Three California universities celebrate 50 years

Larry Gordon

The simultaneous 50th anniversaries of three major public universities in California are setting off a flurry of celebrations, reflections on how the three diverse campuses have grown in half a century — but also some worries that today’s and future students may not be as well served.

The anniversaries are being marked this month and next at UC Santa Cruz, UC Irvine and Cal State San Bernardino, all of which began classes in 1965 — in some cases when their campuses were mainly open fields or patches of woodlands. They were established as part of a master plan for higher education pushed by then-Gov. Pat Brown, UC President Clark Kerr and others to ensure baby boomers had access to quality and low-cost instruction.

At UC Santa Cruz, chancellor George Blumenthal will lead this weekend’s reunions and anniversary events commemorating the growth of what was a tiny, experimental UC in the redwoods to an institution enrolling 17,000 students now, with major credentials in the sciences and humanities.

“This is a way of recognizing adulthood. It represents the maturation of the campus,” said Blumenthal, an astrophysicist.

On Oct. 3, UC Irvine is hosting a public “Festival of Discovery,” with music, food, athletics and scientific displays to mark the arrival of students half a century ago at an unfinished, and highly modernistic, campus on ranchland in Orange County. UC Irvine chancellor Howard Gillman, a political scientist, said the event “is a chance to think about what the university meant for the development of the region” and to acknowledge how California’s leaders in the ’60s created “a balance of excellence and access unequaled in American higher education.”

For the full article, click on the link below.
[Source]: LA Times