University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley
Seal of the University of California, Berkeley
Motto	Latin: Fiat Lux
Motto in English	Let There be Light
Established	March 23, 1868
Type	Public
Endowment	USD $2.34 billion (June 30, 2009) [1][2]
Chancellor	Robert J. Birgeneau
Undergraduates	25,530 (Fall 2009)[2]
Postgraduates	10,313 (Fall 2009)[2]
Location	Berkeley, CA, USA
Campus	Urban 6,651 acres (27 km2)[3]
Newspaper	The Daily Californian
Colors	Yale Blue California Gold
Mascot	Oski the Bear
Athletics	27 Varsity Teams NCAA Division I California Golden Bears
Affiliations	AAU IARU Pacific-10 University of California
Website	berkeley.edu

The University of California, Berkeley (also referred to as Cal, California, Berkeley, Cal-Berkeley, UCB, and UC Berkeley), is a public research university located in Berkeley, California, United States. The oldest of the ten major campuses affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley offers some 300 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines. The university occupies 6,651 acres (2,692 ha) with the central campus resting on approximately 200 acres (80.9 ha).^[3] The University was founded in 1868 in a merger of the private College of California and the public Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts College. Berkeley was a founding member of the Association of American Universities.

Berkeley physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was the scientific director of the Manhattan Project which he personally headquartered at Los Alamos, New Mexico, during World War II. Since that time, the university has managed or co-managed the Los Alamos National Laboratory, as well as the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy. University faculty, alumni or researchers have won 65 Nobel Prizes, 9 Wolf Prizes, 7 Fields Medals, 9 Turing Prizes, 19 Academy Awards, and 7 Pulitzer Prizes.

The University of California, Berkeley is currently ranked 3rd among world universities by the Academic Ranking of World Universities, and has the highest number of graduate programs ranked in the top 10 for their fields by the United States National Research Council.

Cal student-athletes compete intercollegiately as the California Golden Bears. A member of both the Pacific-10 Conference and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation in the NCAA, Cal students have won national titles in many sports, including football, men's basketball, baseball, men's gymnastics, softball, water polo, rugby, and crew. In addition, they have won over 100 Olympic medals. The official colors of the university and its athletic teams are Yale Blue and California Gold.

History

Sather Tower (the Campanile) looking out over the San Francisco Bay and Mount Tamalpais.

Main article: History of the University of California, Berkeley

In 1866, the land comprising 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 first full-curriculum public university in the state of California. The university opened in September 1869. Frederick Billings was a trustee of the College of California and suggested that the college be named in honor of the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley.^[4] In 1870 Henry Durant, the founder of the College of California, became the first president. With the completion of North and South Halls in 1873, the university relocated to its Berkeley location with 167 male and 222 female students and held its first classes.^[5]

Beginning in 1891, Phoebe Apperson Hearst made several large gifts to Berkeley, funding a number of programs and new buildings, and sponsoring, in 1898, an international competition in Antwerp, Belgium, where French architect Emile Bernard submitted the winning design for a campus master plan. In 1905, the University Farm was established near Sacramento, ultimately becoming the University of California, Davis.^[6] By the 1920s, the number of campus buildings had grown substantially, and included twenty structures designed by architect John Galen Howard.^[7]

Robert Gordon Sproul served as president from 1930 to 1958.^[8] By 1942, the American Council on Education ranked UC Berkeley second only to Harvard University in the number of distinguished departments.^[8]

During World War II, following Glenn Seaborg's then-secret discovery of plutonium, Ernest Orlando Lawrence's Radiation Laboratory began to contract with the U.S. Army to develop the atomic bomb. UC Berkeley physics professor J. Robert Oppenheimer was named scientific head of the Manhattan Project in 1942.^[9][10] Along with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (formerly the Radiation Lab), Berkeley is now a partner in managing two other labs, Los Alamos National Laboratory (1943) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (1952).

Originally, military training was compulsory for male undergraduates, and Berkeley housed an armory for that purpose. In 1917, Cal's ROTC program was established, and its School of Military Aeronautics trained future pilots, including Jimmy Doolittle, who graduated with a B.A. in 1922. Both Robert McNamara and Frederick C. Weyand graduated from Cal's ROTC program, earning B.A. degrees in 1937 and 1938, respectively. During World War II, the military increased its presence on campus to recruit more officers, and by 1944, the student body at Berkeley included more than 1,000 Navy personnel. The Board of Regents ended compulsory military training at Berkeley in 1962.

During the McCarthy era in 1949, the Board of Regents adopted an anti-communist loyalty oath. A number of faculty members objected and were dismissed;^[11] ten years passed before they were reinstated with back pay.^[12]

In 1952, the University of California became an entity separate from the Berkeley campus. Each campus was given relative autonomy and its own Chancellor. Then-president Sproul assumed presidency of the entire University of California system, and Clark Kerr became the first Chancellor of UC Berkeley.^[8]

Memorial Glade, at the center of the Berkeley campus.

Berkeley gained a reputation for student activism in the 1960s with the Free Speech Movement in 1964,^[13] and opposition to the Vietnam War. In the highly publicized People's Park protest in 1969, students and the school conflicted over use of a plot of land; the National Guard was called in and violence erupted.^[13][14] Modern students at Berkeley are less politically active, with a greater percentage of moderates and conservatives.^[15][16] Democrats outnumber Republicans on the faculty by a ratio of 9:1.^[17]

Various human and animal rights groups have recently conflicted with Berkeley. Native Americans conflicted with the school over repatriation of remains from the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology.^[18] Animal-rights activists have threatened faculty members using animals for research.^[19] The school's response to tree sitters protesting construction caused controversy in the local community.^[20]

As state funding (now about 25%) has declined,^[21] Berkeley has turned to private sources: BP donated $500 million to develop biofuels, the Hewlett Foundation gave $113 million to endow 100 faculty chairs, and Dow Chemical gave $10 million to research sustainability.^[22][23] The BP grant has been criticized for diverting food production to fuel production.^[24][25]

The original name University of California was frequently shortened to California or Cal. Its athletic teams date to this time and so are known as the California Golden Bears, Cal Bears, or Cal. Today University of California refers to a statewide school system and the official name is University of California, Berkeley, frequently shortened to UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal. Usage of UCB and University of California at Berkeley is discouraged^[26] and the domain name is berkeley.edu. The term "Cal Berkeley" is not a correct reference to the school, but occasionally used. Berkeley is unrelated to the Berklee College of Music or Berkeley College.

Campus

The Berkeley campus encompasses approximately 1,232 acres (5 km²), though the "central campus" occupies only the low-lying western 178 acres (0.7 km²) of this area. Of the remaining 1000 acres (4 km²), approximately 200 acres (0.8 km²) 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 Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, an undeveloped 800 acres (3.2 km²) ecological preserve, the University of California Botanical Garden and a recreation center in Strawberry Canyon. 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. Immediately to the north is a quiet residential neighborhood known as Northside with a large graduate student population^{[citation needed]}; situated north of that are the upscale residential neighborhoods of the Berkeley Hills, where many faculty members live^{[citation needed]}. Immediately southeast of campus lies fraternity row, and beyond that the Clark Kerr Campus and an upscale residential area named Claremont. 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. In addition, the University also owns some land to the northwest of the main campus, a 90-acre (360,000 m²) 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. Outside of the Bay Area, the University owns various research laboratories and research forests in both northern and southern Sierra Nevada.

Architecture

South Hall (1873), one of the two original buildings of the University of California, still stands on the Berkeley campus

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.^[27] The winner was Frenchman Émile Bénard, 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 (94 m) 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.

Built in 1873 in a Victorian Second-Empire-style, South Hall is the oldest university building in California. It, and the Frederick Law Olmsted-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^[28] (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

Strawberry Creek, as seen between Dwinelle Hall and Lower Sproul Plaza.

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.^[29]

The campus sits on the Hayward Fault, which runs directly through California Memorial Stadium.^[30] There is ongoing construction to retrofit the stadium. The "treesit" protest revolved around the controversy of clearing away trees by the stadium to build the new Student Athlete High Performance Center. As the stadium sits directly on the fault, this raised campus concerns of the safety of student athletes in the event of an earthquake as they train in facilities under the stadium stands.^[31]

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 one year for entering transfer students. The immediately surrounding community offers apartments, Greek (fraternity and sorority) housing, and the Berkeley Student Cooperative (an organization of about twenty cooperatively run student homes).

Cunningham Hall and the newly built Towle Hall, part of the Unit 2 residence hall complex

There are four residence hall 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 residence halls tend to be the more social of the housing options. Units 1 and 2 also have many of the newest residence hall buildings, which are intended for continuing and transfer students.^[32] Just outside these complexes are the Channing-Bowditch and Ida Jackson apartments, also intended for older students.^[33][34] Farther away from campus is Clark Kerr, a residence hall 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.

Bowles Hall at the 2003 Homecoming and Parents Weekend

In the foothills, east of the central campus, there are three additional residence hall complexes: 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-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 residence halls 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 residence hall in California, is located immediately north of California Memorial Stadium. Dedicated in 1929 and on the National Register of Historic Places, this all-men's residence hall has large quad-occupancy rooms and has the appearance of a castle.

Family student housing consists of two main groups of housing: University Village and Smyth-Fernwald. University Village is located three miles (5 km) north-west of campus in Albany, California. The demolition of older buildings and their subsequent replacement with new, more expensive apartment units has prompted student protests. The Village Residents Association, a funding and advocacy group in University Village, filmed a video documentary regarding the lack of affordable student family housing in June, 2007.^[35] Smyth-Fernwald is scheduled for demolition in 2010.

Organization and administration

Berkeley is the oldest of the ten major campuses affiliated with the University of California. The University of California is governed by a 26-member Board of Regents, 18 of which are appointed by the Governor of California to 12-year terms, 7 serving as ex officio members, and a single student regent.^[36] The position of Chancellor was created in 1952 to lead individual campuses. The Board appointed Robert J. Birgeneau to be the 9th Chancellor of the university in 2004.^[37] 12 vice chancellors report directly to the Chancellor. The Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost serves as the chief academic officer and is the office to which the deans of the 14 colleges and schools report.^[38]

Haas School of Business

Berkeley's 130-plus academic departments and programs are organized into 14 colleges and schools.^[2] "Colleges" are both undergraduate and graduate, while "Schools" are generally graduate only, though some offer undergraduate majors, minors, or courses.

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

The 2006–2007 budget totaled $1.7 billion; 33% came from the State of California. In 2006–2007, 7,850 donors contributed $267.9 million and the endowment was valued at $2.89 billion.^[2]

UC Berkeley employs 24,700 people directly and employees are permitted to unionize and are represented by AFSCME, CNA, CUE, UAW, UC-AFT, and UPTE.^[2][39]

Berkeley is a large, primarily residential research university.^[40] The full-time, four year undergraduate program offers 108 degrees in the arts and sciences and has high graduate coexistence.^[41][40] The graduate program is a comprehensive doctoral program with 64 masters programs, 96 doctoral programs, and 32 professional programs.^[41][40] Berkeley is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.^[42]

Rankings

University rankings (overall)
ARWU World[43]	3rd
ARWU National[44]	3rd
Times Higher Education[45]	39th
USNWR National University[46]	21st
WM National University[47]	1st

In 2009, U.S. News & World Report ranked Berkeley as the top public university among "National Universities" in the United States.^[48]

According to the National Research Council, 35 of 36 Berkeley graduate programs rank in the top 10 in their respective fields.^[49] 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.^{[citation needed]}

The Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Academic Ranking of World Universities ranked Berkeley 3rd in 2009 again.^[50] In the 2006 international edition of Newsweek, Berkeley was the fifth-ranked global university,^[51] and the Center for Measuring University Performance placed Berkeley seventh among national research universities.^[52]

Berkeley's undergraduate program is ranked 1st by The Washington Monthly and 21st among National Universities by U.S. News & World Report .^{[53] [54]} U.S. News ranked the undergraduate programs in engineering and business second in the nation .^[55][56] Berkeley ranks 9th among universities that have produced the largest number of living billionaires.^[57]

The Princeton Review ranks Berkeley as a college with a conscience^[58] and the 5th best value in public colleges.^[59]

Washington Monthly ranks Berkeley as the University doing the most public good.^[60] The rankings were based on social mobility, research done by the University, and service.

The College Sustainability Report Card, published by the Sustainable Endowments Institute, gave Berkeley a B in 2009 for its efforts in environmental sustainability.^[61]

Student body

Demographics of student body^[41][62]

	Undergraduate	Graduate	California	U.S. Census
African American	4%	3%	6.2%	12.1%
Asian American	42%	17%	12.3%	4.3%
White American	31%	42%	59.8%	65.8%
Hispanic American	12%	6%	35.9%	14.5%
Native American	<1%	1%	0.7%	0.9%
International student	4%	18%	N/A	N/A

Berkeley enrolled 25,151 undergraduate and 10,258 graduate students in Fall 2008.^[41] Women make up 53% of undergraduate enrollments and 45% graduate and professional students. 90% of undergraduates and 62% of graduate and professional students are California residents.^[41] In the wake of Proposition 209, the plurality of Asian American students and under-representation of African-American and Hispanic students has received national attention.^{[63][64][65][66]}

Berkeley received 48,461 applications for admission to the undergraduate program in 2008; 10,474 were admitted (22%) and 4,261 enrolled (41%).^[41] 12,371 students from other colleges and universities applied for transfer admission in 2008; 3,232 were admitted (26%) and 2,012 (62%) enrolled. 97% of freshmen enrolled the next year, the four-year graduation rate was 61%, and the six-year rate was 88%.^[41][67] The average unweighted GPA of admitted freshmen in 2008 was 3.87 (4.35 weighted), and their SAT interquartile ranges were 620-730 (Reading), 650-770 (Math), and 620-730 (Writing). Berkeley's enrollment of National Merit Scholars was third in the nation until 2002, when participation in the National Merit program was discontinued.^[68] 31% of admitted students receive federal Pell grants.^[69]

There were 18,231 applications to masters programs with 20% admitted and 14,361 applications to doctoral program with 16% admitted.^[41]

The north side of Doe Library with Memorial Glade in the foreground.

Library system

Berkeley's 32 libraries tie together to make the fourth largest academic library in the United States surpassed only by Harvard University Library, Yale University Library and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library.^[70] 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.^[71] As of 2006, Berkeley's library system contains over 11 million volumes and maintains over 70,000 serial titles.^[72] The libraries together cover over 12 acres (49,000 m²) of land and form one of the largest library complexes in the world.^[73] 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.

Faculty and research

Sixty-five Nobel Laureates have been university faculty, alumni or researchers. Special signs indicate campus parking spaces reserved for the Laureates.

Berkeley's current faculty includes 227 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, 7 Wolf Prize winners and 1 Pritzker Prize winner.^[74] 65 Nobel Laureates have been affiliated with the university as faculty, alumni or researchers, the sixth most of any university in the world.

UC Berkeley is particularly notable for its mathematics department, which is associated with advances in the fields of algebraic geometry, differential geometry, operator algebras, functional analysis and mathematical logic. Current faculty include Fields Medalists Vaughan Jones, Richard Borcherds and Stephen Smale, Ken Ribet, William Arveson, Robin Hartshorne, Theodore Slaman W. Hugh Woodin, John Steel, Robion Kirby, Marina Ratner and David Eisenbud. The nearby Mathematical Sciences Research Institute provides a host of visiting mathematicians.

Other

The official UC Berkeley site ^[75] is ranked the fifth most accessed university site in the world by Alexa.^[76] Of universities in California, it is ranked second.^[77]

Sustainability

In 2009, UC Berkeley developed the Climate Action Plan, pledging to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by one-third, and eventually to achieve climate neutrality. The university tries to use as much post-consumer waste recycled copy paper as possible.^[78] The ReUse project allows for people to share unneeded office supplies and equipment.^[79] The Berkeley Green Campus Program is a student-led initiative, involving energy reduction challenges, light bulb swaps, and other programs designed to reduce the campus's eco-footprint.^[80] UC Berkeley's efforts toward sustainability earned the school a B on the College Sustainability Report Card; overall, the school's grades within the sections were high—it earned A's in the majority of the Report Card.

Student life and traditions

Sather gate and Sather tower (the Campanile) from Sproul Plaza on the UC Berkeley campus

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, whose members have exclusive knowledge of the identity of the costume-wearer.^[81]

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.^[82]

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 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 when it is in Cal's possession.^[83] 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".^[84] 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 yellow pen.^[85]

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.^[86]

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.^[87] The Naked Guy (now deceased^[88]) and Larry the Drummer, who performed Batman tunes, appeared in the late 1980s and early 1990s.^[87]

A few current traditions include streaking during finals week in the Main Stacks, the Happy Happy Man, and Stoney Burke.

Student groups

Cal Straw Hat Band (a smaller subset of the Cal Band) playing at SeaWorld in San Diego, California

UC Berkeley has over 700 established student groups.

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 during the 2006–2007 school year, including Berkeley MEChA, 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.^[89]

The IDEAL Scholars Fund was established by four alumni to increase the number of underrepresented minorities at UC Berkeley. The Fund tries to counter the perceived effects of California Proposition 209, which ended Affirmative Action in California and in the University of California system. Some claimed there was a reduction in the numbers of Latino, African American and Native American students and rekindled their activism on campus concerning issues of race. However, supporters of Proposition 209 have noted that the number of Asian American students, a small minority group, has dramatically increased following its passage. Racial preferences remain a controversial topic, with some students supporting them while many others are opposed to what they see as reverse racism, especially against Asian American students.

Dance Marathon, one of the campus's student-led fundraising events.

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. The two main political parties are "Student Action"^[90] and "CalSERVE."^[91] The organization was founded in 1887 and has a budget of $2 million.

The Residence Hall Assembly (RHA) is the student-run residence hall organization that oversees all aspects of residence wide event planning, legislation, sponsorships and activities for over 6000 on-campus undergraduate residents. Founded in 1988 by the President's Council, it is now funded and supported by the Residential and Student Service Programs department on campus.

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

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

Berkeley Model United Nations is the oldest running high school Model United Nations conference in the nation holding an annual conference on campus with over 1500 high school students participating.

The Main Stacks dance team is Berkeley's premier competitive hip hop dance organization on campus. It was started in the Spring of 2008 by May Matsuo and Vivian Peng and consists of UC Berkeley students, alumni and friends. The team made its debut into the competitive dance circuit with its "Welcome to Berkeley" set at the Prelude Norcal Dance Competition in Fall 2008; the effort proved fruitful, giving them their first victory as third place winners. Main Stacks has also competed in several other California dance competitions, including Fusion, Ultimate Brawl, Max't Out, and Battlefest 360. For more information, visit [mainstacksdance.wordpress.com]

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, The Beatles, James Bond, Poker, South Park, Superman, Batman, The Iranian Revolution, conspiracy theories, political debate, meditation and DJing.^[92]

There are many a cappella groups on campus; two of the most popular are the UC Men's Octet and The California Golden Overtones. The UC Men's Octet is an eight-member a cappella group founded in 1948 featuring a repertoire of barbershop, doo-wop, contemporary pop, modern alternative, and fight songs. They are one of only two multiple time champions of the ICCA, having won the championship in both 1998 and 2000. The California Golden Overtones, founded in 1984, is the campus' oldest all-female a cappella group and have a very similar repertoire to the Octet. In 2001 the group placed second in the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA). It is a tradition for every Berkeley a cappella group to perform under the campus' iconic Sather Gate each week and the Octet and overtones are no exception; during the academic year you can hear the Octet every Wednesday at 1 PM and the Overtones every Friday at 1 PM with other groups performing at similar times on different days; Artists in Resonance performs Mondays at Noon, Noteworthy performs Mondays at 1 PM and DeCadence performs Wednesdays at Noon. Berkeley is also host to several other performing arts groups on campus, including jericho! improv comedy and sketch comedy, Taiko drumming and the Remedy Music Project.

UC Berkeley also hosts a large number of conferences, talks, and musical and theatrical performances. Many of these events, including the Annual UC Berkeley Sociological Research Symposium, are completely planned and organized by undergraduate students.

Athletics

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-10 Conference. The official school colors, established in 1873 by a committee of students, are Yale Blue and California Gold.^[93] 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 Judo, men's track, and men's rugby. In addition, Cal athletes have won numerous individual NCAA titles in track, gymnastics, swimming and tennis. On January 31, 2009, the school's Hurling club made athletic history by defeating Stanford in the first collegiate hurling match ever to be played on American soil.

California finished in first place^[94] in the 2007–2008 Fall U.S. Sports Academy Directors' 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. Cal finished with 370 points. California finished in ninth place^[95] in the 2006-07 U.S. Sports Academy Directors' Cup. With 1030.00 points, this is Cal's highest point value in school history. California finished in sixth place^[96] in the NACDA Director's Cup standings, 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. Following the end of the 2008 season, California accepted an invitation to play the University of Miami in the December 27 Emerald Bowl.

California-Stanford rivalry

UC Rally Committee running Cal flags across the Memorial Stadium field at the 2002 Big Game. (Note the Stanford visitors section on the left and the UC Berkeley alumni section on the right.)

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.

National championships

Berkeley teams have won national championships in baseball (2), men's basketball (2), men's crew (15), women's crew (3), football (3), men's golf (1), men's gymnastics (4), men's lacrosse (1), men's rugby (24), softball (1), men's swimming (2), women's swimming (1), men's tennis (1), men's track & field (1), and men's water polo (25).