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Los Angeles: Historical Overview
The University of California, Los Angeles--UCLA
for short--is the second largest campus in enrollment in the University
of California system. It is located in the western part of Los Angeles
with the Santa Monica Mountains as a backdrop and the blue Pacific
Ocean about five miles distant. The campus is of rolling terrain
and was once a part of an old Spanish land grant, the Rancho San
Jose de Buenos Ayres.
UCLA is Established
The Los Angeles campus had its origins in
the Los Angeles State Normal School, which was founded in 1881.
It became a part of the University on May 23, 1919, when Governor
William D. Stephens signed the enabling legislation that transferred
buildings, grounds, and records. This marked the culmination of
a long effort by Regent Edward A. Dickson and others to establish
a campus of the state university in Los Angeles.
A Young Campus Grows
The "Southern Branch," as it was
then called, consisted of a 25-acre campus on North Vermont Avenue,
a two-year curriculum in the College of Letters and Science, and
250 students. It expanded rapidly. Teacher training courses were
organized into a Teachers College in 1922. The letters and science
program was extended to four years in 1924. By action of the Regents,
the name of the institution was officially changed to the University
of California at Los Angeles in 1927 and to the University of California,
Los Angeles in 1953.
The young campus continued to grow in both quantity
and quality for several reasons: it met the needs of a burgeoning
southern California; it inherited a rich academic tradition from
the Berkeley campus; and it attracted brilliant young teachers,
scholars, and scientists. Another factor in the rapid growth of
the Los Angeles campus was the generous support from five affiliated
groups which embraced both the University and the community: the
UCLA Art Council, the University Affiliates, the Friends of the
Library, the UCLA Medical Center Auxiliary, and the Friends of Music
(now disbanded).
In the mid-1920s, it was obvious that the 25-acre
Vermont Avenue location would be too small for the rapidly-growing
institution. A search for a new campus was conducted by the Board
of Regents, and some 17 sites from Ventura county to San Diego county
were formally considered. The Regents chose the so-called "Beverly
Site"--just west of Beverly Hills--and announced its selection
on March 21, 1925.
The owners of the land, Edwin Janss and Harold
Janss, who controlled some 200 acres of the site, and Alphonzo Bell,
owner of the rest of the 383-acre tract, offered to sell the land
for $1 million, though its value for subdivision purposes was several
times this amount. The Janss brothers, in effect, made a gift on
the order of $3 million; Mr. Bell, a gift of $350,000.
Shortly thereafter, the citizens of surrounding
communities came forward with an offer to raise the remaining sum
through a bond issue. Los Angeles provided $70,000; Santa Monica,
$120,000; Beverly Hills, $100,000; and Venice, $50,000. Later, the
City Council of Los Angeles augmented the gift fund by an appropriation
of $100,000.
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Early Buildings
The interest and good will evidenced by these
gifts undoubtedly played a part in the decision of the people of
California in 1926 to issue $6 million in bonds, one-half of which
would go to construct buildings on the new campus. On September
12, 1927, Director Ernest Carroll Moore turned the first shovelful
of earth to start construction and on September 20, 1929, the first
buildings were ready for occupancy.
The first four buildings--the College Library,
Royce Hall, the Physics-Biology Building, and the Chemistry Building--were
located around a central quadrangle. Because the rolling terrain
of the campus suggested northern Italy, a Romanesque or Italian
Renaissance style of architecture was adopted, featuring red brick,
cast stone trim, and tile roofs. Many of the early buildings were
modeled from churches and universities in Bologna, Milan, and Verona.
During the 1930s several other buildings were
added to the cluster around the main quadrangle--the Education Building,
Kerckhoff Hall, the Men's Gymnasium, the Women's Gymnasium, Mira
Hershey Hall, and the Administration Building. After World War II,
the architects changed to a less costly and more modern style which
still featured red brick. The 1950s and early 1960s saw a building
boom that produced more than 60 permanent structures on campus.
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Graduate Programs
The campus administrators early recognized
that no University could reach full maturity unless it offered graduate
courses leading to master's and doctor's degrees. On August 8, 1933,
just 14 years after the Los Angeles campus became a part of the
University, the Regents authorized graduate training for the M.A.
degree and specified a graduate enrollment of 125 students. In the
first year, 170 qualified students applied and were enrolled. Graduate
enrollment has been climbing ever since. On May 22, 1936, the Regents
extended their authorization to include the Ph.D. degree. At June
Commencement two years later, the first Ph.D. degree was awarded
to Kenneth P. Bailey, a student in the Department of History. One
year earlier, a Ph.D. degree had been conferred at Berkeley on Norman
Watson, a student in the Department of Physics who had done much
of his graduate research at Los Angeles.
World War II
During World War II, student enrollment shrank,
but the campus became important to the war effort. The Navy conducted
Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps and V-12 programs to train
officer candidates and the Army Specialized Training Program in
engineering, medicine, and languages was accompanied by another
Army contingent of meteorology cadets. A number of war mobilization
classes were conducted by University Extension. Following the war
there was a sudden influx of veterans and enrollments shot up to
new highs.
Academics
Prior to World War II, four schools and colleges
had been established: College of Letters and Science (1919); School
of Education, formerly the Teachers College (1939); Schools of Business
Administration (1936); and College of Agriculture (1939). By the
late 1960s, ten others had been established: College of Engineering
(1945); School of Medicine (1945); School of Social Welfare (1947);
School of Law (1949); School of Nursing (1949); School of Dentistry
(1958); School of Public Health (1960); School of Library Service
(1960); College of Fine Arts, formerly the College of Applied Arts
(1961); and School of Architecture and Urban Planning (1962). During
the post-war period most of the institutes and other inter-disciplinary
areas of organized research were established.
By 1965, the following institutes and research
centers were in existence: African Studies Center; Archaeological
Survey; Brain Research Institute; Business Administration Research
Division; Bureau of Business and Economics Research; Cancer Research
Institute; Cardiovascular Research Laboratory, Los Angeles County
Heart Association; Center for the Study of Comparative Folklore
and Mythology Studies; Health Sciences Computing Facility; Computing
Facility; Institute of Ethnomusicology; Exceptional Child Research;
Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics; Institute of Government
and Public Affairs; Institute of Industrial Relations; Center for
Labor Research and Education; Center for Research in Language and
Linguistics; Latin American Center; Law-Science Research Center;
Library Research Institute; Center for Medieval and Renaissance
Studies; Molecular Biology Institute; Near Eastern Center; Laboratory
of Nuclear Medicine and Radiation Biology; Oral History Program;
Real Estate Research Program; Russian and East European Studies
Center; Space Sciences Center; Jules Stein Eye Institute; Institute
of Transportation and Traffic Engineering; Water Resources Center;
Western Data Processing Center; Western Management Sciences Institute;
and Zoology Fisheries Research.
Administration
In 1965, the chancellor of the Los Angeles
campus was Franklin D. Murphy, formerly chancellor of the University
of Kansas, inaugurated July 1, 1960. He headed an academic staff
that included 495 professors, 283 associate professors, 466 assistant
professors, 750 instructors, lecturers, and miscellaneous titles,
900 teaching assistants, and 1,400 in research categories. The nonacademic
staff numbered 6,240 full-time employees. Student enrollment was
26,119 (17,132 undergraduates, 8,987 graduate students). At that
time, the Los Angeles campus was one of America's fastest growing
major universities. A part of the University of California system,
it was also widely recognized as a distinguished and productive
university in its own right.
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