University of California, Riverside

at the UCR School of Business|alt=Gary Anderson Graduate School of Management At the turn of the 20th century, Southern California was a major producer of citrus, the region's primary agricultural export. The industry developed from the country's first navel orange trees, planted in Riverside in 1873. Lobbied by the citrus industry, the UC Regents established the UC Citrus Experiment Station (CES) on February 14, 1907, on of land on the east slope of Mount Rubidoux in Riverside. The station conducted experiments in fertilization, irrigation and crop improvement. In 1917, the station was moved to a larger site, near Box Springs Mountain. The 1944 passage of the GI Bill during World War II set in motion a rise in college enrollments that necessitated an expansion of the state university system in California. A local group of citrus growers and civic leaders, including many UC Berkeley alumni, lobbied aggressively for a UC-administered liberal arts college next to the CES. State Senator Nelson S. Dilworth authored Senate Bill 512 (1949) which former Assemblyman Philip L. Boyd and Assemblyman John Babbage (both of Riverside) were instrumental in shepherding through the State Legislature. Governor Earl Warren signed the bill in 1949, allocating $2 million for initial campus construction. Gordon S. Watkins, dean of the UCLA College of Letters and Science, became the first provost of the new college at Riverside. Initially conceived of as a small college devoted to the liberal arts, he ordered the campus built for a maximum of 1,500 students and recruited many young junior faculty to fill teaching positions. He presided at its opening with 65 faculty and 127 students on February 14, 1954, remarking, "Never have so few been taught by so many." UCR's enrollment exceeded 1,000 students by the time Clark Kerr became president of the UC system in 1958. The regents targeted UCR for an annual growth rate of 6.3%, the fastest in the UC system, and anticipated 19,900 students at UCR by 2010. By 1995, African American, American Indian, and Latino student enrollments accounted for 30% of the UCR student body, the highest proportion of any UC campus at the time. The 1997 implementation of Proposition 209—which banned the use of affirmative action by state agencies—reduced the ethnic diversity at the more selective UC campuses but further increased it at UCR. With UCR scheduled for dramatic population growth, efforts have been made to increase its popular and academic recognition. The students voted for a fee increase to move UCR athletics into NCAA Division I standing in 1998. In the 1990s, proposals were made to establish a law school, a medical school, and a school of public policy at UCR, with the UCR School of Medicine and the School of Public Policy becoming reality in 2012. In June 2006, UCR received its largest gift, 15.5 million from two local couples, in trust towards building its medical school. The regents formally approved UCR's medical school proposal in 2006. Upon its completion in 2013, it was the first new medical school built in California in 40 years. ==Campus==

Bell Tower is the dominant landmark in the center of the main campus.|alt=Carillon Bell Tower UCR's main campus sits at an elevation of to near Box Springs Mountain, 3 miles (5 km) east of downtown Riverside, 3 miles (5 km) south of neighboring Highgrove, CA, and comprises divided into eastern and western areas by the State Route 60 freeway. East Campus, occupying approximately , hosts the core cluster of academic buildings and services. The original buildings that formed the earliest kernel of the campus included the UC Citrus Experiment Station, residential buildings, and barn, all of which are still in use. They were designed by Lester H. Hibbard, in association with H.B. Cody. Built by 1917 at a cost of $165,000, the architecture of the major buildings followed the Mission Revival style suggesting the Spanish colonial heritage of Southern California. After the drop in enrollment and subsequent restructuring of academic programs in the 1970s, little capacity construction was undertaken over the next two decades. However, enrollment growth in the late 1980s justified considerable further campus expansion over the 1990s. Major additions built in the period include: Bourns Hall, completed in 1995; the Humanities & Social Science building, completed in 1996; and the Science Library, completed in 1998. The Pentland and Stonehaven residence halls were completed in 2000, and the Arts building was completed in 2001. The first phase of a new Commons was completed in 2007, and phase II is in development. Other ongoing projects include a new CHASS Instructional and Research Center and Students Academic Support Services Building. Since 1999, more than $730 million has been invested in construction projects. Palm Desert Graduate Center The Richard J. Heckmann International Center for Entrepreneurial Management was founded in Palm Desert in 2001. After the Coachella Valley Agricultural Research Station, it is UCR's second institutional presence in the Coachella Valley. Initially by a $6 million gift from Richard J. Heckmann, a water treatment entrepreneur, the institution was planned as a teaching and research center of the A. Gary Anderson Graduate School of Management at the UCR School of Business. The center encourages local entrepreneurship through the Coachella Valley Angel Network, an angel investment network. A further investment of $10 million from the State of California and a donation of of land from the City of Palm Desert allowed for the opening of an expanded graduate center on April 15, 2005, adjacent to the California State University, San Bernardino Palm Desert Campus. The center is also home to university researchers in conservation biology, technology transfer and Native American studies. Master's level instruction in business management and creative writing is available at the center. ==Academics==

As a campus of the University of California system, UCR is governed by a Board of Regents and administered by a president. The current president is Michael V. Drake, and the current chancellor of the university is S. Jack Hu. UCR's academic policies are set by its Academic Senate, a legislative body composed of all UCR faculty members. UCR is organized into three academic colleges, two professional schools, and two graduate schools. UCR's liberal arts college, the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, was founded in 1954, and began accepting graduate students in 1960. The College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, founded in 1958, incorporated the CES as part of the first research-oriented institution at UCR; it eventually also incorporated the natural science departments formerly associated with the liberal arts college to form its present structure in 1974. In the 2026 edition of the Washington Monthly college rankings, UCR ranked 50th among national universities. Washington Monthly assesses the quality of schools based on social mobility (recruiting and graduating low-income students), research (producing cutting-edge scholarship and PhDs), and service (encouraging students to give something back to their country). Since 1997, more than 110 UCR faculty members have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Over the course of UCR's history, seven current or former faculty members have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and more than 50 have received Guggenheim Fellowships. Historical rankings Research and economic impact UCR operated under a $727 million budget in fiscal year 2014–15. The state government provided $214 million, student fees accounted for $224 million and $100 million came from contracts and grants. Total research expenditures at Riverside are significantly concentrated in agricultural science, accounting for 53% of total research expenditures spent by the university in 2002. Top research centers by expenditure, as measured in 2002, include the Agricultural Experiment Station, the Center for Environmental Research and Technology, the Center for Bibliographical Studies, the Air Pollution Research Center, and the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics. In 1963, plant physiologist Charles Coggins proved that application of gibberellic acid allows fruit to remain on citrus trees for extended periods. The ultimate result of his work, which continued through the 1980s, was the extension of the citrus-growing season in California from four to nine months. It also administers six reserves of the University of California Natural Reserve System. UCR recently announced a partnership with China Agricultural University to launch a new center in Beijing, which will study ways to respond to the country's growing environmental issues. UCR can also boast the birthplace of two name reactions in organic chemistry, the Castro-Stephens coupling and the Midland Alpine Borane Reduction. Admissions and enrollment Admission to UC Riverside is rated as "more selective" by U.S. News & World Report. For fall 2018, UCR received 49,079 freshmen applications; 24,820 were admitted (50.6%). The average GPA of the enrolled freshmen was 3.83, while the average SAT scores were 620 for reading & writing and 635 for math. In 2006, 43.4 percent of admitted students were first generation college students, 38.7 percent came from low family income backgrounds, and 24 percent graduated from low-performing high schools as measured by Academic Performance Index (API) scores. In 2007, U.S. News ranked UCR as the third most ethnically diverse and, by the number of undergraduates receiving Pell Grants (42 percent), the 15th most economically diverse student body in the nation. According to statistics released by the Education Trust, a national nonprofit, in 2005 UC Riverside graduated 65.3 percent of its students in six years, a figure consistent with national averages but behind the average set by the top five public research universities by as much as 22 percent. However, UCR's consistency with the national average is well above the median of 39 percent for low-income-serving institutions as calculated in 2006 by the National Center for Education Statistics, making the campus a model for successful approaches to diversity in higher education. ==Athletics==

UCR's varsity teams compete in the Big West Conference of NCAA Division I. Programs include men's and women's soccer, cross country, basketball, track and field, baseball, softball, tennis, golf and women's volleyball. After students voted to assess themselves $35 a quarter to fund the athletic programs in 1998, men's and women's soccer and golf were added, and the athletic department switched from NCAA Division II in 2000. In December 2008, the UCR women's basketball team upset the #16-seeded Vanderbilt Commodores. National championship teams (Division II) • Baseball (1977 and 1982) • Women's volleyball (1977 – AIAW, 1982 and 1986) • Women's soccer (1983) – first place in the California Collegiate Women's Soccer Conference ==Libraries and collections==

Total library collections at UCR comprise more than 2 million volumes, 14,017 electronic journals, 23,000 serial subscriptions, and 1.7 million microformats. Two large, four-story libraries house most of the physical collections. The Rivera library was constructed in 1954 and named after Tomás Rivera in 1985. It seats a capacity of 956 and houses general humanities and social science collections, as well as special collections, including the world's largest collection of science fiction, horror and fantasy literature, the 110,000-volume Eaton Collection. The Rivera Library also hosts the only U.S. Patent and Trademark Depository based on a UC campus. The Raymond L. Orbach Science Library, built in 1998, seats a capacity of 1,360 and houses 533,000 volumes in the physical, natural, agricultural, biomedical, engineering and computer sciences, with special strengths in the areas of citrus and sub-tropical horticulture, entomology, and arid lands agriculture. On November 3, 2009, the Science library was officially renamed the Raymond L. Orbach Science Library in honor of former chancellor Raymond L. Orbach. Smaller libraries include the Media and Cultural Library, the Music Library, and a branch digital library in Palm Desert. The UCR Library is one of 116 members of the Association of Research Libraries, and is ranked 93rd in this group. The Herbarium houses more than 110,000 dried plant specimens from across the Western hemisphere. UCR is also home to of botanical gardens containing more than 3,500 plant species from around the world. The Gardens are located in the eastern foothills of the Box Springs Mountain on the University of California, Riverside campus. Over four miles (6 km) of trails wind through many microclimates and hilly terrain. The Entomology Research Museum contains more than four million insect specimens, with particular strengths in Hymenoptera, Chalcidoidea, Aphelinidae, Thysanoptera and Meloidae. The UCR/California Museum of Photography and Sweeney Art Gallery house UCR's primary art collections. The UCR/CMP includes the world's largest holding of vintage stereographs, one of the three great public collections of photographic apparatus in the US, and the University Print Collection of contemporary and historical images by over 1000 photographers. Located adjacent to the UCR/CMP, the Sweeney Art Gallery holds approximately 650 unique works, with especially strong collections from the modern to contemporary periods, including pieces by Alexander Calder, Roy Lichtenstein, Millard Sheets and Kara Walker. ==Student life==

Riverside enrolls the highest percentage of African American students of any of the 10 UC campuses and the second highest percentage of Latino students after Merced, prompting the Los Angeles Times and New York Times to run stories stating that UCR is a "campus of choice" for minority students. UCR was the first college in California to open a staffed lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) resource center in 1993; the first UC campus to offer an LGBT minor studies program in 1996; and the first campus in the nation to offer a gender-neutral housing option in 2005. In recognition of this, The Advocate recognized UCR as one of the nation's best campuses for LGBT students in 2006, although it did not make the top 20. The Princeton Review listed UCR as a "Best Western College." While over 83 percent of students are non-white, there is a tendency for the different ethnic groups to self-segregate. Housing at dusk from the Pentland Hills residence hall|alt=Pentland Hills dormitory UCR's residence halls consist of four structures—Aberdeen-Inverness, Dundee, Lothian, and Pentland Hills—which can house over 3,000 students in single, double, and triple rooms. In addition, UCR features several on-campus apartment complexes such as Stonehaven, Bannockburn Village, University Plaza, Falkirk, Oban, Glen Mor and International Village, which together house 959 students. Oban has since been upgraded to accommodate family housing following the demolition of Canyon Crest. Glen Mor, an apartment housing complex adjacent to Pentland Hills, was opened in 2007, and the university also purchased a nearby apartment complex, which is now known as Falkirk, for student housing in 2007. About half of the student population lives in off-campus apartments, one-fourth commute, and one-fourth live on campus. Reflecting UCR's diversity, a number of residence halls have been established for specific social, cultural and academic needs. Ethnic and gender-oriented theme halls include Unete a Mundo, for students seeking to support Latino or Chicano students in acclimating to life at UCR; a Pan African Theme Hall for students interested in developing consciousness of African culture in relation to other cultures of the world; and Stonewall Hall, dedicated to students of all gender identities and sexual orientations who wish to live in a gender-neutral community. UCR's three academic colleges in the humanities, sciences and engineering fields are represented by respective theme halls, and halls exist for honor students and transfer students. In Fall 2018, UCR began construction of a new residence hall and dining facility in the parking lot behind Aberdeen-Inverness. This new residence hall and dining facility opened as Dundee-Glasgow in 2020, and features UCR's first two-story residential restaurant. Student organizations and activities UCR hosts over 500 registered student organizations, including the Associated Students of the University of California, Riverside (ASUCR), which represents undergraduates on administrative and policy issues. ASUCR is guided by a Senate composed of 19 elected senators, who represent the undergraduate colleges in proportion to their enrollment, 7 Executive Cabinet Officers, and directors, who are in charge of the various parts of ASUCR, and a Judicial Council6, which adjudicates any cases involving personnel misconduct or interpretation of the constitution. Membership is composed of all UCR students who pay mandatory activity fees. ASUCR assesses these fees and distributes funds to registered student groups on campus, including student lobbying groups, a right that ASUCR won in a federal court case against the regents in 1999. .|alt=Large concrete "C" on Box Springs Mountain Of the registered student groups, 40 are fraternities and sororities. Nine men's fraternities belong to the North American Interfraternity Conference; seven women's sororities belong to the National Panhellenic Conference; seven men's fraternities and ten women's sororities represent the National Multicultural Greek Council, and two others fall under the campus Raza Assembly and are unique to UCR. Thirteen percent of the undergraduate student body participates in Greek life, although chapter houses are not permitted. Including the Greek letter organizations, more than 60 student volunteer service organizations at UCR contribute to more than 100,000 hours of collective and individual service done in the community each year. Jewish student life has existed for over a decade through UCR Hillel. Student media organizations include The Highlander student newspaper, currently published every Tuesday during the academic year. First published in 1954, The Highlander remains an independent student media outlet. It was an entirely self-funded organization until 2001, when ASUCR passed a funding referendum for it. Student fees from the referendum go towards overhead and printing costs, however The Highlander is primarily funded through its own advertising revenue. In 2003, The Highlander published a comic depicting a stereotypical Asian American graduate teaching assistant with poor English skills, inciting community backlash and prompting an apology from Editor-in-Chief Kahlil Ford. Other student news publications on campus include the Asian Community Times, Indian Time, Nuestra Cosa, Queeriosity, and the X-Factor Student Newspaper. UCR broadcasts over radio as KUCR at 88.3 FM. The station programs a variety of independent music, news and commentary. The Graduate Student Association of the University of California, Riverside (GSAUCR) is ASUCR's counterpart on the graduate level. It is guided by a Graduate Student Council consisting of representatives from every department on campus. GSAUCR assesses fees required of all graduate students and uses them to fund research awards and colloquiums, conference travel grants, and speaker funds. ==Notable people==

Alumni More than 94,000 alumni have graduated from UCR over the course of its history. A Alumni and Visitors Center was established in 2007. It is used as a central gathering place for alumni and holds several facilities for use including meeting rooms, a formal board room, a central lobby area, a library, several alumni affairs offices, and a café. Some of the most notable alumni include: • Daniel Aguirre – professional soccer player for Liga MX club Guadalajara • Steve Breen – editorial cartoonist and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner (1998 and 2009) • Joanna Cameron – actress and model, The Secrets of Isis • Laurent Charlet – geochemist and professor at the University of Grenoble-Alpes • Billy Collins – author, 11th U.S. Poet Laureate • Richard R. Schrock – physicist, Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate • Wilbur Waldo Mayhew – biologist and founding member of the Department of Biology • Robert Nisbet – sociologist • Robert Rosenthal – psychologist, Guggenheim Fellowship recipient • Richard R. Schrock – chemist, Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate • Jane Smiley – author, Pulitzer Prize recipient • Harry Scott Smith – entomologist • Susan Straight – author, Edgar Award recipient, MacArthur Fellows Program recipient, Kirsch Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • Karl Taube – archeologist, researcher focused on pre-Columbian civilization ==See also==