of American Universities (AAU) is an organization of American research universities devoted to maintaining a strong system of academic research and education. Founded in 1900, it consists of 63 universities in the United States ( ...
, Berkeley hosts many leading research institutes dedicated to science, engineering, and mathematics. The university founded and maintains close relationships with three
national laboratories at
Berkeley,
Livermore and
Los Alamos, 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.
Berkeley is also known for
political activism and the
Free Speech Movement
The Free Speech Movement (FSM) was a massive, long-lasting student protest which took place during the 1964–65 academic year on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. The Movement was informally under the central leadership of Be ...
of the 1960s.
Berkeley's athletic teams, which compete as the
California Golden Bears primarily in the
Pac-12 Conference, have won 107 national championships, and its students and alumni have won
223 Olympic medals (including 121 gold medals).
Among its
alumni
Alumni (singular: alumnus (masculine) or alumna (feminine)) are former students of a school, college, or university who have either attended or graduated in some fashion from the institution. The feminine plural alumnae is sometimes used for grou ...
,
faculty and researchers, Berkeley has more
Nobel laureates (107),
Turing Award winners (25),
Fields Medalists (14), and
Wolf Prize winners (30) than any other public university in the nation; it is affiliated with 34
Pulitzer Prizes, 19
Academy Awards, and more
MacArthur "Genius Grants" (108) and
National Medals of Science (68) than any other public institution.
The university has produced seven
heads of state
A head of state (or chief of state) is the public persona who officially embodies a state Foakes, pp. 110–11 " he head of statebeing an embodiment of the State itself or representatitve of its international persona." in its unity and ...
or
government; six chief justices, including
Chief Justice of the United States Earl Warren;
22
cabinet-level officials; 11
governors; and 25 living
billionaires. It is also a leading producer of
Fulbright Scholars
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people o ...
,
MacArthur Fellows, and
Marshall Scholars
The Marshall Scholarship is a postgraduate scholarship for "intellectually distinguished young Americans ndtheir country's future leaders" to study at any university in the United Kingdom. It is widely considered one of the most prestigious sc ...
. Berkeley alumni, widely recognized for their entrepreneurship, have founded
numerous notable companies, including
Apple,
Tesla,
Intel,
eBay,
SoftBank
is a Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo which focuses on investment management. The Group primarily invests in companies operating in technology, energy, and financial sectors. It also runs the Vi ...
,
AIG
American International Group, Inc. (AIG) is an American multinational finance and insurance corporation with operations in more than 80 countries and jurisdictions. , AIG companies employed 49,600 people.https://www.aig.com/content/dam/aig/amer ...
, and
Morgan Stanley.
History
Founding
Made possible by
President Lincoln's signing of the
Morrill Act
The Morrill Land-Grant Acts are United States statutes that allowed for the creation of land-grant colleges in U.S. states using the proceeds from sales of federally-owned land, often obtained from indigenous tribes through treaty, cession, or s ...
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.
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".
Ten faculty members and 40 male students made up the fledgling university when it opened in Oakland in 1869.
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.
The university began admitting women the following year. 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.
The first female student to graduate was Rosa L. Scrivener in 1874, admitted in the first class to include women in 1870.
Beginning in 1891,
Phoebe Apperson Hearst funded several programs and new buildings and, in 1898, sponsored an international competition in Antwerp, Belgium, where French architect
Émile Bénard submitted the winning design for a campus master plan.
20th century
In 1905, the University Farm was established near
Sacramento, ultimately becoming the
University of California, Davis.
In 1919, Los Angeles State Normal School became the southern branch of the university, which ultimately became the
University of California, Los Angeles. By the 1920s, the number of campus buildings in Berkeley had grown substantially and included twenty structures designed by architect
John Galen Howard
John Galen Howard (May 8, 1864 in Chelmsford, Massachusetts – July 18, 1931 in San Francisco, California) was an American architect and educator who began his career in New York before moving to California. He was the principal architect at in ...
.
In 1917, one of the nation's first
ROTC programs was established at Berkeley and its School of Military Aeronautics began training pilots, including Gen.
Jimmy Doolittle
James Harold Doolittle (December 14, 1896 – September 27, 1993) was an American military general and aviation pioneer who received the Medal of Honor for his daring raid on Japan during World War II. He also made early coast-to-coast flights ...
. In 1926, future
Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz established the first
Naval ROTC
The Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) program is a college-based, commissioned officer training program of the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps.
Origins
A pilot Naval Reserve unit was established in September 192 ...
unit at Berkeley. Berkeley ROTC alumni include former Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara
Robert Strange McNamara (; June 9, 1916 – July 6, 2009) was an American business executive and the eighth United States Secretary of Defense, serving from 1961 to 1968 under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He remains the ...
, Army Chief of Staff
Frederick C. Weyand, sixteen other
general officers, ten Navy
flag officer
A flag officer is a commissioned officer in a nation's armed forces senior enough to be entitled to fly a flag to mark the position from which the officer exercises command.
The term is used differently in different countries:
*In many countries ...
s, and AFROTC alumna Captain
Theresa Claiborne.
In the 1930s,
Ernest Orlando Lawrence helped establish the Radiation Laboratory (now
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) and invented the
cyclotron
A cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator invented by Ernest O. Lawrence in 1929–1930 at the University of California, Berkeley, and patented in 1932. Lawrence, Ernest O. ''Method and apparatus for the acceleration of ions'', filed: Jan ...
, which won him the Nobel physics prize in 1939. Using the cyclotron, Berkeley professors and Berkeley Lab researchers went on to discover 16
chemical elements—more than any other university in the world.
In particular, during World War II and following
Glenn Seaborg
Glenn Theodore Seaborg (; April 19, 1912February 25, 1999) was an American chemist whose involvement in the synthesis, discovery and investigation of ten transuranium elements earned him a share of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His work i ...
's then-secret discovery of plutonium, Lawrence's Radiation Laboratory began to contract with the U.S. Army to develop the atomic bomb. Physics professor
J. Robert Oppenheimer
J. Robert Oppenheimer (; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist. A professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is oft ...
was named scientific head of the Manhattan Project in 1942. Along with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley founded and was then a partner in managing two other labs,
Los Alamos National Laboratory (1943) and
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (1952).
In 1952, the
University of California reorganized itself into a system of semi-autonomous campuses, with each campus given a chancellor, and
Clark Kerr became Berkeley's first Chancellor, while
Robert Sproul remained in place as the President of the University of California.
Berkeley gained a worldwide reputation for
political activism in the 1960s.
In 1964, the
Free Speech Movement
The Free Speech Movement (FSM) was a massive, long-lasting student protest which took place during the 1964–65 academic year on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. The Movement was informally under the central leadership of Be ...
organized student resistance to the university's restrictions on political activities on campus—most conspicuously, student activities related to the
Civil Rights Movement. The arrest in Sproul Plaza of
Jack Weinberg, a recent Berkeley alumnus and chair of Campus
CORE
Core or cores may refer to:
Science and technology
* Core (anatomy), everything except the appendages
* Core (manufacturing), used in casting and molding
* Core (optical fiber), the signal-carrying portion of an optical fiber
* Core, the centra ...
, in October 1964, prompted a series of student-led acts of formal remonstrance and civil disobedience that ultimately gave rise to the Free Speech Movement, which movement would prevail and serve as a precedent for student
opposition to America's involvement in the Vietnam War.
In 1982, the
Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) was established on campus with support from the
National Science Foundation and at the request of three Berkeley mathematicians —
Shiing-Shen Chern
Shiing-Shen Chern (; , ; October 28, 1911 – December 3, 2004) was a Chinese-American mathematician and poet. He made fundamental contributions to differential geometry and topology. He has been called the "father of modern differential geome ...
,
Calvin Moore, and
Isadore M. Singer. The institute is now widely regarded as a leading center for collaborative mathematical research, drawing thousands of visiting researchers from around the world each year.
21st century
In the current century, compared to the 1960s and 70s, Berkeley has become less politically active, although more liberal. Democrats outnumber Republicans on the faculty by a ratio of nine to one, which is a ratio similar to that of American academia generally.
The school has also become more focused on computer science, engineering, biology, chemistry, economics, and business. In 2007, the
Energy Biosciences Institute was established with funding from
BP and Stanley Hall, a research facility and headquarters for the
California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences
The California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3) is a nonprofit research and technology commercialization institute affiliated with three University of California campuses in the San Francisco Bay Area: Berkeley, San Francisco, and ...
, opened. The next few years saw the dedication of the Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences, funded by a lead gift from billionaire
Li Ka-shing; the opening of Sutardja Dai Hall, home of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society; and the unveiling of Blum Hall, housing the Blum Center for Developing Economies. Supported by a grant from alumnus
James Simons, the
Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing
The Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing at the University of California, Berkeley is an institute for collaborative research in theoretical computer science.
History
Established on July 1, 2012 with a grant of $60 million from the Simons ...
was established in 2012. In 2014, Berkeley and its sister campus,
UCSF, established the Innovative Genomics Institute, and, in 2020, an anonymous donor pledged $252 million to help fund a new center for computing and data science.
Organization and administration
Although the University of California system does not have an official
flagship campus
A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically the f ...
, many scholars and experts consider Berkeley to be its unofficial flagship. In some cases, it shares this unofficial status with the
University of California, Los Angeles.
Name
Officially the University of California, Berkeley, its name is often shortened to Berkeley in general reference or in an academic context (www.berkeley.edu,
Berkeley Law
The University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (commonly known as Berkeley Law or UC Berkeley School of Law) is the law school of the University of California, Berkeley, a public research university in Berkeley, California. It is one of 1 ...
,
Berkeley Engineering,
Berkeley Haas,
Berkeley Public Health) or to California or Cal, particularly when referring to its athletic teams (
California Golden Bears).
Governance
The University of California is governed by a 26-member
Board of Regents
In the United States, a board often governs institutions of higher education, including private universities, state universities, and community colleges. In each US state, such boards may govern either the state university system, individual c ...
, 18 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.
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 14 colleges and schools report to the executive vice chancellor and provost, Berkeley's chief academic officer.
Twenty-five presidents and chancellors have led Berkeley since its founding.
Funding
Berkeley receives funding from a variety of federal, state, and private sources. With the exception of government contracts, public support is apportioned to Berkeley and the other campuses of the University of California system through the UC Office of the President and accounts for some 12 percent of Berkeley's total revenues. Berkeley has long benefited from private philanthropy, with considerable gifts from the Flood, Hearst, Durant, Strauss, Lick, Harmon, and Bacon families in the 19th century and from the Hearst, Doe, Sather, Rockefeller, Cowell, Haviland, Bowles, Boalt, and Stern families, among others, in the first half of the 20th century. More recently, alumni and their foundations have given to the university for operations and capital expenditures.
Berkeley has also benefited from benefactors beyond its alumni ranks, notable among which are Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan (pledged $600 million, shared with
UCSF and
Stanford University, to form the
Biohub);
BP (pledged $400 million to research biofuels); the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (over $73 million since the foundation's creation), billionaire
Sir Li Ka-Shing (multiple gifts, most notably a $40 million gift in 2005), Israeli-Russian billionaire
Yuri Milner
Yuri Borisovich (Bentsionovich) Milner (russian: Юрий Борисович (Бенционович) Мильнер; born 11 November 1961) is a Soviet-born Israeli entrepreneur, venture capitalist and physicist. He is a cofounder and former c ...
, Thomas and Stacey Siebel, Sanford and Joan Weill, and professor Gordon Rausser ($50 million gift in 2020).
Several significant gifts have been made anonymously, including a 1999 gift of $50 million to support molecular engineering, a 2018 gift of $50 million to support STEM faculty, and a gift in 2020 of $252 million to support data science.
The 2008–13 Campaign for Berkeley raised $3.13 billion from 281,855 donors, and the "Light the Way" campaign, announced in early 2020, is scheduled to raise $6 billion by the end of 2023.
Academics
Berkeley is a large, primarily residential Tier One research university with a majority of its enrollment in undergraduate programs but also offering a comprehensive doctoral program.
The university has been
accredited
Accreditation is the independent, third-party evaluation of a conformity assessment body (such as certification body, inspection body or laboratory) against recognised standards, conveying formal demonstration of its impartiality and competence to ...
by the
Western Association of Schools and Colleges Senior College and University Commission since 1949.
The university operates on a
semester calendar and awarded 8,725 bachelor's, 3,286 master's or professional and 1,272 doctoral degrees in 2018–2019.
The university's academic enterprise is organized into 14 colleges and schools, which, in turn, comprise 180 departments and 80 interdisciplinary units offering over 350 degree programs. Colleges serve both undergraduate and graduate students, while schools are generally graduate only, though some offer undergraduate majors or minors.
*
College of Chemistry
*
College of Engineering
*
College of Environmental Design
*
College of Letters and Science
*
Goldman School of Public Policy
The Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy, or the Goldman School of Public Policy (GSPP), is a public policy school and one of fourteen schools and colleges at the University of California, Berkeley. Originally named the Graduate Sch ...
*
Graduate School of Journalism
*
Haas School of Business
*
Rausser College of Natural Resources
*
School of Information
*
School of Education
*
School of Law
A law school (also known as a law centre or college of law) is an institution specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for becoming a lawyer within a given jurisdiction.
Law degrees Argentina
In Argentina, l ...
*
School of Public Health
*
School of Social Welfare
*
Wertheim School of Optometry
*
UC Berkeley Extension (currently has two locations, in downtown
Berkeley and downtown
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
).
Undergraduate programs
The four-year, full-time undergraduate program offers 107 bachelor's degrees across the Haas School of Business (1), College of Chemistry (5), College of Engineering (20), College of Environmental Design (4), College of Letters and Science (67), Rausser College of Natural Resources (10), and individual majors (2).
The most popular majors are
electrical engineering and computer sciences,
political science,
molecular and
cell biology,
environmental science, and
economics.
Requirements for undergraduate degrees are set by four authorities: the University of California system, the Berkeley campus, the college or school, and the department. These requirements include an entry-level writing requirement before enrollment (typically fulfilled by minimum scores on standardized admissions exams such as the SAT or ACT), completing coursework on "American History and Institutions" before or after enrollment by taking an introductory class, passing an "American Cultures Breadth" class at Berkeley, as well as requirements for reading and composition and specific requirements declared by the department and school.
Three-hour final examinations are required in most undergraduate classes and take place over a week following the last day of instruction in mid-December for the Fall semester and in mid-May for the Spring semester.
Academic grades are reported on a four-point, five-letter scale (A through F) with grade points being modified by three-tenths of point for pluses and minuses, save for the A+, which carries just four points. Requirements for
academic honors
Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...
are specified by individual schools and colleges, scholarly prizes are typically awarded by departments, and students are elected to honor societies based on these organizations' criteria.
Graduate and professional programs
Berkeley has a "comprehensive" graduate program, with high coexistence with the programs offered to undergraduates, and offers interdisciplinary graduate programs with the medical schools at UCSF (various masters and doctoral) and Stanford (MD/MPH). The university offers
Master of Arts,
Master of Science,
Master of Fine Arts, and
PhD degrees in addition to professional degrees such as the
Juris Doctor,
Master of Business Administration,
Master of Public Health, and
Master of Design A Master of Design (MDes, M.Des. or M.Design) is a postgraduate academic master degree in the field of Design awarded by several academic institutions around the world. The degree level has different equivalencies; some MDes are equivalent to Master ...
.
The university awarded 963 doctoral degrees and 3,531 master's degrees in 2017.
Admission to graduate programs is decentralized; applicants apply directly to the department or degree program. Most graduate students are supported by fellowships, teaching assistantships, or research assistantships.
Faculty and research
Berkeley is
classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities—Very high research activity".
In fiscal year 2021, Berkeley's funding for research and development exceeded $1 billion.
There are 1,629 full-time and 896 part-time faculty members among more than 130 academic departments and more than 80 interdisciplinary research units.
The current faculty includes 260
American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows, three Fields Medalists, 77
Fulbright Scholars
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people o ...
, 139
Guggenheim Fellows, 78 members of the
National Academy of Engineering
The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...
, 149 members of the
National Academy of Sciences, eight Nobel Prize winners, four Pulitzer Prize winners, 125
Sloan Fellows, 8 Wolf Prize winners and 1
Pritzker Prize winner.
Library system
Berkeley's 32 libraries together contain more than 13 million volumes and cover over 12 acres (4.9 ha) of land, forming one of the largest library complexes in the world.
Doe Library
The Doe Memorial Library is the main library of the University of California, Berkeley Library System. The library is named after its benefactor, Charles Franklin Doe, who in 1904 bequeathed funds for its construction. It is located near the cen ...
serves as the library system's reference, periodical, and administrative center, while most of the main collections reside in the subterranean Gardner Main Stacks and Moffitt Undergraduate Library. The
Bancroft Library, which has over 400,000 printed volumes and 70 million manuscripts, pictures, and maps, maintains special collections that document the history of the western part of North America, with an emphasis on California, Mexico and Central America. The Bancroft Library also houses the Mark Twain Papers, the Oral History Center, the Center for the Tebtunis Papyri and the University Archives.
Rankings
National
* The 2018–19 ''
Center for World University Rankings'' (CWUR) ranked the university the 1st public university in the nation and 4th overall based on quality of education, alumni employment, quality of faculty, publications, influence, and citations.
* In 2014, ''
The Daily Beast
''The Daily Beast'' is an American news website focused on politics, media, and pop culture. It was founded in 2008.
It has been characterized as a "high-end tabloid" by Noah Shachtman, the site's editor-in-chief from 2018 to 2021. In a 20 ...
'' Best Colleges report ranked Berkeley 11th in the country.
* For 2015 ''
Kiplinger'' ranked Berkeley the 4th best-value public university in the nation for in-state students, and 6th for out-of-state students.
* The ''
Money Magazine'' Best Colleges ranking for 2015 ranked Berkeley 9th in the United States, based on educational quality, affordability and alumni earnings.
* For 2021,
''QS'' "World University Rankings: USA" places Berkeley 4th among all US universities and 1st among publics.
* The 2013 ''Top American Research Universities'' report by the
Center for Measuring University Performance ranked Berkeley 8th overall, 5th in resources, faculty, and education, 9th in resources and education, and 1st in education.
* The 2022-2023 ''
U.S. News & World Report'' national college and university rankings placed Berkeley 1st in the nation for public schools.
* ''
Washington Monthly'' ranked Berkeley 9th among national universities in 2022, with criteria based on research, community service, and social mobility.
Global
* For 2020–21, the ''Center for World University Rankings (CWUR)'' ranked the university 12th in the world based on quality of education, alumni employment, quality of faculty, and research performance.
* In 2017, the
Nature Index ranked the university the 9th largest contributor to papers published in 82 leading journals.
Past rankings
Clark Kerr in his memoir records the story behind Berkeley's rise in the rankings (according to the
National Academies
A national academy is an organizational body, usually operating with state financial support and approval, that co-ordinates scholarly research activities and standards for academic disciplines, most frequently in the sciences but also the humani ...
) during the 20th century. The school's first ranking in 1906 placed it among the top six schools ("Big Six") in the nation. In 1934 it ranked second, tied with
Columbia and the
University of Chicago, behind only
Harvard; in 1957 it was then the only school second to Harvard. In 1964 it was elevated to "best balanced distinguished university", meaning the school had not only the most top departments but also the highest percentage of top ranking departments in its school. The school in 1993 was the only remaining member of the original 1906 "Big Six", along with Harvard; in that year UC Berkeley ranked first and the other five rankings were, starting from second place,
Stanford, Harvard,
Princeton,
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
, and
Yale
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...
.
The
American Council on Education
The American Council on Education (ACE) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) U.S. higher education association established in 1918. ACE's members are the leaders of approximately 1,700 accredited, degree-granting colleges and universities and higher educatio ...
, a private non-profit association, had ranked Berkeley tenth in 1934. However, by 1942, private funding rose Berkeley to being ranked second only to Harvard, based on the number of distinguished departments.
''
Times Higher Education'' in 1990 and later years has considered Berkeley, based on reputation, to be one of the world's "six super brands" along with
Oxford,
Cambridge, Harvard, MIT, and Stanford.
Berkeley was the #1 recipient of
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships between 2001 and 2010, with 1,333 awards.
The 2010
United States National Research Council Rankings identified Berkeley as having the highest number of top-ranked doctoral programs in the nation. Berkeley doctoral programs that received a #1 ranking included English, German, Political Science, Geography, Agricultural and Resource Economics, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Genetics, Genomics, Epidemiology, Plant Biology, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Admissions and enrollment
For Fall 2019, Berkeley's total enrollment was 43,695: 31,780 undergraduate and 11,915 graduate students, with women accounting for 54 percent of undergraduates and 46 percent of graduate and professional students.
6,465 first-time freshmen and 2,554 degree-seeking transfer students matriculated. The acceptance rate for freshmen was 11.4 percent in 2022. Of enrolled freshmen, 55 percent were women. Enrolled freshman had an average unweighted GPA of 3.89 and an average SAT score of 1425. The interquartile range for SAT scores was 1330–1520. Berkeley and other campuses of the University of California do not superscore.
Berkeley students are eligible for a variety of public and private financial aid. Generally, financial aid inquiries are processed through the Financial Aid and Scholarships Office, although some schools, such as the Haas School of Business and
Berkeley Law
The University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (commonly known as Berkeley Law or UC Berkeley School of Law) is the law school of the University of California, Berkeley, a public research university in Berkeley, California. It is one of 1 ...
, have their own financial aid offices. Berkeley's enrollment of
National Merit Scholars was third in the nation until 2002, when participation in the National Merit program was discontinued. For 2019, Berkeley ranked fourth in enrollment of recipients of the
National Merit $2,500 Scholarship (132 scholars). Twenty-seven percent of admitted students receive federal
Pell grant
A Pell Grant is a subsidy the U.S. federal government provides for students who need it to pay for college. Federal Pell Grants are limited to students with financial need, who have not earned their first bachelor's degree, or who are enrolled i ...
s.
Discoveries and innovation
A number of significant inventions and discoveries have been made by Berkeley faculty members and researchers:
Natural sciences
*
Atomic bomb – Physics professor
J. Robert Oppenheimer
J. Robert Oppenheimer (; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist. A professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is oft ...
was wartime director of
Los Alamos National Laboratory and the
Manhattan Project.
*
Carbon 14 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.
*
Carcinogens – Identified chemicals that damage DNA. The
Ames test was described in a series of papers in 1973 by
Bruce Ames
Bruce Nathan Ames (born December 16, 1928) is an American biochemist. He is a professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, and was a senior scientist at Children's Hospital Oakland Research ...
and his group at the university.
*
Chemical elements – 16 elements have been discovered at Berkeley (
technetium
Technetium is a chemical element with the symbol Tc and atomic number 43. It is the lightest element whose isotopes are all radioactive. All available technetium is produced as a synthetic element. Naturally occurring technetium is a spontaneous ...
,
astatine,
neptunium
Neptunium is a chemical element with the symbol Np and atomic number 93. A radioactive actinide metal, neptunium is the first transuranic element. Its position in the periodic table just after uranium, named after the planet Uranus, led to it bein ...
,
plutonium,
americium,
curium,
berkelium,
californium,
einsteinium
Einsteinium is a synthetic element with the symbol Es and atomic number 99. Einsteinium is a member of the actinide series and it is the seventh transuranium element. It was named in honor of Albert Einstein.
Einsteinium was discovered as a com ...
,
fermium,
mendelevium
Mendelevium is a synthetic element with the symbol Md ( formerly Mv) and atomic number 101. A metallic radioactive transuranium element in the actinide series, it is the first element by atomic number that currently cannot be produced in macrosco ...
,
nobelium
Nobelium is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol No and atomic number 102. It is named in honor of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite and benefactor of science. A radioactive metal, it is the tenth transuranic element and is the penul ...
,
lawrencium
Lawrencium is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Lr (formerly Lw) and atomic number 103. It is named in honor of Ernest Lawrence, inventor of the cyclotron, a device that was used to discover many artificial radioactive elements. A radio ...
,
rutherfordium
Rutherfordium is a chemical element with the symbol Rf and atomic number 104, named after New Zealand-born British physicist Ernest Rutherford. As a synthetic element, it is not found in nature and can only be made in a laboratory. It is radioactiv ...
,
dubnium
Dubnium is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Db and atomic number 105. It is highly radioactive: the most stable known isotope, dubnium-268, has a half-life of about 16 hours. This greatly limits extended research on the element.
...
, and
seaborgium
Seaborgium is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Sg and atomic number 106. It is named after the American nuclear chemist Glenn T. Seaborg. As a synthetic element, it can be created in a laboratory but is not found in nature. It is al ...
).
*
Covalent bond –
Gilbert N. Lewis in 1916 described the sharing of electron pairs between atoms, and invented the Lewis notation to describe the mechanisms.
*
CRISPR gene editing
CRISPR gene editing (pronounced "crisper") is a genetic engineering technique in molecular biology by which the genomes of living organisms may be modified. It is based on a simplified version of the bacterial CRISPR-Cas9 antiviral defense syst ...
– Nobel laureate
Jennifer Doudna
Jennifer Anne Doudna (; born February 19, 1964) is an American biochemist who has done pioneering work in CRISPR gene editing, and made other fundamental contributions in biochemistry and genetics. Doudna was one of the first women to share a ...
discovers a precise and inexpensive way for manipulating DNA in human cells.
*
Cyclotron
A cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator invented by Ernest O. Lawrence in 1929–1930 at the University of California, Berkeley, and patented in 1932. Lawrence, Ernest O. ''Method and apparatus for the acceleration of ions'', filed: Jan ...
–
Ernest O. Lawrence created a
particle accelerator
A particle accelerator is a machine that uses electromagnetic fields to propel charged particles to very high speeds and energies, and to contain them in well-defined beams.
Large accelerators are used for fundamental research in particle ...
in 1934, and was awarded the Nobel Physics Prize in 1939.
*
Dark energy –
Saul Perlmutter
Saul Perlmutter (born September 22, 1959) is a U.S. astrophysicist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a member of both the American Academy of Arts & Sciences ...
and many others in the
Supernova Cosmology Project
The Supernova Cosmology Project is one of two research teams that determined the likelihood of an accelerating universe and therefore a positive cosmological constant, using data from the redshift of Type Ia supernovae. The project is headed by S ...
discover the universe is expanding because of dark energy 1998.
*
Flu vaccine –
Wendell M. Stanley and colleagues discovered the vaccine in the 1940s.
*
Hydrogen bomb –
Edward Teller
Edward Teller ( hu, Teller Ede; January 15, 1908 – September 9, 2003) was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist who is known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb" (see the Teller–Ulam design), although he did not care for ...
, 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.
*
Immunotherapy of cancer –
James P. Allison
James Patrick Allison (born August 7, 1948) is an American immunologist and Nobel laureate who holds the position of professor and chair of immunology and executive director of immunotherapy platform at the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the Uni ...
discovers and develops
monoclonal antibody therapy that uses the immune system to combat cancer 1992–1995.
*
Molecular clock –
Allan Wilson discovery in 1967.
*
Neuroplasticity
Neuroplasticity, also known as neural plasticity, or brain plasticity, is the ability of neural networks in the brain to change through growth and reorganization. It is when the brain is rewired to function in some way that differs from how it p ...
–
Marian Diamond
Marian Cleeves Diamond (November 11, 1926 – July 25, 2017) was an American scientist and educator who is considered one of the founders of modern neuroscience. She and her team were the first to publish evidence that the brain can change with ...
discovers structural, biochemical, and synaptic changes in brain caused by environmental enrichment 1964
*
Oncogene
An oncogene is a gene that has the potential to cause cancer. In tumor cells, these genes are often mutated, or expressed at high levels. –
Peter Duesberg discovers first cancer causing gene in a virus 1970s.
*
Telomerase –
Elizabeth H. Blackburn,
Carol Greider, and
Jack Szostak
Jack William Szostak (born November 9, 1952) is a Canadian American biologist of Polish British descent, Nobel Prize laureate, university professor at the University of Chicago, former Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, and Alexan ...
discover enzyme that promotes cell division and growth 1985.
*
Vitamin E –
Gladys Anderson Emerson isolates Vitamin E in a pure form in 1952.
Computer and applied sciences
*
Berkeley RISC
Berkeley RISC is one of two seminal research projects into reduced instruction set computer (RISC) based microprocessor design taking place under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency '' Very Large Scale Integration'' (VLSI) VLSI Project. ...
–
David Patterson leads
ARPA's
VLSI project
The VLSI Project was a DARPA-program initiated by Robert Kahn in 1978 that provided research funding to a wide variety of university-based teams in an effort to improve the state of the art in microprocessor design, then known as Very Large Scale ...
of
microprocessor design 1980–1984.
*
Berkeley UNIX/Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) – The
Computer Systems Research Group was a research group at Berkeley that was dedicated to enhancing
AT&T Unix operating system and funded by
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Bill Joy
William Nelson Joy (born November 8, 1954) is an American computer engineer and venture capitalist. He co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Scott McNealy, Vinod Khosla, and Andy Bechtolsheim, and served as Chief Scientist and CTO at ...
modified the code and released it in 1977 under the
open source BSD license
BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses, imposing minimal restrictions on the use and distribution of covered software. This is in contrast to copyleft licenses, which have share-alike requirements. The original BSD lice ...
, starting an open-source revolution.
*
Deep sea diving –
Joel Henry Hildebrand used
helium with
oxygen to mitigate
decompression sickness
Decompression sickness (abbreviated DCS; also called divers' disease, the bends, aerobullosis, and caisson disease) is a medical condition caused by dissolved gases emerging from solution as bubbles inside the body tissues during decompressio ...
.
*
GIMP – In 1995,
Spencer Kimball and
Peter Mattis
Peter Mattis is an American computer programmer, entrepreneur, and business executive. He is the CTO and co-founder for Cockroach Labs, a company he co-founded in 2014. His work as a programmer includes launching GNU Image Manipulation Program ...
began developing GIMP as a semester-long project at Berkeley.
*
Polygraph
A polygraph, often incorrectly referred to as a lie detector test, is a device or procedure that measures and records several physiological indicators such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity while a person is asked ...
– invented by
John Augustus Larson and a police officer from the
Berkeley Police Department in 1921.
*
Project Genie
Project Genie was a computer research project started in 1964 at the University of California, Berkeley.
It produced an early time-sharing system including the Berkeley Timesharing System, which was then commercialized as the SDS 940.
History
P ...
–
DARPA funded project. It produced an early
time-sharing system including the
Berkeley Timesharing System
The Berkeley Timesharing System was a pioneering time-sharing operating system implemented between 1964 and 1967 at the University of California, Berkeley. It was designed as part of Project Genie and marketed by Scientific Data Systems for the ...
, which was then commercialized as the
SDS 940. Concepts from Project Genie influenced the development of the
TENEX operating system for the
PDP-10, and
Unix, which inherited the concept of
process forking from it.
Unix co-creator
Ken Thompson
Kenneth Lane Thompson (born February 4, 1943) is an American pioneer of computer science. Thompson worked at Bell Labs for most of his career where he designed and implemented the original Unix operating system. He also invented the B programmi ...
worked on Project Genie while at Berkeley.
*
SPICE –
Donald O. Pederson develops the Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis (SPICE) 1972.
*
Tcl programming language
TCL or Tcl or TCLs may refer to:
Business
* TCL Technology, a Chinese consumer electronics and appliance company
**TCL Electronics, a subsidiary of TCL Technology
* Texas Collegiate League, a collegiate baseball league
* Trade Centre Limited, a ...
– developed by
John Ousterhout
John Kenneth Ousterhout (, born October 15, 1954) is a professor of computer science at Stanford University. He founded Electric Cloud with John Graham-Cumming. Ousterhout was a professor of computer science at University of California, Berkeley ...
in 1988.
* Three-dimensional
Transistor –
Chenming Hu
Chenming Calvin Hu (; born 1947) is a Chinese-American electronic engineer who specializes in microelectronics. He is TSMC Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the electronic engineering and computer science department of the University of Califo ...
won the 2014
National Medal of Technology
The National Medal of Technology and Innovation (formerly the National Medal of Technology) is an honor granted by the President of the United States to American inventors and innovators who have made significant contributions to the development ...
for developing the "first 3-dimensional transistors, which radically advanced semiconductor technology".
*
Vi text editor –
Bill Joy
William Nelson Joy (born November 8, 1954) is an American computer engineer and venture capitalist. He co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Scott McNealy, Vinod Khosla, and Andy Bechtolsheim, and served as Chief Scientist and CTO at ...
created the first Vi editor in 1976.
*
Wetsuit
A wetsuit is a garment worn to provide thermal protection while wet. It is usually made of foamed neoprene, and is worn by surfers, divers, windsurfers, canoeists, and others engaged in water sports and other activities in or on water. It ...
–
Hugh Bradner
Hugh Bradner (November 5, 1915 – May 5, 2008) was an American physicist at the University of California who is credited with inventing the neoprene wetsuit, which helped to revolutionize scuba diving and surfing.
A graduate of Ohio's Miami Un ...
invents first wetsuit 1952.
Companies and entrepreneurship
Berkeley alumni and faculty have founded many companies, some of which are shown below.
Berkeley has often been cited as one of the universities that have produced most entrepreneurs, and boasts its own
startup incubator,
Berkeley SkyDeck.
*
Activision Blizzard
Activision Blizzard, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in Santa Monica, California. It was founded in July 2008 through the merger of Activision, Inc. (the publicly traded parent company of Activision Publishing) and Viven ...
, 1979 (as
Activision
Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one ...
), co-founder
Alan Miller (BS) and
Larry Kaplan (BA)
*
AIG
American International Group, Inc. (AIG) is an American multinational finance and insurance corporation with operations in more than 80 countries and jurisdictions. , AIG companies employed 49,600 people.https://www.aig.com/content/dam/aig/amer ...
, 1919, founder
Cornelius Vander Starr (Attended)
*
Apple, 1976, co-founder
Steve Wozniak (BS)
*
Coursera
Coursera Inc. () is a U.S.-based massive open online course provider founded in 2012 by Stanford University computer science professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller. Coursera works with universities and other organizations to offer online courses ...
, 2012, co-founder
Andrew Ng (PhD)
*
eBay, 1995, founder
Pierre Omidyar (Attended)
*
Gap Inc.
The Gap, Inc., commonly known as Gap Inc. or Gap (stylized as GAP), is an American worldwide clothing and accessories retailer. Gap was founded in 1969 by Donald Fisher and Doris F. Fisher and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. The c ...
, 1969, co-founder
Donald Fisher (BS)
*
HTC Corporation, 1997, co-founder
Cher Wang (BA)
*
Intel, 1968, co-founders
Gordon Moore
Gordon Earle Moore (born January 3, 1929) is an American businessman, engineer, and the co-founder and chairman emeritus of Intel Corporation. He is also the original proponent of Moore's law.
As of March 2021, Moore's net worth is repor ...
(BS) and
Andy Grove (PhD)
*
Marvell Technology Group, 1995, co-founders
Sehat Sutardja (MS, PhD) and
Weili Dai
Weili Dai () is a Chinese-born American businesswoman. She is the co-founder, former director, and former president of Marvell Technology Group. Dai is a successful female entrepreneur, and is the only female co-founder of a major semiconductor ...
(BA)
*
Morgan Stanley, 1924 (as
Dean Witter & Co.), co-founder
Dean G. Witter (BA)
*
Mozilla Corporation
The Mozilla Corporation (stylized as moz://a) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation that coordinates and integrates the development of Internet-related applications such as the Firefox web browser, by a global community of ope ...
, 2005, co-founder
Mitchell Baker (BA, JD)
*
Myspace, 2003, co-founder
Tom Anderson (BA)
*
Renaissance Technologies, 1982, founder
James Simons (PhD)
*
Rotten Tomatoes, 1998, founders Senh Duong (BA), Patrick Y. Lee (BA) and Stephen Wang (BA)
*
SanDisk
SanDisk is a brand for flash memory products, including memory cards and readers, USB flash drives, solid-state drives, and digital audio players, manufactured and marketed by Western Digital. The original company, SanDisk Corporation was acquir ...
, 1988, co-founder
Sanjay Mehrotra
Sanjay Mehrotra is an Indian-American business executive and the CEO of Micron Technology. He was a co-founder of SanDisk, where he served as president and CEO until its acquisition by Western Digital in 2016.
Early life and education
Mehrot ...
(BS, MS)
*
Softbank
is a Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo which focuses on investment management. The Group primarily invests in companies operating in technology, energy, and financial sectors. It also runs the Vi ...
, 1981, founder
Masayoshi Son
Masayoshi Son ( ja, 孫 正義, translit=Son Masayoshi, ko, 손정의, translit=Son Jeong-ui) (born 11 August 1957) is a Korean-Japanese billionaire technology entrepreneur, investor, financier and philanthropist. A 3rd generation "Zainichi Kore ...
(BA)
*
Sun Microsystems, 1982, co-founder
Bill Joy
William Nelson Joy (born November 8, 1954) is an American computer engineer and venture capitalist. He co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Scott McNealy, Vinod Khosla, and Andy Bechtolsheim, and served as Chief Scientist and CTO at ...
(MS)
*
Tesla, 2003, co-founder
Marc Tarpenning (BS)
*
VMware, 1998, co-founders
Diane Greene (MS) and
Mendel Rosenblum (PhD)
Campus
The Berkeley campus encompasses approximately , though the "central campus" occupies only the low-lying western of this area. Of the remaining acres, approximately are occupied by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; other facilities above the main campus include the
Lawrence Hall of Science and several research units, notably the
Space Sciences Laboratory
The Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL) is an Organized Research Unit (ORU) of the University of California, Berkeley. Founded in 1959, the laboratory is located in the Berkeley Hills above the university campus. It has developed and continues t ...
, the
Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, an ecological preserve, the
University of California Botanical Garden
The University of California Botanical Garden is a 34-acre (13.7 ha) botanical garden located on the University of California, Berkeley campus, in Strawberry Canyon. The garden is in the Berkeley Hills, inside the city boundary of Oakland, with ...
and a recreation center in Strawberry Canyon. Portions of the mostly undeveloped, eastern area of the campus are actually within the
City of Oakland; these portions extend from the
Claremont Resort
Claremont Club & Spa, A Fairmont Hotel is a historic hotel situated at the foot of Claremont Canyon in the Berkeley Hills and located in the Claremont district, near the intersection of Claremont Avenue and Ashby Avenue; the site straddles the ...
north through the
Panoramic Hill neighborhood to
Tilden Park.
To the west of the central campus is the
downtown business district of Berkeley; to the northwest is the neighborhood of North Berkeley, including the so-called
Gourmet Ghetto, a commercial district known for high quality dining due to the presence of such world-renowned restaurants as
Chez Panisse
Chez Panisse is a Berkeley, California, restaurant, known as one of the originators of the style of cooking known as California cuisine, and the farm-to-table movement. The restaurant emphasizes ingredients rather than technique and has develo ...
. Immediately to the north is a quiet residential neighborhood known as
Northside with a large graduate student population;
situated north of that are the upscale residential neighborhoods of the
Berkeley Hills. Immediately southeast of campus lies fraternity row and beyond that the
Clark Kerr Campus
Housing at the University of California, Berkeley includes student housing facilities run by the office of Residential and Student Service Programs (RSSP). Housing is also offered by off-campus entities such as fraternities and sororities and the ...
and an upscale residential area named
Claremont. The
area south of the university includes student housing and
Telegraph Avenue
Telegraph Avenue is a street that begins, at its southernmost point, in the midst of the historic downtown district of Oakland, California, and ends, at its northernmost point, at the southern edge of the University of California, Berkeley cam ...
, one of Berkeley's main shopping districts with stores, street vendors and restaurants catering to college students and tourists. In addition, the university also owns land to the northwest of the main campus, a married student housing complex in the nearby town of Albany ("Albany Village" and the "Gill Tract"), and a
field research station several miles to the north in
Richmond, California.
The campus is home to several museums including the
University of California Museum of Paleontology
The University of California Museum of Paleontology (UCMP) is a paleontology museum located on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.
The museum is within the Valley Life Sciences Building (VLSB), designed by George W. Kelham and ...
, the
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and the
Lawrence Hall of Science. The Museum of Paleontology, found in the lobby of the Valley Life Sciences Building, showcases a variety of dinosaur fossils including a complete cast of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. The campus also offers resources for innovation and entrepreneurship, such as the Big Ideas Competition (Blum Center for Developing Economies), SkyDeck, the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology, and the Berkeley Haas Innovation Lab. The campus is also home to the
University of California Botanical Garden
The University of California Botanical Garden is a 34-acre (13.7 ha) botanical garden located on the University of California, Berkeley campus, in Strawberry Canyon. The garden is in the Berkeley Hills, inside the city boundary of Oakland, with ...
, one of the most diverse plant collections in the United States, famous for its large number of rare and endangered species, with more than 12,000 individual species.
Outside of the Bay Area, the university owns various research laboratories and research forests in both northern and southern Sierra Nevada.
Architecture
What is considered the historic campus today was the result of the 1898 "International Competition for the
Phoebe Hearst
Phoebe Elizabeth Apperson Hearst (December 3, 1842 – April 13, 1919) was an American philanthropist, feminist and suffragist. Hearst was the founder of the University of California Museum of Anthropology, now called the Phoebe A. Hearst Mu ...
Architectural Plan for the University of California", funded by
William Randolph Hearst's mother and initially held in the Belgian city of
Antwerp; eleven finalists were judged again in San Francisco in 1899. The winner was Frenchman
Émile Bénard, who refused to personally supervise the implementation of his plan and the task was subsequently given to architecture professor
John Galen Howard
John Galen Howard (May 8, 1864 in Chelmsford, Massachusetts – July 18, 1931 in San Francisco, California) was an American architect and educator who began his career in New York before moving to California. He was the principal architect at in ...
. Howard designed over twenty buildings, which set the tone for the campus up until its expansion in the 1950s and 1960s. The structures forming the "classical core" of the campus were built in the
Beaux-Arts Classical style, and include
Hearst Greek Theatre
The William Randolph Hearst Greek Theatre, known locally as simply the Greek Theatre, is an 8,500-seat amphitheater owned and operated by the University of California, Berkeley in Berkeley, California, USA.
The Greek Theatre hosts The Berkele ...
,
Hearst Memorial Mining Building,
Doe Memorial Library, California Hall,
Wheeler Hall
Wheeler Hall is a building on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley in Berkeley, California in the Classical Revival style. Home to the English department, it was named for the philologist and university president Benjamin Ide Whee ...
, (Old) Le Conte Hall, Gilman Hall, Haviland Hall, Wellman Hall,
Sather Gate
Sather Gate is a prominent landmark separating Sproul Plaza from the bridge over Strawberry Creek, leading to the center of the University of California, Berkeley campus. The gate was donated by Jane K. Sather, a benefactor of the university, i ...
, and the
Sather Tower (nicknamed "the Campanile" after its architectural inspiration,
St Mark's Campanile in Venice), the tallest university clock tower in the United States. Buildings he regarded as temporary, nonacademic, or not particularly "serious" were designed in shingle or
Collegiate Gothic styles; examples of these are North Gate Hall, Dwinelle Annex, and Stephens Hall. Many of Howard's designs are recognized
California Historical Landmarks and are listed on the
National Register of Historic Places.
Built in 1873 in a
Victorian Second-Empire-style, South Hall, designed by David Farquharson, is the oldest university building in California. It, and the
Frederick Law Olmsted-designed
Piedmont Avenue east of the main campus, are two of the only surviving examples of the nineteenth-century campus. Other notable architects and firms whose work can be found in the campus and surrounding area are
Bernard Maybeck
Bernard Ralph Maybeck (February 7, 1862 – October 3, 1957) was an American architect in the Arts and Crafts Movement of the early 20th century. He was an instructor at University of California, Berkeley. Most of his major buildings were in ...
(Faculty Club);
Julia Morgan
Julia Morgan (January 20, 1872 – February 2, 1957) was an American architect and engineer. She designed more than 700 buildings in California during a long and prolific career.Erica Reder"Julia Morgan was a local in ''The New Fillmore'', 1 Febr ...
(Hearst Women's Gymnasium and
Julia Morgan Hall
Julia Morgan Hall (formerly Girton Hall) is a historic building in the University of California Botanical Garden in Berkeley, California. Built in 1911, the building was designed by prominent California architect Julia Morgan and originally loca ...
); William Wurster (Stern Hall); Moore Ruble Yudell (Haas School of Business);
Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects
Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects (also known as Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects , Partners) are a husband-and-wife architectural firm founded in 1986, based in New York. Williams and Tsien began working together in 1977. Their studio focu ...
(C.V. Starr East Asian Library), and
Diller Scofidio + Renfro Diller has several uses including:
People with the surname
*Barry Diller (b. 1942), American businessman
*Burgoyne Diller
Burgoyne A. Diller (January 13, 1906 – January 30, 1965) was an American abstract painter. Many of his best-known w ...
(Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive).
Natural features
Flowing into the main campus are two branches of
Strawberry Creek. The south fork enters a culvert upstream of the recreational complex at the mouth of Strawberry Canyon and passes beneath
California Memorial Stadium before appearing again in Faculty Glade. It then runs through the center of the campus before disappearing underground at the west end of campus. The north fork appears just east of
University House and runs through the glade north of the Valley Life Sciences Building, the original site of the Campus Arboretum.
Trees in the area date from the founding of the university. The campus features numerous wooded areas, including:
Founders' Rock, Faculty Glade, Grinnell Natural Area, and the
Eucalyptus Grove, which is both the tallest stand of such trees in the world and the tallest stand of hardwood trees in North America.
The campus sits on the
Hayward Fault
The Hayward Fault Zone is a right-lateral strike-slip geologic fault zone capable of generating destructive earthquakes. This fault is about long, situated mainly along the western base of the hills on the east side of San Francisco Bay. It run ...
, which runs directly through California Memorial Stadium.
Student life and traditions
The official university mascot is
Oski the Bear, who debuted in 1941. Previously, live bear cubs were used as mascots at Memorial Stadium until it was decided in 1940 that a costumed mascot would be a better alternative. Named after the
Oski-wow-wow yell, he is cared for by the Oski Committee, whose members have exclusive knowledge of the identity of the costume-wearer.
The
University of California Marching Band, which has served the university since 1891, performs at every home football game and at select road games as well. A smaller subset of the Cal Band, the Straw Hat Band, performs at basketball games, volleyball games, and other campus and community events.
The UC Rally Committee, formed in 1901, is the official guardian of California's Spirit and Traditions. Wearing their traditional blue and gold rugbies, Rally Committee members can be seen at all major sporting and spirit events. Committee members are charged with the maintenance of the six Cal flags, the large California banner overhanging the Memorial Stadium Student Section and
Haas Pavilion, the California Victory Cannon, Card Stunts and
The Big "C" among other duties. The Rally Committee is also responsible for safekeeping of the
Stanford Axe
The Stanford Axe is a trophy awarded to the winner of the annual Big Game, a college football match-up between the University of California Golden Bears and the Stanford University Cardinal. The trophy consists of an axe-head mounted on a larg ...
when it is in Cal's possession. The Chairman of the Rally Committee holds the title "Custodian of the Axe" while it is in the committee's care.
Overlooking the main Berkeley campus from the foothills in the east, The Big "C" is an important symbol of California school spirit. The Big "C" has its roots in an early 20th-century campus event called "Rush", which pitted the freshman and sophomore classes against each other in a race up Charter Hill that often developed into a wrestling match. It was eventually decided to discontinue Rush and, in 1905, the freshman and sophomore classes banded together in a show of unity to build "the Big C". Owing to its prominent position, the Big "C" is often the target of pranks by rival
Stanford University students who paint the Big "C" red and also fraternities and sororities who paint it their organization's colors. One of the Rally Committee's functions is to repaint the Big "C" to its traditional color of King Alfred Yellow.
Cal students invented the college football tradition of
card stunts Card or The Card may refer to:
* Various types of plastic cards:
**By type
***Magnetic stripe card
***Chip card
***Digital card
**By function
***Payment card
****Credit card
****Debit card
**** EC-card
**** Identity card
**** European Health Insura ...
. Then known as Bleacher Stunts, they were first performed during the 1910
Big Game and consisted of two stunts: a picture of the Stanford Axe and a large blue "C" on a white background. The tradition is continued today by the Rally Committee in the Cal
student section
A student section or student cheering section is a group of student fans that supports its school's athletic teams at sporting events; they are known for being one of the most visible and vocal sections of a sports crowd as well as for their occa ...
and incorporates complicated motions, for example tracing the Cal script logo on a blue background with an imaginary yellow pen.
The California Victory Cannon, placed on
Tightwad Hill overlooking the stadium, is fired before every football home game, after every score, and after every Cal victory. First used in the 1963 Big Game, it was originally placed on the sidelines before moving to Tightwad Hill in 1971. The only time the cannon ran out of ammunition was during a game against
Pacific
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...
in 1991, when Cal scored 12 touchdowns.
The Cal Mic Men, a standard at home football games, has recently expanded to involve basketball and volleyball. The traditional role comes from students holding megaphones and yelling, but now includes microphones, a dedicated platform during games, and the direction of the entire student section. Both men and women are allowed to fulfill the role, despite the name.
Student housing
Berkeley students are offered a variety of housing options, including university-owned or affiliated residences, private residences, fraternities and sororities, and cooperative housing (co-ops).
University housing
The university runs twelve different residence halls: seven undergraduate residence halls or complexes, both with and without themes; family student housing; re-entry student housing; and optional international student housing at the
International House, built with a gift from
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and the erstwhile home of six Nobel laureates. Undergraduate residence halls are located off-campus in the city of Berkeley. Units 1, 2 and 3, located on the south side of campus, offer
high-rise accommodations with common areas on every other floor. Units 1 and 2 share a common dining hall, Crossroads. The oldest unit, Unit 3, has its own dining hall, Café 3, on the first floor. At the beginning of the 2018–2019 school year, a new building called Blackwell Hall, was opened across the street from Unit 3. These buildings share a dining hall. Further away and also on the south side of campus is Clark Kerr, an undergraduate residential complex that houses many student athletes and was once a school for the deaf and blind.
In the foothills east of the central campus, there are three additional undergraduate residence halls: Foothill, Stern, and Bowles. Foothill is a co-ed, suite-style hall reminiscent of a Swiss chalet. Just south of Foothill, overlooking the Hearst Greek Theatre, is the all-women's traditional-style
Stern Hall, which boasts an original mural by
Diego Rivera
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957), was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the ...
. Because of their proximity to the
College of Engineering and
College of Chemistry, these residence halls often house science and engineering majors. They tend to be quieter than the southside complexes but often get free glimpses of concerts owing to their proximity to the theater.
Bowles Hall
Bowles Hall is a coed residential college at the University of California, Berkeley, known for its unique traditions, parties, and camaraderie. Designed by George W. Kelham, the building was the first residence hall on campus, dedicated in 1929, ...
, the country's oldest residential college, is located on the north side of campus between California Memorial Stadium and the Hearst Greek Theater. Gifted by Mary McNear Bowles in 1929 to honor her late husband, Regent Philip E. Bowles, the college began as a student-governed residence hall. The hall was originally all male until its reopening in 2016 following a $45 million renovation. Bowles is known for its
Collegiate Gothic architecture, its sense of community, and its unusual traditions and pranks.
The Channing-Bowditch and Ida Jackson apartments cater to re-entry students, while the 58-acre
University Village University Village may mean:
* University Village, Albany, California
*University Village, Chicago, Illinois
*University Village, Grand Forks, North Dakota
* University Village, New York
* University Village, Riverside, California
*University Villa ...
, located some northwest of campus, provides housing for students with families.
Cooperative housing
Berkeley students, and those of other local schools, have the option of living in one of the twenty cooperative houses participating in the Berkeley Student Cooperative (BSC), a
nonprofit housing cooperative network consisting of 20 residences and 1250 member-owners. Notable BCS alumni include
Norman Mineta
Norman Yoshio Mineta ( ja, 峯田 良雄, November 12, 1931 – May 3, 2022) was an American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, Mineta served in the United States Cabinet for Presidents Bill Clinton, a Democrat, and George W. Bush, a ...
,
Steve Wozniak,
Gordon Moore
Gordon Earle Moore (born January 3, 1929) is an American businessman, engineer, and the co-founder and chairman emeritus of Intel Corporation. He is also the original proponent of Moore's law.
As of March 2021, Moore's net worth is repor ...
,
Nathan Huggins,
Marion Nestle
Marion Nestle (born 1936) is an American molecular biologist, nutritionist, and public health advocate. She is the Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health Emerita at New York University. Her research examines s ...
, and
Beverly Cleary
Beverly Atlee Cleary (née Bunn; April 12, 1916March 25, 2021) was an American writer of children's and young adult fiction. One of America's most successful authors, 91 million copies of her books have been sold worldwide since her first b ...
. Notable co-ops include
Cloyne Court Hotel,
Stebbins Hall
Stebbins Hall is a student housing cooperative owned by Berkeley Student Cooperative (BSC) and located at 2527 Ridge Road in Berkeley, California, on the Northside of the University of California, Berkeley campus. The house has a total occupancy ...
,
Kingman Hall
Kingman Hall is located at 1730 La Loma Avenue near the northeast corner of the University of California, Berkeley campus. As part of the Berkeley Student Cooperative, Kingman Hall houses 50 residents, known as Kingmanites or Toadies. It is named ...
,
Casa Zimbabwe
Casa Zimbabwe, commonly referred to as CZ, is a student housing cooperative in Berkeley, California housing 124 residents. It is the second largest non-apartment style unit of the Berkeley Student Cooperative (BSC), behind Cloyne Court Hotel. Op ...
,
Lothlorien, and
Rochdale Village.
Fraternities and sororities
About three percent of undergraduate men and nine percent of undergraduate women—or 3,400 of total undergraduates—are active in Berkeley's Greek system. University-sanctioned fraternities and sororities comprise over 60 houses affiliated with four Greek councils.
Student-run organizations
Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC)
The
Associated Students of the University of California
The Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC) is the autonomous and officially recognized students' association of the University of California, Berkeley. It is the only students' association within the University of California ...
(ASUC) is the official
student association
A students' union, also known by many other names, is a student organization present in many colleges, universities, and high schools. In higher education, the students' union is often accorded its own building on the campus, dedicated to social, ...
that controls funding for student groups and organizes on-campus student events. It is considered the most autonomous student government at any university in the U.S. due to its independent funding model, level of university involvement and resources. The two main political parties are "Student Action" and "CalSERVE". The organization was founded in 1887 and has an annual operating budget of $1.7 million (excluding the budget of the Graduate Assembly of the ASUC), in addition to various investment assets. Its alumni include multiple State Senators, Assemblymembers, and White House Administration officials.
The ASUC's Student Union Program, Entertainment, and Recreation Board (SUPERB) is a student-run, non-profit branch dedicated to providing entertainment for the campus and community. Founded in 1964, SUPERB's programming includes the Friday Film Series, free Noon Concerts on Lower Sproul Plaza, Comedy Competitions, Poker Tournaments, free Sneak Previews of upcoming movies, and more.
Media and publications
Berkeley's student-run online television station,
CalTV
CalTV is a student-run online television station at University of California, Berkeley. Since its founding, CalTV has grown into one of the largest student-run media organizations on the west coast. CalTV is a chartered organization of the Asso ...
, was formed in 2005 and broadcasts online. It is run by students with a variety of backgrounds and majors. Since the mid-2010s, it has been a program of the
ASUC
The Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC) is the autonomous and officially recognized students' association of the University of California, Berkeley. It is the only students' association within the University of California ...
.
Berkeley's independent student-run newspaper is ''
The Daily Californian''. Founded in 1871, ''The Daily Cal'' became independent in 1971 after the campus administration fired three senior editors for encouraging readers to take back
People's Park. The Daily Californian has both a print and online edition. Print circulation is about 10,000. The newspaper is an important source of information for students, faculty, staff, and the surrounding City of Berkeley.
Berkeley's FM
Student radio station
Campus radio (also known as college radio, university radio or student radio) is a type of radio station that is run by the students of a college, university or other educational institution. Programming may be exclusively created or produced ...
,
KALX
KALX (90.7 FM) is an FM radio station that broadcasts from the University of California, Berkeley in Berkeley, California, United States. KALX, a community and student-run radio station licensed to the university, broadcasts in stereo with 50 ...
, broadcasts on 90.7 MHz. It is run largely by volunteers, including both students and community members.
Berkeley also features an assortment of student-run publications:
* ''
California Law Review
''California Law Review'' (also referred to as ''CLR'') is the journal of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. It was established in 1912. The application process consists of an anonymous write-on competition, with grades playing ...
'',
law journal published by
Berkeley Law
The University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (commonly known as Berkeley Law or UC Berkeley School of Law) is the law school of the University of California, Berkeley, a public research university in Berkeley, California. It is one of 1 ...
, est. 1912.
* ''
Berkeley Fiction Review
''Berkeley Fiction Review'' is an American literary magazine founded in 1981 and based at the University of California, Berkeley. Stories that have appeared in the ''Berkeley Fiction Review'' have been reprinted in ''The Best American Short Stor ...
'', American
literary magazine, est. 1981.
* ''
Berkeley Poetry Review'', national
poetry journal, est. 1974.
* ''
Berkeley Political Review'',
nonpartisan political magazine, est. 2001.
* ''
Berkeley Economic Review
Berkeley most often refers to:
*Berkeley, California, a city in the United States
**University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California
*George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher
Berkeley may also refer t ...
'',
economics journal, est. 2016.
* ''
Business Berkeley'',
Haas undergraduate journal.
* ''
Caliber Magazine'', an "everything magazine", featuring articles and blogs on a wide range of topics, est. 2008.
* ''
Heuristic Squelch'',
satirical newspaper, est. 1991.
* ''
B-Side'', music magazine, est. 2013.
* ''
California Patriot'',
conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
political magazine, est. 2000.
* ''
Smart Ass'',
liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
magazine, est. 2015.
Student groups
There are some 94 political student groups on campus, including MEChXA de UC Berkeley, Berkeley
ACLU, Berkeley Students for Life, Campus Greens, The Sustainability Team (STEAM), the
Berkeley Student Food Collective, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, Cal Berkeley Democrats, and the Berkeley College Republicans.
The Residence Hall Assembly (RHA) is the student-led umbrella organization that oversees event planning, legislation, sponsorships and other activities for over 7,2000 on-campus undergraduate residents.
Berkeley students also run a number of consulting groups, including the Berkeley Group, founded in 2003 and affiliated with the Haas School. Students from various concentrations are recruited and trained to work on pro-bono consulting engagements with actual nonprofit clients. Berkeley Consulting, founded in 1996, has served over 140 companies across the high-tech, retail, banking, and non-profit sectors.
ImagiCal has been the college chapter of the
American Advertising Federation
The American Advertising Federation (AAF), headquartered in Washington, D.C., is the oldest national advertising trade association
A trade association, also known as an industry trade group, business association, sector association or industry ...
at Berkeley since the late 1980s. The team competes annually in the National Student Advertising Competition, with students from disparate majors working together on a marketing case underwritten by a corporate sponsor.
The
Berkeley Forum
The Berkeley Forum, referred to simply as the Forum, is a prominent, non-partisan student organization at the University of California, Berkeley. Founded in 2012, the Forum hosts debates, panels, and talks with distinguished speakers on various t ...
is a nonpartisan student organization that hosts panels, debates, and speeches across a variety of fields. Past speakers include
Senator Rand Paul, entrepreneur and venture capitalist
Peter Thiel
Peter Andreas Thiel (; born 11 October 1967) is a German-American billionaire entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in F ...
, and
Khan Academy founder
Salman Khan.
Democratic Education at Cal, or DeCal, is a program that promotes the creation of professor-sponsored, student-facilitated classes. DeCal arose out of the 1960s
Free Speech movement
The Free Speech Movement (FSM) was a massive, long-lasting student protest which took place during the 1964–65 academic year on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. The Movement was informally under the central leadership of Be ...
and was officially established in 1981. The program offers around 150 courses on a vast range of subjects that appeal to the student community, including classes on the
Rubik's Cube,
blockchain,
web design
Web design encompasses many different skills and disciplines in the production and maintenance of websites. The different areas of web design include web graphic design; user interface design (UI design); authoring, including standardised code a ...
, metamodernism,
cooking, Jewish art,
3D animation
Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anim ...
, and
bioprinting
Three dimensional (3D) bioprinting is the utilization of 3D printing–like techniques to combine cells, growth factors, and/or biomaterials to fabricate biomedical parts, often with the aim of imitating natural tissue characteristics. Generally, 3 ...
.
The campus is home to several
a cappella groups, including Drawn to Scale, Artists in Resonance, Berkeley Dil Se, the
UC Men's Octet, the
California Golden Overtones, DeCadence, and Noteworthy. The
University of California Men's Octet was founded in 1948 and features a repertoire of barbershop, doo-wop, contemporary pop, modern alternative, and fight songs. Hewing to tradition, the groups perform weekly under Sather Gate on alternating days. Berkeley hosts a myriad other performing arts groups in comedy, dance, acting and instrumental music, and include jericho!, Improv & Sketch Comedy, The Movement, Taiko drumming, BareStage student musical theater, the Remedy Music Project, Main Stacks, AFX Dance, and TruElement.
Since 1967, students and staff jazz musicians have had an opportunity to perform and study with the
University of California Jazz Ensembles. Under the direction of Dr. David W. Tucker, who was hired by the
Cal Band
The University of California Marching Band, usually shortened to Cal Band, is the marching band for the University of California, Berkeley. While it is administered under the auspices of the university, the Cal Band is student-run and represents C ...
as a composer, arranger, and associate director, but was later asked to direct the jazz ensembles as it grew in popularity and membership, the group grew rapidly from one big band to multiple big bands, numerous combos, and numerous instrumental classes with multiple instructors. For several decades it hosted the Pacific Coast Collegiate Jazz Festival, part of the American Collegiate Jazz Festival, a competitive forum for student musicians. PCCJF brought jazz artists including
Hubert Laws
Hubert Laws (born November 10, 1939) is an American flutist and saxophonist with a career spanning over 40 years in jazz, classical, and other music genres. Laws is one of the few classical artists who has also mastered jazz, pop, and rhythm- ...
,
Sonny Rollins,
Freddie Hubbard, and
Ed Shaughnessy
Edwin Thomas "Ed" Shaughnessy (January 29, 1929 – May 24, 2013) was a swing music and jazz drummer long associated with Doc Severinsen and a member of The Tonight Show Band on ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson''.
Biography
Shaughn ...
to the Berkeley campus as performers, clinicians, and adjudicators. The festival later included high school musicians.
Michael Wolff and
Andy Narell
Andy Narell (born March 18, 1954) is an American jazz steel pannist, composer and producer.
Biography
Narell took up the steelpan at a young age in Queens, New York. His father, who was a social worker, had started a program of steelpan playing ...
are just a couple of its more famous alumni.
Berkeley student organizations also hosts many other conferences, seminars, and musical and theatrical performances, including the annual Sociological Research Symposium.
Engineering Student Teams
Given UC Berkeley's
STEM education and its proximity to Silicon Valley, there are a variety of student-run engineering teams that focus on winning design and engineering competitions.
Berkeley has two prominent
amateur rocketry teams: Space Enterprise at Berkeley (SEB) and Space Technologies and Rocketry (STAR). Both have launched solid-fuel
sounding rockets and are currently developing
liquid propellant rockets.
The university also has two
Formula SAE
Formula SAE is a student design competition organized by SAE International (previously known as the Society of Automotive Engineers, SAE). The competition was started in 1980 by the SAE student branch at the University of Texas at Austin after ...
teams: Berkeley Formula Racing and Formula Electric Berkeley. Both of these teams participate in Formula SAE–run competitions, with the former focusing on internal combustion engines and the latter on electric motors. Berkeley has a number of other vehicle teams, including CalSol, CalSMV, and Human Powered Vehicle.
Athletics
The university's athletic teams are known as the
California Golden Bears (often shortened to "Cal Bears" or just "Cal") and are primarily members of the
NCAA Division I Pac-12 Conference (Pac-12). Cal is also a member of the
Mountain Pacific Sports Federation
The Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) is a college athletic conference with members located mostly in the western United States, although it now has members as far east as Pennsylvania. The conference participates at the NCAA Division I ...
in several sports not sponsored by the Pac-12 and the
America East Conference
The America East Conference is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with NCAA Division I founded in 1979, whose members are located in the Northeastern United States.
The conference has nine core members including eight public research ...
in women's
field hockey. The first school colors, established in 1873 by a committee of students, were blue (specifically Yale Blue) and gold.
Yale Blue was originally chosen because many of the university's inaugural faculty were Yale graduates, including Henry Durant, its first president. Blue and gold were specified and made the official colors of the university and the state colors of California in 1955.
In 2014, the athletic department specified a darker blue.
The California Golden Bears have won national titles in football, men's basketball, baseball, softball, men's and women's crew, men's gymnastics, men's tennis, men's and women's swimming, men's water polo, men's Judo, men's track, and men's rugby. In addition, Cal athletes have won individual NCAA titles in track, gymnastics, swimming and tennis. On January 31, 2009, the university's
Hurling club made athletic history by defeating Stanford in the first collegiate hurling match ever played on American soil. Berkeley teams have won national championships in baseball (2), men's basketball (2), men's crew (15), women's crew (3), football (5), men's golf (1), men's gymnastics (4), men's lacrosse (1), men's rugby (26), softball (1), men's swimming & diving (4), women's swimming & diving (3), men's tennis (1), men's track & field (1), and men's water polo (13).
Cal students and alumni have also won
207 Olympic medals.
California finished in first place in the 2007–08 Fall U.S. Sports Academy Directors' Cup standings (Now the
NACDA Directors' Cup), a competition measuring the best overall collegiate athletic programs in the country, with points awarded for national finishes in NCAA sports. Cal finished the 2007–08 competition in seventh place with 1119 points.
Most recently, California finished in third place in the 2010–11 NACDA Directors' Cup with 1219.50 points, finishing behind Stanford and Ohio State. This is California's highest ever finish in the Director's Cup.
The Golden Bears' traditional arch-rival is the
Stanford Cardinal, and the most anticipated sporting event between the two universities is the annual football match dubbed the
Big Game, celebrated with spirit events on both campuses. Since 1933, the winner of the Big Game has been awarded custody of
the Stanford Axe. Other sporting games between these rivals have related names such as the Big Splash (water polo) or the Big Kick (soccer).
One of the most famous moments in college football history occurred during the 85th Big Game on November 20, 1982. In what has become known as "the band play" or simply
The Play, Cal scored the winning touchdown in the final seconds with a kickoff return that involved a series of laterals and the Stanford marching band rushing onto the field.
Notable alumni, faculty, and staff
Berkeley alumni,
faculty and staff have distinguished themselves in a wide range of endeavors and include 114 Nobel laureates (35 alumni), 25 Turing Award winners (11 alumni), 14 Fields Medalists, 30
Wolf Prize winners, 108
MacArthur Fellows (65 alumni) , 30
Pulitzer Prize recipients, 19
Academy Award winners, five foreign
heads of state
A head of state (or chief of state) is the public persona who officially embodies a state Foakes, pp. 110–11 " he head of statebeing an embodiment of the State itself or representatitve of its international persona." in its unity and ...
, chief justices of the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
and
California,
22
cabinet members, ten
state governors, numerous
members of Congress
A Member of Congress (MOC) is a person who has been appointed or elected and inducted into an official body called a congress, typically to represent a particular constituency in a legislature. The term member of parliament (MP) is an equivalen ...
, 36 general and flag officers of the
United States Armed Forces
The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is ...
, 40 billionaires, and the founders or co-founders of
many world-renowned companies.
File:Earl Warren.jpg, Earl Warren, BA 1912, JD 1914, 14th Chief Justice of the United States, 30th Governor of California
File:Steven Chu official DOE portrait crop.jpg, Steven Chu, PhD 1976, Nobel laureate, 12th United States Secretary of Energy
File:Secretary Jennifer Granholm.jpg, Jennifer Granholm
Jennifer Mulhern Granholm (born February 5, 1959) is a Canadian-American lawyer, educator, author, political commentator, and politician serving as the 16th United States secretary of energy since 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, she pre ...
, BA 1984, 16th United States Secretary of Energy, 47th Governor of Michigan
File:Z A Bhutto (President of Pakistan).jpg, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, BA 1950, 4th President of Pakistan, 9th Prime Minister of Pakistan
File:Robert Reich, Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics (cropped).jpg, Robert Reich
Robert Bernard Reich (; born June 24, 1946) is an American professor, author, lawyer, and political commentator. He worked in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, and served as Secretary of Labor from 1993 to 1997 in ...
, Professor of Public Policy, 22nd United States Secretary of Labor
The United States Secretary of Labor is a member of the Cabinet of the United States, and as the head of the United States Department of Labor, controls the department, and enforces and suggests laws involving unions, the workplace, and all ot ...
File:Christina Romer, Commonwealth Club (cropped).jpg, Christina Romer, Professor of Economics, 25th Chairperson of the President's Council of Economic Advisers
File:Steve Wozniak by Gage Skidmore.jpg, Steve Wozniak, BS 1986, cofounder of Apple Inc.
Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...
File:Rajiv L Gupta George Barclay Gordon Moore ID2004 (cropped, Moore).JPG, Gordon Moore
Gordon Earle Moore (born January 3, 1929) is an American businessman, engineer, and the co-founder and chairman emeritus of Intel Corporation. He is also the original proponent of Moore's law.
As of March 2021, Moore's net worth is repor ...
, BS 1950, cofounder of semiconductor company Intel
File:Eric E Schmidt, 2005 (looking left).jpg, Eric Schmidt, MS 1979, PhD 1982, Executive Chairman of Alphabet
File:JerryBrownByPhilKonstantin.jpg, Edmund Gerald "Jerry" Brown, Jr, BA 1961, 34th & 39th Governor of California
File:Dean Blake Van Leer.jpg, Blake R. Van Leer, MS 1920, inventor, civil rights advocate, president of Georgia Tech
The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...
File:Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday trailer cropped.jpg, Gregory Peck, BA 1939, Academy Award–winning actor
File:Natalie Coughlin, 2018 (cropped).jpg, Natalie Coughlin
Natalie Anne Coughlin Hall (born August 23, 1982) is an American former competition swimmer and twelve-time Olympic medalist. While attending the University of California, Berkeley, she became the first woman ever to swim the 100-meter backstro ...
, BA 2005, multiple gold medal-winning Olympic swimmer
File:Crown Prince Haakon of Norway 2012-03-26 001.jpg, Haakon, Crown Prince of Norway
Haakon, Crown Prince of Norway (; Haakon Magnus; born 20 July 1973) is the heir apparent to the Norwegian throne. He is the only son of King Harald V and Queen Sonja.
Haakon represents the fourth generation of the sitting Norwegian royal fa ...
, heir apparent to the throne of Norway, BA 1999
File:Robert McNamara official portrait.jpg, Robert McNamara
Robert Strange McNamara (; June 9, 1916 – July 6, 2009) was an American business executive and the eighth United States Secretary of Defense, serving from 1961 to 1968 under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He remains the ...
, BA 1937, 5th President of World Bank, 8th United States Secretary of Defense, President of Ford Motor Company
File:Daniel Kahneman (3283955327) (cropped).jpg, Daniel Kahneman, PhD 1961, awarded the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his work in Prospect theory
Prospect theory is a theory of behavioral economics and behavioral finance that was developed by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in 1979. The theory was cited in the decision to award Kahneman the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.
Based ...
File:HD.3F.004 (11086396296).jpg, Harold Urey, PhD 1923, Nobel laureate and discoverer of deuterium
Faculty and staff
*
Shiing-Shen Chern
Shiing-Shen Chern (; , ; October 28, 1911 – December 3, 2004) was a Chinese-American mathematician and poet. He made fundamental contributions to differential geometry and topology. He has been called the "father of modern differential geome ...
, a leading geometer of the 20th century, co-founded the renowned
Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and served as its founding Director until 1984.
* Physicist
J. Robert Oppenheimer
J. Robert Oppenheimer (; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist. A professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is oft ...
was scientific director of the
Manhattan Project and was the founder of the Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics.
* Faculty member
Edward Teller
Edward Teller ( hu, Teller Ede; January 15, 1908 – September 9, 2003) was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist who is known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb" (see the Teller–Ulam design), although he did not care for ...
was (together with
Stanislaw Ulam) the "father of the
hydrogen bomb", who laid important foundations for the establishment of
Space Sciences Laboratory
The Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL) is an Organized Research Unit (ORU) of the University of California, Berkeley. Founded in 1959, the laboratory is located in the Berkeley Hills above the university campus. It has developed and continues t ...
at Berkeley.
*
Ernest Lawrence, a Nobel laureate in physics who invented the
cyclotron
A cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator invented by Ernest O. Lawrence in 1929–1930 at the University of California, Berkeley, and patented in 1932. Lawrence, Ernest O. ''Method and apparatus for the acceleration of ions'', filed: Jan ...
at Berkeley, and founded the Radiation Laboratory on campus, which later became the
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
*
Gilbert N. Lewis, former Dean of the College of Chemistry, was nominated 41 times for
Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
He mentored and influenced numerous Berkeley Nobel laureates, including
Harold Urey (1934 Nobel Prize),
William F. Giauque (1949 Nobel Prize),
Glenn T. Seaborg (1951 Nobel Prize), Willard Libby (1960 Nobel Prize), and
Melvin Calvin (1961 Nobel Prize).
*
Glenn T. Seaborg, a Nobel laureate in chemistry who discovered or co-discovered 10 chemical elements at Berkeley and served as Chancellor from 1958 to 1961.
* Hans Albert Einstein, the first son of Albert Einstein and a world's leading scholar in hydraulic engineering, was a long-time faculty member at Berkeley.
*
Steven Chu (PhD 1976), the 12th
United States Secretary of Energy and Nobel laureate in physics, was Director of Berkeley Lab from 2004 to 2009.
* Janet Yellen, 78th United States Secretary of Treasury and the 15th Chair of the Federal Reserve, is a professor emeritus at Berkeley
Haas School of Business and the Department of Economics.
Alumni
Berkeley alumni have served in a range of prominent government offices, both domestic and foreign, including Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court (
Earl Warren, BA, JD); United States Attorney General (Edwin Meese III, JD); United States Secretary of State (Dean Rusk, LLB); United States Secretary of the Treasury (W. Michael Blumenthal, BA, and G. William Miller, JD);
United States Secretary of Defense (
Robert McNamara
Robert Strange McNamara (; June 9, 1916 – July 6, 2009) was an American business executive and the eighth United States Secretary of Defense, serving from 1961 to 1968 under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He remains the ...
, BS); United States Secretary of the Interior (Franklin Knight Lane, 1887); United States Secretary of Transportation and United States Secretary of Commerce (
Norman Mineta
Norman Yoshio Mineta ( ja, 峯田 良雄, November 12, 1931 – May 3, 2022) was an American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, Mineta served in the United States Cabinet for Presidents Bill Clinton, a Democrat, and George W. Bush, a ...
, BS); United States Secretary of Agriculture (Ann Veneman, MPP); National Security Advisor (United States), National Security Advisor (Robert C. O'Brien, JD); scores of federal judges and members of the United States Congress (List of current members of the United States House of Representatives, 10 currently serving) and United States Foreign Service; governors of California (George C. Pardee; Hiram W. Johnson;
Earl Warren, BA and LLB; Jerry Brown, BA; and Pete Wilson, JD), Michigan (
Jennifer Granholm
Jennifer Mulhern Granholm (born February 5, 1959) is a Canadian-American lawyer, educator, author, political commentator, and politician serving as the 16th United States secretary of energy since 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, she pre ...
, BA), and the United States Virgin Islands (Walter A. Gordon, BA); Chief of Staff of the United States Army (
Frederick C. Weyand, Class of 1938); Lieutenant General of the United States Army (
Jimmy Doolittle
James Harold Doolittle (December 14, 1896 – September 27, 1993) was an American military general and aviation pioneer who received the Medal of Honor for his daring raid on Japan during World War II. He also made early coast-to-coast flights ...
); Vice Admiral of the United States Navy (Murry L. Royar, Class of 1916); Major General of the United States Marine Corps (Oliver Prince Smith); Brigadier General of the United States Marine Corps (Bertram A. Bone); Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (John A. McCone, BS); chair and members of the Council of Economic Advisors (Michael Boskin, BA, PhD.; Sandra Black, BA; Jesse Rothstein, PhD; Robert Seamans, PhD; Jay Shambaugh, PhD; James Stock, MA, PhD); Governor of the Federal Reserve System (H. Robert Heller, PhD) and President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (William C. Dudley, PhD); Commissioners of the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC (Troy A. Paredes, BA) and the Federal Communications Commission, FCC (Rachelle Chong, BA); and United States Surgeon General (Kenneth P. Moritsugu, MPH).
Foreign alumni include the President of Colombia 1922–1926, (Pedro Nel Ospina Vázquez, BA, Mining Engineering); the President of Mexico (Francisco I. Madero, attended 1892–93); the President and Prime Minister of Pakistan; the Premier of the Republic of China (Sun Fo, BA); the President of Costa Rica (Miguel Angel Rodriguez, MA, PhD); and members of parliament of the United Kingdom (House of Lords, Lydia Dunn, Baroness Dunn, BS), India (Rajya Sabha, the upper house, Prithviraj Chavan, MS); Iran (Mohammad Javad Larijani, PhD); Nigerian Minister of Science and Technology and first Executive Governor of Abia State (Ogbonnaya Onu, PhD Chemical Engineering); Barbados' Ambassador to Brazil (Tonika Sealy-Thompson).
Alumni have also served in many supranational posts, notable among which are President of the World Bank Group, World Bank (
Robert McNamara
Robert Strange McNamara (; June 9, 1916 – July 6, 2009) was an American business executive and the eighth United States Secretary of Defense, serving from 1961 to 1968 under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He remains the ...
, BS); Deputy Prime Minister of Spain and managing director of the International Monetary Fund (Rodrigo Rato, MBA); executive director of UNICEF (Ann Veneman, MPP); member of the European Parliament (Bruno Megret, MS); and judge of the International Court of Justice, World Court (Joan Donoghue, JD).
Alumni have made important contributions to science. Some have concentrated their studies on the very small universe of atoms and molecules. Nobel Prize, Nobel laureate
William F. Giauque (BS 1920, PhD 1922) investigated chemical thermodynamics, Nobel laureate Willard Libby (BS 1931, PhD 1933) pioneered radiocarbon dating, Nobel laureate Willis Lamb (BS 1934, PhD 1938) examined the hydrogen spectrum, Nobel laureate Hamilton O. Smith (BA 1952) applied restriction enzymes to molecular genetics, Nobel laureate Robert Laughlin (BA math 1972) explored the fractional quantum Hall effect, and Nobel laureate Andrew Fire (BA math 1978) helped to discover RNA interference-gene silencing by double-stranded RNA. Nobel laureate
Glenn T. Seaborg (PhD 1937) collaborated with Albert Ghiorso (BS 1913) to discover 12 chemical elements, such as ''
americium'', ''
berkelium'', and ''
californium''. David Bohm (PhD 1943) discovered Bohm diffusion. Nobel laureate Yuan T. Lee (PhD 1965) developed the crossed molecular beam technique for studying chemical reactions.
Carol Greider (PhD 1987), professor of molecular biology and genetics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering a key mechanism in the genetic operations of cells, an insight that has inspired new lines of research into cancer. Harvey Itano (BS 1942) conducted breakthrough work on sickle cell anemia that marked the first time a disease was linked to a molecular origin.
While he was valedictorian of Berkeley's class of 1942, he was unable to attend commencement exercises due to Japanese-American internment, internment.
Narendra Karmarkar (PhD 1983) is known for the interior point method, a polynomial algorithm for linear programming known as Karmarkar's algorithm.
National Medal of Science laureate Chien-Shiung Wu (PhD 1940), often known as the "Chinese Madame Curie", disproved the Law of Conservation of Parity (physics), Parity for which she was awarded the inaugural Wolf Prize in Physics. Kary Mullis (PhD 1973) was awarded the 1993
Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his role in developing the polymerase chain reaction, a method for amplifying DNA sequences.
Daniel Kahneman was awarded the 2002
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his work in
Prospect theory
Prospect theory is a theory of behavioral economics and behavioral finance that was developed by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in 1979. The theory was cited in the decision to award Kahneman the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.
Based ...
. Richard O. Buckius, engineer, Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering '72, Masters '73, PhD '75, currently Chief Operating Officer of the
National Science Foundation. Edward P. Tryon (PhD 1967) is the physicist who first said our universe originated from a quantum fluctuation of the vacuum.
John N. Bahcall (BS 1956) worked on the Standard Solar Model and the Hubble Space Telescope,
resulting in a National Medal of Science.
Peter Smith (physicist), Peter Smith (BS 1969) was the principal investigator and project leader for the NASA robotic explorer ''Phoenix (spacecraft), Phoenix'', which physically confirmed the presence of water on the planet Mars for the first time. Astronauts James van Hoften (BS 1966), Margaret Rhea Seddon (BA 1970), Leroy Chiao (BS 1983), and Rex Walheim (BS 1984) have orbited the Earth in NASA's fleet of Space Shuttles.
Undergraduate alumni have founded or cofounded such companies as Apple Computer,
[Apple Computer was co-founded by Steve Wozniak( BS 1986). ] Intel,
[Intel was co-founded by ]Gordon Moore
Gordon Earle Moore (born January 3, 1929) is an American businessman, engineer, and the co-founder and chairman emeritus of Intel Corporation. He is also the original proponent of Moore's law.
As of March 2021, Moore's net worth is repor ...
(BS 1950). LSI Logic
[LSI Logic was cofounded by Robert Walker (BS EE 1958). ] Gap (clothing retailer), The Gap, MySpace,
[MySpace was cofounded by Tom Anderson (MySpace), Tom Anderson (BA 1998). ] PowerBar, Berkeley Systems,
[Berkeley Systems and MoveOn.org were cofounded by Joan Blades (BA 1977). ] Bolt, Beranek and Newman (which created a number of underlying technologies that govern the Internet),
Chez Panisse
Chez Panisse is a Berkeley, California, restaurant, known as one of the originators of the style of cooking known as California cuisine, and the farm-to-table movement. The restaurant emphasizes ingredients rather than technique and has develo ...
, GrandCentral (known now as Google Voice), HTC Corporation,
[HTC Corporation and VIA Technologies were cofounded by Cher Wang (BA 1980, MA 1981). ] VIA Technologies,
Marvell Technology Group, MoveOn.org,
Opsware, RedOctane, Rimon Law P.C.,
SanDisk
SanDisk is a brand for flash memory products, including memory cards and readers, USB flash drives, solid-state drives, and digital audio players, manufactured and marketed by Western Digital. The original company, SanDisk Corporation was acquir ...
, Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker,
VMware[VMware was cofounded by Edward Wang (BS EECS 1983, MS 1988, PhD 1994), along with Diane Greene (MS CS 1988) and her husband Mendel Rosenblum (MS 1989, PhD 1992). ] and Zilog, while graduate school alumni have cofounded companies such as DHL Express, DHL, Google Earth, KeyHole Inc (known now as Google Earth),
Sun Microsystems,
[Sun Microsystems was cofounded by ]Bill Joy
William Nelson Joy (born November 8, 1954) is an American computer engineer and venture capitalist. He co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Scott McNealy, Vinod Khosla, and Andy Bechtolsheim, and served as Chief Scientist and CTO at ...
(MS 1982). and The Learning Company. Berkeley alumni have also led various technology companies such as Electronic Arts,
[John Riccitiello (BS 1981) has served as the CEO of Electronic Arts since 2007, and previously served as the president and COO of the company from 1996 to 2003. He is also the cofounder of Elevation Partners (with U2 (band), U2 singer Bono). ] Google,
[ Eric Schmidt (MS 1979, PhD 1982) has been the CEO of Google since 2001. ] Adobe Systems,
[Shantanu Narayen (MBA 1993) has been the CEO of Adobe Systems since 2007. ] Softbank (
Masayoshi Son
Masayoshi Son ( ja, 孫 正義, translit=Son Masayoshi, ko, 손정의, translit=Son Jeong-ui) (born 11 August 1957) is a Korean-Japanese billionaire technology entrepreneur, investor, financier and philanthropist. A 3rd generation "Zainichi Kore ...
) and Qualcomm.
[Paul Jacobs (BS 1984, MS 1986, PhD 1989 EECS) has been the CEO of Qualcomm since 2005. ]
Berkeley alumni have developed a number of key technologies associated with the personal computer and the Internet.
Unix was created by alumnus Ken Thompson (BS 1965, MS 1966) along with colleague Dennis Ritchie. Alumni such as L. Peter Deutsch (PhD 1973), Butler Lampson (PhD 1967), and Charles P. Thacker (BS 1967) worked with Ken Thompson on
Project Genie
Project Genie was a computer research project started in 1964 at the University of California, Berkeley.
It produced an early time-sharing system including the Berkeley Timesharing System, which was then commercialized as the SDS 940.
History
P ...
and then formed the ill-fated United States Department of Defense, US Department of Defense-funded Berkeley Computer Corporation (BCC), which was scattered throughout the Berkeley campus in non-descript offices to avoid anti-war protestors. After BCC failed, Deutsch, Lampson, and Thacker joined Xerox PARC, where they developed a number of pioneering computer technologies, culminating in the Xerox Alto that inspired the Apple Macintosh. In particular, the Alto used a computer mouse, which had been invented by Doug Engelbart (BEng 1952, PhD 1955). Thompson, Lampson, Engelbart, and Thacker all later received a Turing Award. Also at Xerox PARC was Ronald V. Schmidt (BS 1966, MS 1968, PhD 1971), who became known as "the man who brought Ethernet to the masses". Another Xerox PARC researcher, Charles Simonyi (BS 1972), pioneered the first WYSIWIG word processor program and was recruited personally by Bill Gates to join the fledgling company known as Microsoft to create Microsoft Word. Simonyi later became the first repeat space tourist, blasting off on Russian Soyuz (rocket), Soyuz rockets to work at the International Space Station orbiting the earth.
In 1977, a graduate student in the computer science department named Bill Joy (MS 1982) assembled the original Berkeley Software Distribution, commonly known as BSD Unix. Joy, who went on to co-found Sun Microsystems, also developed the original version of the Computer display, terminal console editor vi, while Ken Arnold (BA 1985) created Curses (programming library), Curses, a terminal control Library (computer science), library for Unix-like systems that enables the construction of Text user interface, text user interface (TUI) applications. Working alongside Joy at Berkeley were undergraduates William Jolitz (BS 1997) and his future wife Lynne Jolitz (BA 1989), who together created 386BSD, a version of BSD Unix that runs on Intel CPUs and evolved into the Comparison of BSD operating systems, BSD family of free operating systems and the Darwin (operating system), Darwin operating system underlying
Apple Mac OS X. Eric Allman (BS 1977, MS 1980) created SendMail, a Unix mail transfer agent that delivers about 12 percent of the email in the world.
The EXperimental Computing Facility, XCF, an undergraduate research group located in Soda Hall, has been responsible for a number of notable software projects, including GTK+ (created by
Peter Mattis
Peter Mattis is an American computer programmer, entrepreneur, and business executive. He is the CTO and co-founder for Cockroach Labs, a company he co-founded in 2014. His work as a programmer includes launching GNU Image Manipulation Program ...
, BS 1997), The GIMP (
Spencer Kimball, BS 1996), and the initial diagnosis of the Morris worm. In 1992, Pei-Yuan Wei, an undergraduate at the XCF, created ViolaWWW, one of the first graphical web browsers. ViolaWWW was the first browser to have embedded scriptable objects, stylesheets, and tables. In the spirit of Open Source, he donated the code to Sun Microsystems, inspiring Java (programming language), Java applets( Kim Polese (BS 1984) was the original product manager for Java at Sun Microsystems.) ViolaWWW also inspired researchers at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications to create the Mosaic web browser, a pioneering web browser that became Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Alumni collectively have won at least twenty-five Pulitzer Prizes. Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Marguerite Higgins (BA 1941) was a pioneering female war correspondent who covered World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Novelist Robert Penn Warren (MA 1927) won three Pulitzer Prizes, including one for his novel ''All the King's Men'', which was later made into an Academy Award-winning All the King's Men (1949 film), movie. Pulitzer Prize–winning cartoonist Rube Goldberg (BS 1904) invented the comically complex—yet ultimately trivial—contraptions known as Rube Goldberg machines. Journalist Alexandra Berzon (MA 2006) won a Pulitzer Prize in 2009, and journalist Matt Richtel (BA 1989), who also coauthors the comic strip ''Rudy Park'' under the pen name of "Theron Heir", won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Leon Litwack (BA 1951, PhD 1958) taught as a professor at UC Berkeley for 43 years; List of University of California, Berkeley faculty#Pulitzer Prize, three other UC Berkeley professors have also received the Pulitzer Prize. Alumna and professor Susan Rasky won the George Polk Awards, Polk Award for journalism in 1991. USC Professor and Berkeley alumnus Viet Thanh Nguyen's (PhD 1997) first novel ''The Sympathizer'' won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Alumni have also written novels and screenplays that have attracted Oscar-caliber talent, including ''The Call of the Wild'' author Jack London. Irving Stone (BA 1923) wrote the novel ''Lust for Life (novel), Lust for Life'', which was later made into an Academy Award-winning Lust for Life (1956 film), film of the same name starring Kirk Douglas as Vincent van Gogh. Stone also wrote ''The Agony and the Ecstasy (novel), The Agony and the Ecstasy'', which was later made into a The Agony and the Ecstasy (film), film of the same name starring Oscar winner Charlton Heston as Michelangelo. Mona Simpson (novelist), Mona Simpson (BA 1979) wrote the novel ''Anywhere But Here (film), Anywhere But Here'', which was later made into a film of the same name starring Oscar-winning actress Susan Sarandon. Terry McMillan (BA 1986) wrote ''How Stella Got Her Groove Back'', which was later made into a film of the same name starring Oscar-nominated actress Angela Bassett. Randi Mayem Singer (BA 1979) wrote the screenplay for ''Mrs. Doubtfire'', which starred Oscar-winning actor Robin Williams and Oscar-winning actress Sally Field. Audrey Wells (BA 1981) wrote the screenplay ''The Truth About Cats & Dogs'', which starred Oscar-nominated actress Uma Thurman. James Schamus (BA 1982, MA 1987, PhD 2003) has collaborated on screenplays with Oscar-winning director Ang Lee on the Academy Award-winning movies ''Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'' and ''Brokeback Mountain''.
Collectively, alumni have won at least 20 Academy Awards.
Gregory Peck (BA 1939), nominated for four Oscars during his career, won an Oscar for acting in ''To Kill a Mockingbird (film), To Kill a Mockingbird''. Chris Innis (BA 1991) won the 2010 Oscar for film editing for her work on best picture winner, ''The Hurt Locker''. Walter Plunkett (BA 1923) won an Oscar for costume design (for ''An American in Paris''). Freida Lee Mock (BA 1961) and Charles H. Ferguson (BA 1978) have each won an Oscar for documentary filmmaking. Mark Berger (BA 1964) has won four Oscars for sound mixing and is an adjunct professor at UC Berkeley. Edith Head (BA 1918), who was nominated for 34 Oscars during her career, won eight Oscars for costume design. Joe Letteri (BA 1981) has won four Oscars for Best Visual Effects in the James Cameron film ''Avatar (2009 film), Avatar'' and the Peter Jackson films ''King Kong (2005 film), King Kong'', ''The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Two Towers'', and ''The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The Return of the King''.
Alumni have collectively won at least 25 Emmy Awards: Jon Else (BA 1968) for cinematography; Andrew Schneider (BA 1973) for screenwriting; Linda Schacht (BA 1966, MA 1981), two for broadcast journalism; Christine Chen (dual BA's 1990), two for broadcast journalism; Kristen Sze (BA), two for broadcast journalism; Kathy Baker (BA 1977), three for acting; Ken Milnes (BS 1977), four for broadcasting technology; and Leroy Sievers (BA),
twelve for production. Elisabeth Leamy is the recipient of 13 Emmy Award, Emmy awards.
Alumni have acted in classic television series that are still broadcast on TV today. Karen Grassle (BA 1965) played the mother Caroline Ingalls in ''Little House on the Prairie (TV series), Little House on the Prairie'', Jerry Mathers (BA 1974) starred in ''Leave it to Beaver'', and Roxann Dawson (BA 1980) portrayed B'Elanna Torres on ''Star Trek: Voyager''.
Former undergraduates have participated in the contemporary music industry, such as ''Grateful Dead'' bass guitarist Phil Lesh, ''The Police'' drummer Stewart Copeland, ''Rolling Stone Magazine'' founder Jann Wenner, ''The Bangles'' lead singer Susanna Hoffs (BA 1980), ''Counting Crows'' lead singer Adam Duritz, electronic music producer Giraffage, MTV correspondent Suchin Pak (BA 1997), ''AFI (band), AFI'' musicians Davey Havok and Jade Puget (BA 1996), and solo artist Marié Digby (''Say It Again (Digby song), Say It Again''). ''People Magazine'' included ''Third Eye Blind'' lead singer and songwriter Stephan Jenkins (BA 1987) in the magazine's list of ''50 Most Beautiful People''.
Alumni have also participated in the world of sports. Tennis athlete Helen Wills Moody (BA 1925) won 31 Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Slam titles, including eight singles titles at The Championships, Wimbledon, Wimbledon. Tarik Glenn (BA 1999) is a Super Bowl XLI champion, and Mitchell Schwartz (2011) is an All-Pro NFL offensive tackle. Michele Tafoya (BA 1988) is a sports television reporter for ABC Sports and ESPN. Sports agent Leigh Steinberg ( BA 1970, JD 1973) has represented professional athletes such as Steve Young (American football), Steve Young, Troy Aikman, and Oscar De La Hoya; Steinberg has been called the real-life inspiration for the title character in the Oscar-winning film ''Jerry Maguire'' (portrayed by Tom Cruise). Matt Biondi (BA 1988) won eight Olympic gold medals during his swimming career, in which he participated in three different Olympics. At the 2008 Summer Olympics, Beijing Olympics in 2008,
Natalie Coughlin
Natalie Anne Coughlin Hall (born August 23, 1982) is an American former competition swimmer and twelve-time Olympic medalist. While attending the University of California, Berkeley, she became the first woman ever to swim the 100-meter backstro ...
(BA 2005) became the first American female athlete in modern Olympic history
["The six medals she won are the most by an American woman in any sport, breaking the record she tied four years ago. Her career total matches the third-most by any U.S. athlete." ] to win six medals in one Olympics.
Berkeley alumni—often generous benefactors—have long been among the billionaire ranks, their largess giving rise to many of the campus' eponymous schools, pavilions, centers, institutes, and halls, and with some of the more prominent being J. Paul Getty, Ann Getty, Sanford Diller and Helen Diller,
Donald Fisher, Flora Lamson Hewlett, David Schwartz (Bio-Rad) and members of the Haas (Walter A. Haas, Rhoda Haas Goldman, Walter A. Haas Jr., Peter E. Haas, Bob Haas), Hearst, and Bechtel families. There are at least 30 living alumni billionaires:
Gordon Moore
Gordon Earle Moore (born January 3, 1929) is an American businessman, engineer, and the co-founder and chairman emeritus of Intel Corporation. He is also the original proponent of Moore's law.
As of March 2021, Moore's net worth is repor ...
(Intel founder), James Harris Simons (
Renaissance Technologies),
Masayoshi Son
Masayoshi Son ( ja, 孫 正義, translit=Son Masayoshi, ko, 손정의, translit=Son Jeong-ui) (born 11 August 1957) is a Korean-Japanese billionaire technology entrepreneur, investor, financier and philanthropist. A 3rd generation "Zainichi Kore ...
(SoftBank), Jon Stryker (Stryker Medical Equipment),
Eric Schmidt (former Google Chairman) and Wendy Schmidt, Michael Milken, Bassam Alghanim, Kutayba Alghanim, Charles Simonyi (Microsoft),
Cher Wang (HTC), Bob Haas, Robert Haas (Levi Strauss & Co.), Carlos Rodriguez-Pastor (Interbank, Peru), Fayez Sarofim, Daniel S. Loeb, Paul Merage, David Hindawi, Orion Hindawi,
Bill Joy
William Nelson Joy (born November 8, 1954) is an American computer engineer and venture capitalist. He co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Scott McNealy, Vinod Khosla, and Andy Bechtolsheim, and served as Chief Scientist and CTO at ...
(Sun Microsystems founder), Victor Koo, Tony Xu (DoorDash), Lowell Milken, Nathaniel Simons and Laura Baxter-Simons, Elizabeth Simons and Mark Heising, Oleg Tinkov, Liong Tek Kwee (BS 1968), Liong Seen Kwee (BS 1974) and Alice Schwartz.
File:Douglas Engelbart in 2008.jpg, The computer mouse was invented by Turing Award laureate Doug Engelbart, BEng 1952, PhD 1955
File:Pedro_Nel_Ospina.jpg, President of Colombia, Pedro Nel Ospina Vázquez
File:Robert Laughlin, Stanford University.jpg, Robert Laughlin, BA 1972, Nobel laureate
File:Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie.jpg, Turing Award laureate Ken Thompson (left), BS 1965, MS 1966, and fellow laureate and colleague Dennis Ritchie (right), created Unix together
File:Robert Penn Warren.jpg, Robert Penn Warren, MA 1927 – novelist and poet, who received the Pulitzer Prize three times
File:KathyBaker_(cropped).jpg, Emmy and Golden Globe Award–winning actress Kathy Baker, BA 1977
Controversies
* Various research ethics, human rights, and animal rights advocates have been in conflict with Berkeley. Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans contended with the school over repatriation of remains from the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology. Student activists have urged the university to cut financial ties with Tyson Foods and PepsiCo. Faculty member Ignacio Chapela prominently criticized the university's financial ties to Novartis. PETA has challenged the university's use of animals for research and argued that it may violate the Animal Welfare Act of 1966, Animal Welfare Act.
* Cal's seismically unsafe California Memorial Stadium, Memorial Stadium reopened September 2012 after a $321 million renovation. 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. 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.
* On May 1, 2014, Berkeley was named one of fifty-five higher education institutions under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education'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. 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.
* On July 25, 2019, Berkeley was removed from the U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges Ranking, ''U.S. News'' Best Colleges Ranking 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 & World Report, 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.
* Berkeley community members have criticized UC Berkeley's increasing enrollment. Berkeley residents filed a lawsuit alleging that the university's expanding enrollment violated California Environmental Quality Act and that the area lacked the infrastructure to support more students. Critics of the lawsuit accused these community members of NIMBYism. 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. On March 11, 2022, state legislators released a proposal to change CEQA to exempt the university from its restrictions. On March 14, Gavin Newsom signed the bill into law. Berkeley has continued to face a housing shortage.
See also
* Blockeley
* Higher Education Recruitment Consortium
* Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute
Notes
References
Further reading
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External links
*
California Bears Athletics website*
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{{DEFAULTSORT:California, Berkeley, University Of
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Education in Berkeley, California
Educational institutions established in 1868
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Public universities and colleges in California, University of California, Berkeley
Schools accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges
Universities and colleges in Alameda County, California
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