University of California, Berkeley

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University of California, Berkeley
Image:Ucb logo.png
Motto	Fiat lux (Let There Be Light)
Established	March 23, 1868
Type	Public
Endowment	$2.20 billion (2006) [6]
Chancellor	Robert Birgeneau
Faculty	1,950
Undergraduates	22,144
Postgraduates	8,125
Location	Berkeley, California
Campus	Urban, 1,232 acres (5 km²)
Athletics	California Golden Bears
Colors	Yale Blue and California Gold
Mascot	Oski
Affiliations	University of California, Pacific Ten, IARU
Nobel Laureates	61[1]
Website	berkeley.edu
Image:Cal Logo.svg

The University of California, Berkeley (also known as UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, and by other names) is the oldest and flagship campus of the ten-campus University of California system. It is located in Berkeley, California, occupying about 200 acres on a wooded slope plus an additional 1000 acres (4 km²) of largely undeveloped land in the Berkeley Hills. The university offers some 300 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines.

UC Berkeley was founded in 1868 in a merger of the private College of California and the public Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts College. Through the efforts of such leaders as Benjamin Ide Wheeler and Robert Gordon Sproul, it had, by the 1950s, established itself as a premier research university. Scientific discoveries made by Berkeley investigators include: the anti-proton, the Calvin cycle, and the isolation of the polio virus; UC Berkeley researchers also discovered the elements of plutonium, berkelium, lawrencium, californium, and seaborgium. Berkeley scientists played key roles in the development of the atomic and hydrogen bombs and research performed at the university has spawned other inventions such as the cyclotron, SETI@home, and BSD Unix. Berkeley faculty have a no less distinguished record in fields outside the sciences, having received Pulitzer Prizes, Nobel Prizes in literature and economics, and four Fields Medal winners in mathematics.

Berkeley has a reputation for student activism that stems from the Free Speech Movement in 1964 and other protests that continued on into the 1970s. Though it has become less prominent over the years, student activism remains an important aspect at the university, with hundreds of student groups encompassing a broad political spectrum.

The student-athletes of UC Berkeley compete intercollegiately as the California Golden Bears. A member of both the Pacific Ten Conference and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation in the NCAA, Cal has won national titles in a number of sports, including: football, basketball, crew, and rugby. The official colors of the university and its athletic teams are blue and gold.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Founding 1.2 Early development 1.3 World War II 1.4 1950s and 1960s political influences 1.5 1960s and the Free Speech Movement 1.6 Present day 2 Campus 2.1 Architecture 2.2 Natural features 3 Organization 3.1 Chancellors 3.2 Colleges and schools 3.3 Labor unions representing UC Berkeley employees 4 Academics 4.1 Campus Enrollment 4.2 Rankings 4.3 Admissions 4.4 Library system 4.5 Contributions to computer science 5 Distinguished Berkeley people 6 Student life 6.1 Athletics 6.2 Traditions 6.3 Student housing 6.4 Student groups 6.5 Fraternities and sororities 7 Names 8 Relationship with the United States military 9 References in pop culture 10 Notes 11 References 12 Further reading 13 Partnerships 14 See also 15 External links 15.1 Official websites 15.2 Other

History

Founding

In 1866, the land that comprises the current Berkeley campus was purchased by the private College of California. Because it lacked sufficient funds to operate, it eventually merged with the state-run Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts College to form the University of California. The university's charter was signed by California Governor Henry H. Haight on March 23, 1868 and Henry Durant, the founder of the College of California, became its first president.

The university opened in 1869 using the former College of California's buildings in Oakland as a temporary home while the new campus underwent construction.^[2] With the completion of North and South Halls in 1873, the university relocated to its Berkeley location with 167 male and 222 female students.^[3]

Early development

The university came of age under the direction of Benjamin Ide Wheeler, who was University President from 1899 to 1919. Its reputation grew as President Wheeler succeeded in attracting renowned faculty to the campus and procuring research and scholarship funds.^[2] The campus began to take on the look of a contemporary university with Beaux-Arts and neoclassical buildings, including California Memorial Stadium (1923) designed by architect John Galen Howard;^[4] these buildings form the core of UC Berkeley's present campus architecture.

Robert Gordon Sproul assumed the presidency in 1930 and during his tenure of 28 years, UC Berkeley gained international recognition as a major research university. Prior to taking office, Sproul took a six month tour of other universities and colleges to study their educational and administrative methods and to establish connections through which he could draw talented faculty in the future.^[5] The Great Depression and World War II led to funding cutbacks, but Sproul was able to maintain academic and research standards by campaigning for private funds. By 1942, the American Council on Education ranked UC Berkeley second only to Harvard University in the number of distinguished departments.^[6]

World War II

During World War II, Ernest Orlando Lawrence's Radiation Laboratory in the hills above Berkeley began to contract with the U.S. Army to develop the atomic bomb, which would involve Berkeley's cutting-edge research in nuclear physics, including Glenn Seaborg's then-secret discovery of plutonium (Room 307 of Gilman Hall, where Seaborg discovered plutonium, would later be a National Historic Landmark). UC Berkeley physics professor J. Robert Oppenheimer was named scientific head of the Manhattan Project in 1942.^[7][8] Along with the descendant of the Radiation Lab, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of California manages two other labs of similar age, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which were established in 1943 and 1952, respectively.

1950s and 1960s political influences

During the McCarthy era in 1949, the Board of Regents adopted an anti-communist loyalty oath to be signed by all University of California employees. A number of faculty members objected to the oath requirement and were dismissed;^[9] ten years passed before they were reinstated with back pay.^[10] One of them, Edward C. Tolman—the noted comparative psychologist— has a building on campus named after him housing the departments of psychology and education. An oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic" is still required of all UC employees.^[11][12]

In 1952, the University of California became an entity separate from the Berkeley campus as part of a major restructuring of the UC system. Each campus was given relative autonomy and its own Chancellor. Sproul assumed the presidency of the entire University of California system, and Clark Kerr became the first Chancellor of UC Berkeley.^[13]

1960s and the Free Speech Movement

UC Berkeley’s reputation for student activism was forged in the 1960s, beginning with the Free Speech Movement in 1964.^[14] An impromptu response to the university’s ban on campus political activity, the Free Speech Movement led to the establishment of students’ freedom of expression. Student protests continued into the early 1970s, with some seeing more violence than the Free Speech Movement.

Perhaps the most well-known event was the People's Park protest in 1969, which was a conflict between the university and a number of Berkeley students and city residents over a plot of land that the university intended to convert into athletic fields, but in the meantime sat unused. A grassroots effort by students and residents turned it into a community park, but after a few weeks, the university decided to reclaim control over the property. Law enforcement was sent in and the park was bulldozed, setting off a protest. California governor Ronald Reagan — who had said in his gubernatorial election campaign that he would clean up the perceived unruliness at Berkeley and other university campuses — called in National Guard troops and more violence erupted, resulting in over a dozen people hospitalized, a police officer stabbed, a bystander blinded, and the death of one student.^[15] The university ultimately decided not to develop People’s Park, though it remains the owner of the property.

Present day

Today, students at UC Berkeley are considered less politically active than their predecessors, but Berkeley freshmen are statistically more liberal and less religious than their national counterparts.^[16]

Campus

UC Berkeley encompasses approximately 1,232 acres (5 km²), though the main campus occupies only the western 178 (0.7 km²). Bordering it to the west is the downtown business district of Berkeley. To the north are quiet residential neighborhoods and the Gourmet Ghetto, a small commercial district known for high quality dining due to such restaurants as Chez Panisse. East of the main campus are the Berkeley Hills, upon which lie the Lawrence Hall of Science and several research units, notably the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Space Sciences Laboratory, and the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute. The area south of the university includes student housing and Telegraph Avenue, one of Berkeley's main shopping districts with stores, street vendors and restaurants catering to college students and tourists.

Architecture

Main article: University of California, Berkeley Campus Architecture

What is considered the historic campus today was the result of the 1898 "International Competition for the Phoebe Hearst 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.^[17] The winner was Frenchman Emile Bernard, however he refused to personally supervise the implementation of his plan and the task was subsequently given to architecture professor John Galen Howard. 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, Hearst Memorial Mining Building, Doe Memorial Library, California Hall, Wheeler Hall, (Old) Le Conte Hall, Gilman Hall, Haviland Hall, Wellman Hall, Sather Gate, and the 307-foot Sather Tower (nicknamed "the Campanile" after its architectural inspiration, St Mark's Campanile in Venice). 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.

The oldest building on campus is Victorian Second-Empire-style South Hall, which was constructed in 1873. It, and the Frederick Law Olmstead-designed Piedmont Avenue east of the main campus, are the only remnants from the original University of California before John Galen Howard's buildings were constructed. Other architects whose work can be found in the campus and surrounding area are Bernard Maybeck (best known for the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco), Maybeck's student Julia Morgan (Hearst Women's Gymnasium), Charles Willard Moore (Haas School of Business) and Joseph Esherick (Wurster Hall).

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 in the 1870s. The campus, itself, contains 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.^[18]

Organization

Chancellors

The position of Chancellor was created in 1952 during the reorganization and expansion of the University of California; there have since been nine inaugurated chancellors (one was acting chancellor):

	Chancellors of UC Berkeley	Years as Chancellor
1	Clark Kerr	(1952–58)
2	Glenn T. Seaborg	(1958–61)
3	Edward W. Strong	(1961–65)
4	Martin E. Meyerson	(1965, acting)
5	Roger W. Heyns	(1965–71)
6	Albert H. Bowker	(1971–80)
7	Ira Michael Heyman	(1980–90)
8	Chang-Lin Tien	(1990–97)
9	Robert M. Berdahl	(1997–2004)
10	Robert J. Birgeneau	(2004–present)

Colleges and schools

Berkeley's 130-plus academic departments and programs are organized into 14 unique colleges and schools. "Colleges" are both undergraduate and graduate, while "Schools" are generally graduate only, though some offer undergraduate majors, minors, or courses.

• Haas School of Business
• College of Chemistry
• Graduate School of Education
• College of Engineering
• College of Environmental Design
• Graduate School of Journalism
• Boalt Hall School of Law
• School of Information
• College of Letters and Science
• College of Natural Resources
• School of Optometry
• School of Public Health
• Richard & Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy
• School of Social Welfare

Labor unions representing UC Berkeley employees

• UPTE University Professional and Technical Employees — health care, technical and research workers
• CUE Coalition of University Employees — clericals
• UC-AFT University Council-American Federation of Teachers — faculty and librarians
• UAW United Auto Workers — Academic student employees
• AFSCME American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — service workers and patient care technical employees
• CNA California Nurses Association — Nurses

Academics

Berkeley is a comprehensive university, offering over 7,000 courses in nearly 300 degree programs. The university awards over 5,500 bachelor's degrees, 2,000 master's degrees, 900 doctorates, and 200 law degrees each year. The student-faculty ratio is 15.5 to 1, among the lowest of any major public university, and the average class consists of 30 students (not including discussion sections led by graduate student instructors). Class size ranges from introductory courses with hundreds of students and seminars with fewer than ten.

Berkeley's faculty includes 221 American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows, 2 Fields Medal winners, 83 Fulbright Scholars, 139 Guggenheim Fellows, 87 members of the National Academy of Engineering, 132 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 8 Nobel Prize winners, 3 Pulitzer Prize winners, 84 Sloan Fellows, and 7 Wolf Prize winners.^[19] 61 Nobel Laureates are associated with the university, the sixth most of any university in the world; twenty have served on its faculty. (See list of distinguished Berkeley faculty.)

Berkeley's enrollment of National Merit Scholars was third in the nation until 2002, when participation in the National Merit program was discontinued.^[20]

Campus Enrollment

The following statistics are calculated from the Fall 2005 enrollment and were released by the University of California system (the 2006 statistics will be released Fall 2007):

• Total Enrollment: 33,558
• Undergraduate Enrollment: 23,482

Women: 12,640

Men: 10,842

• Graduate Enrollment: 10,076

Women: 4,643

Men: 5,433

• Undergraduates by Ethnicity (total exceeds 100%):

African American: 3.5%

Native American: 0.5%

Asian/Pacific Islander: 41.4%

Chicano/Latino: 10.6%

White: 31%

Other: 1.6%

Not Stated: 8.1%

International: 3.3%

• Undergraduates Living on Campus: 28%

Rankings

According to the National Research Council, Berkeley ranks first nationally in the number of graduate programs in the top ten in their fields (97%, 35 of 36 programs) and first nationally in the number of "distinguished" programs for the scholarship of the faculty (32 programs).^[21] Berkeley is the only university in the nation to achieve top 5 rankings for all of its PhD programs in those disciplines covered by the US News and World Report graduate school survey.

In addition to its distinguished post-graduate programs, US News also consistently ranks Berkeley as the nation’s top undergraduate public university and within the top three for both Undergraduate Business and Undergraduate Engineering. U.S. News & World Report recently ranked Berkeley's undergraduate program twenty-first nationally in terms of "academic excellence."

The World Universities Rankings performed in 2006 by the The Times Higher Education Supplement ranked Berkeley sixth in the world [7], and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Institute for Higher Education ranked Berkeley fourth in the world [8] in its 2005 and 2006 rankings. Those rankings were based upon alumni and faculty quality defined by academic reputation, as well as awards won, papers published, international presence, student to faculty ratio, frequency of citation by peers, and performance relative to size. In the 2006 international edition of Newsweek, Berkeley was the fifth-ranked global university.

Admissions

Main article: University of California, Berkeley Student Admissions

UC Berkeley is perennially the most selective school in the UC system. In 2006, Berkeley admitted 9,836 freshmen from an application pool of just under 42,000 applicants, an acceptance rate of 23.5%. The average person admitted to the university as a freshman in 2005 had a weighted GPA of 4.33/4.00, and those who matriculated in 2006 had an average GPA of 4.26/4.00 [9] and average score of 1975 out of 2400 (approximately 94th percentile) on the SAT admissions test.

Graduate admissions vary by department, although in 2005 the university's graduate program admitted 3,444 students from a pool of 18,333 applicants, an overall acceptance rate of 18.3%.^[22]

Library system

Main article: University of California, Berkeley Library System

Berkeley’s 32 libraries together tie for fourth largest academic library in the United States with University of Illinois, surpassed only by the Library of Congress, Harvard, and Yale. In 2003, the Association of Research Libraries ranked it as the top public and third overall university library in North America based on various statistical measures of quality.^[23]As of 2006, Berkeley’s library system contains over 10 million volumes and maintains over 70,000 serial titles.^[24] The libraries together cover over 12 acres of land and comprise one of the largest library complexes in the world.^[25] Doe Library serves as the library system's reference, periodical, and administrative center, while most of the main collections are housed in the subterranean Gardner Main Stacks and Moffitt Undergraduate Library. The Bancroft Library, with holdings of over 400,000 printed volumes, maintains a collection that documents the history of the western part of North America, with an emphasis on California, Mexico and Central America.

Contributions to computer science

UC Berkeley has nurtured a number of key technologies associated with the early development of the Internet, Free software movement and the Open Source Software movement. The original Berkeley Software Distribution, commonly known as BSD Unix, was assembled in 1977 by Bill Joy, then a graduate student in the computer science department. Joy also developed the original version of vi. PostgreSQL emerged from faculty research begun in the late 1970s. Sendmail was developed at Berkeley in 1981. BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Domain package) was written by a team of graduate students around the same time period. The Tcl programming language and the Tk GUI toolkit were developed by faculty member John Ousterhout in 1988. SPICE and espresso, popular tools for IC Designers, were invented at Berkeley under the direction of Professor Donald Pederson. The RAID and RISC technologies were both developed at Berkeley under David Patterson.

Perhaps the most influential contributions to computing from UC Berkeley have been the algorithms and analysis of floating-point arithmetic, led by Professor William Kahan. They include extensive and ongoing contributions to the IEEE 754 standard.

The XCF, an undergraduate research group located in Soda Hall, has been responsible for a number of notable software projects, including GTK+, The GIMP, 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 applets. ViolaWWW would also inspire researchers at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications to create the Mosaic web browser.

SETI@home was one of the first widely disseminated distributed computing projects, allowing hobbyists and enthusiasts to participate in scientific research by donating unused computer processor cycles in the form of a screen saver.

In an interesting example of the confluence of disparate ideas, many of the arguments for the efficacy of Open Source software development, and of the Wikipedia project itself, find parallels in writings on urban planning and architecture published in the late 1970s by Christopher Alexander, a Berkeley professor of architecture. At the same time, John Searle, a Berkeley professor of philosophy, introduced a critique of artificial intelligence using the metaphor of a Chinese Room.

Berkeley has established partnerships with Google, Intel, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, and Yahoo!. Intel Research Berkeley's small industrial lab near the main UC Berkeley campus brings together researchers from Intel and Berkeley to pursue open and collaborative research into realms including Technology and Infrastructure for Emerging Regions, Delay Tolerant Networking, rural connectivity and networks as databases. Yahoo! Research Berkeley Labs focuses on mobile media technology and social media in a facility adjacent to the campus. Sun Microsystems, Google, and Microsoft are funding a $7.5 million dollar Reliable, Adaptive and Distributed Systems Laboratory to develop more reliable computing systems.

List of research projects conducted at Berkeley:

• Daedalus project
• Digital library project
• GiST: A Generalized Search Tree for Secondary Storage
• Harmonia research project: Open interactive programming tools
• Sather: Object-oriented language derived from Eiffel programming language
• Not Another Completely Heuristic Operating System: Instructional software for teaching undergraduate and graduate operating systems courses.

Distinguished Berkeley people

Nobel Prizes have been awarded to nineteen past and present faculty, among the 60 Nobel laureates associated with the university.

• List of UC Berkeley alumni
• List of UC Berkeley faculty
• List of Nobel laureates associated with University of California, Berkeley

See also:

• List of University of California, Berkeley alumni: Turing Award laureates
• Technology alumni
• Business alumni

Student life

Athletics

Main article: California Golden Bears

Cal's sports teams compete in intercollegiate athletics as the California Golden Bears. They participate in the NCAA's Division I-A as a member of the Pacific Ten Conference. The official school colors, established in 1873 by a committee of students, are Yale Blue and California Gold.^[26] Yale Blue was chosen because many of the university's founders were Yale University graduates (for example Henry Durant, the first university president), while California Gold was selected to represent the Golden State of California. Cal has a long history of excellence in athletics, having 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 track, and rugby. In addition, Cal athletes have won numerous individual NCAA titles in track, gymnastics, swimming and tennis.

The Golden Bears' traditional arch-rivalry is with the Stanford Cardinal. The most anticipated sporting event between the two universities is the annual football game dubbed the Big Game, and it is celebrated with spirit events on both campuses. Since 1933, the winner of the Big Game has been awarded custody of the Stanford Axe. One of the most famous moments in Big Game 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.

California finished in sixth place[10] in the NACDA Director's Cup standings (Formerly the Sears Cup), which measures the best overall collegiate athletic programs in the country, with points awarded for national finishes in NCAA sports. With 865.5 points, Cal's seventh place finish is the highest in the school's history. Currently, Cal is in first place following the fall sports, 30 points ahead of rival Stanford

Cal National Championships

Sport	Championships
Baseball	(2) College World Series
Men's Basketball	(1) NCAA Championship (1) NIT Championship
Men's Crew	(15) National Championships
Women's Crew	(3) National Championships
Football	(3) National Championships
Men's Golf	(1) National Championship
Men's Gymnastics	(4) Team NCAA Championships (21) Individual NCAA Champions
Men's Lacrosse	(1) USLIA MDIA National Championship
Men's Rugby	(22) National Championships
Softball	(1) NCAA championship
Men's Swimming	(2) Team NCAA Championships (42) Individual NCAA Champions (12) NCAA Relay Championships
Women's Swimming	(21) Individual NCAA Champions (2) NCAA Relay Championships
Men's Tennis	(1) NCAA Championship (2) NCAA Singles Champions (9) NCAA Doubles Championships
Women's Tennis	(4) NCAA Doubles Championships (1) NCAA Singles Champion
Men's Track & Field	(1) NCAA Team Championship (30) Individual NCAA Champions
Women's Track & Field	(4) Individual NCAA Champions
Men's Water Polo	(12) NCAA Championships
Total NCAA Team Championships	71

Traditions

The official university mascot is Oski the Bear, who first debuted in 1941. Previously, live bear cubs were used as mascots at Memorial Stadium. It was decided in 1940 that a costumed mascot would be a better alternative to a live bear. Named after the Oski-wow-wow yell, he is cared for by the Oski Committee, who have exclusive knowledge of the identity of the costume-wearer.^[27]

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.^[28]

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 five Cal flags, the large California banner overhanging the Memorial Stadium Student Section, 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 when it is in Cal's possession.^[29] 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 ensued in 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.^[30] 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. 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 continues today in the Cal student section and incorporates complicated motions, for example tracing the Cal script logo on a blue background with an imaginary pen.^[31]

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 in 1991, when Cal scored 12 touchdowns.^[32]

Other traditions have included events which span only a period of a few years. William (or Willie) the Polka Dot Man was a performance artist who frequented Sproul Plaza during the late 1970s and early 1980s. ^[33] The Naked Guy (now deceased ^[34] and Larry the Drummer, who performed Batman tunes appeared in the late 1980s and early 1990s. ^{[35] [36]}

Student housing

UC Berkeley's student housing accommodates a variety of personal and academic preferences and styles. Presently, the university offers two years of guaranteed housing for entering freshmen, and the immediately surrounding community offers apartments, Greek (fraternity and sorority) housing, and student housing co-ops.

Main article: UC Berkeley student housing

There are four dormitory complexes south of campus in the City of Berkeley: Units 1, 2, 3, and Clark Kerr. Units 1, 2 and 3 offer high-rise accommodations with common areas on every other floor. Dining commons and other central facilities are shared by the high-rises. Because of their communal design and location in the city, these dormitories tend to be the more social of the housing options. Units 1 and 2 also have many of the newest dormitory buildings, which are intended for continuing and transfer students.^[37] Just outside these complexes are the Channing-Bowditch and Ida Jackson apartments, also intended for older students.^[38][39] Farther away from campus is Clark Kerr, a dormitory complex that houses many student athletes and was once a school for the deaf and blind. This complex is considered the most spacious and luxurious accommodation south of campus.

In the foothills, east of the central campus, there are three additional dormitory complexes: Foothill, Stern, and Bowles. Foothill is a co-ed suite-style dorm reminiscent of a Swiss chalet. Just south of Foothill, overlooking the Hearst Greek Theatre, is the all-girls traditional-style Stern Hall, which boasts an original mural by Diego Rivera. Because of their proximity to the College of Engineering and College of Chemistry, these dorms often house science and engineering majors. They tend to be quieter than the southside complexes, but because of their location next to the theatre, often get free glimpses of concerts. Bowles Hall, the oldest state-owned dormitory in California, is located immediately north of California Memorial Stadium. Dedicated in 1929 and on the National Registry of Historic Places, this all-men’s dormitory has large quad-occupancy rooms and has the appearance of a castle. This dorm is like a fraternity, with many of its residents staying all four years. However, in 2005 the university decided to limit Bowles to freshmen because of complaints that it had become too raucous and was jeopardizing the learning environment.^[40] Bowles houses was once ranked as one of Playboy Magazine's top-10 college parties during Halloween, however the university within the past few years has cracked down on this activity. Currently, the residence is being courted by the Haas School of Business to become housing for scholars and business professionals who visit Berkeley.^[41] There is a great deal of opposition to this plan, and no final decisions have been made.

• UC Berkeley Housing and Residential Student Services
• UC Berkeley Fraternities and Sororities
• University Students Cooperative Association

Student groups

UC Berkeley has over 700 established student groups.

• Office of Student Life Homepage

UC Berkeley has a reputation for student activism, stemming from the 1960s and the Free Speech Movement. Today, Berkeley is known as a lively campus with activism in many forms, from email petitions, presentations on Sproul Plaza and volunteering, to the occasional protest. Political student groups on campus numbered 94 in 2006-2007 school year, including Berkeley ACLU, Berkeley Students for Life, Campus Greens, Cal Berkeley Democrats, and the Berkeley College Republicans. Berkeley sends the most students to the Peace Corps of any university in the nation.^[42]

The IDEAL Scholars Fund was established by four alumni to increase the number of qualified, underrepresented students of color at UC Berkeley. The Fund tries to counter the effects of California Proposition 209, which ended Affirmative Action in California and in the University of California system. The consequent reduction in the numbers of Latino, African American and Native American students rekindled activism on campus concerning issues of race. However, supporters of Proposition 209 have noted that the number of Asian American students has dramatically increased following its passage. Racial preferences remain a controversial topic, with some students supporting them while others are opposed.

The Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC) is the student government organization that controls funding for student groups and organizes on-campus student events. It is considered one of the most autonomous student governments at any public university in the U.S.

UC 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 (Berkeley).

Berkeley's FM radio station, KALX, broadcasts on 90.7 MHz. It is run largely by volunteers, including both students and community members.

Berkeley's student-run television station, CalTV, was formed in 2005 and broadcasts online. It is run by students with a variety of backgrounds and majors.

Democratic Education at Cal, or DeCal, is a program that promotes the creation of professor-sponsored, student-facilitated classes through the Special Studies 98/198 program. DeCal arose out of the 1960s Free Speech movement and was officially established in 1981. The program offers some 150 courses on a vast range of subjects that appeal to the Berkeley student community, including classes on The Simpsons, Poker, South Park, Superman, Batman, conspiracy theories, political debate and DJing.[11]

Fraternities and sororities

Alpha Kappa Lambda, the only men's fraternity founded west of the Mississippi river, was founded at Berkeley in 1914.

Many other fraternities and sororities have existed at Berkeley over the years:

Sororities Kappa Kappa Gamma 1880, later recolonized Kappa Alpha Theta 1890 Gamma Phi Beta 1894 Pi Beta Phi 1900 Delta Delta Delta 1900 Alpha Phi 1901 Chi Omega 1902 Alpha Omicron Pi 1907 Delta Gamma 1907 Alpha Xi Delta 1909 (closed since 1969) Alpha Chi Omega 1909 Sigma Kappa 1910 Alpha Delta Pi 1913 Alpha Gamma Delta 1915 (closed) Delta Zeta 1915 (closed since 1969) Zeta Tau Alpha 1915 (closed since 1969) Phi Mu 1916 (closed) Kappa Delta 1917 (closed since 1969) Delta Sigma Theta 1921 Alpha Kappa Alpha 1921 Alpha Epsilon Phi 1923 (closed) Alpha Delta Chi 1929 Delta Phi Epsilon 1948 (closed since 1968) Alpha Kappa Delta Phi Sigma Omicron Pi Sigma Phi Omega

Fraternities Zeta Psi 1870 Phi Delta Theta 1873 Chi Phi 1875 Delta Kappa Epsilon 1876 Beta Theta Pi 1879 Phi Gamma Delta 1881 Sigma Nu 1892 Chi Psi 1895 Delta Upsilon 1896 Alpha Tau Omega 1900 Kappa Sigma 1901 Acacia 1905 Kappa Delta Rho 1905 Alpha Delta Phi 1908 Delta Chi 1910 Sigma Phi Epsilon 1910 (refounded 2003) Alpha Sigma Phi 1913 Lambda Chi Alpha 1913 Sigma Pi 1913 (1894 as Pirate Club[citation needed])