University of California, Irvine

From Free net encyclopedia

University of California, Irvine

Image:Ucirvine-seal.png

MottoFiat Lux
(Latin, "Let There Be Light")
Established 1965
School type Public
Chancellor Michael V. Drake, M.D.
Location Irvine, California, USA
Enrollment 20,061 undergraduate,
4,301 graduate
Faculty 1,453
Endowment $147 million (FY 2004) NACUBO USD
Campus Suburban, 1,489 acres (6 km²)
Sports teams Anteaters
Website www.uci.edu

The University of California, Irvine is a public university situated in suburban Irvine, California. It is one of ten University of California campuses and is commonly known as UCI or UC Irvine. UC Irvine is named after the Irvine Company, which donated 1,000 acres and sold another 500 acres to the University of California in 1959. Together, the University of California and the Irvine Company planned out a city around the campus, which was later incorporated as the city of Irvine in 1971.

Contents

[edit]

Academics

UCI's academic year is divided into three quarters each with ten weeks of instruction and one week of finals. The university requires a minimum of 12 units a quarter (about 3 classes) to be considered full-time status to a maximum of 20 units. (The maximum can be exceeded by petition or by enrollment in the honors program.) Courses offered are usually worth between 1 to 5 quarter units. Summer courses are offered in either the quarter format of 11 weeks or two summer sessions of roughly half the time for a standard quarter.

In total, at least 180 quarter units are required to graduate. Many of the units come from the graduation requirements of a certain major but a substantial amount come from the general education requirement called the "breadth requirement" at the university. The breadth requirement consists of seven subject categories:

  1. Writing
  2. Natural Sciences
  3. Social and Behavioral Sciences
  4. Humanistic Inquiry
  5. Mathematics and Symbolic Systems
  6. Language Other Than English
  7. Multicultural Studies and International/Global Issues

The sixth category, Language Other Than English, is usually fulfilled through taking four years of a foreign language in high school, passing an AP test on a language other than English with a 4 or 5, or scoring a 620 or better on an SAT II exam on a language other than English. The seventh category, Multicultural Studies and International/Global Issues, contains two subcategories, Multicultural Studies and International/Global Issues.

UCI's most popular undergraduate majors are Biological Sciences (545 degrees awarded in 2004), Economics (412), International Studies (550) and Information & Computer Science (388). In 2005 the university awarded a total of 5242 bachelors degrees, 943 masters degrees, and 276 doctorates.

[edit]

Rankings and Distinctions

In the 2006 U.S. News & World Report survey, UCI is ranked 4th among public universities in California, 10th among all public universities in the U.S., and 40th among all universities in the U.S., public or private. UCI is fourth in applications received in the UC system, behind UCLA, UCSD, and Berkeley, and was tied with UC Davis as the fifth-most selective UC school in freshman admissions for Fall 2005. UCI's Master of Fine Arts degree program in creative writing is ranked 6th nationally by US News and World Report, and has graduated such authors as Richard Ford, Michael Chabon, and Alice Sebold.

Following are the most current national rankings for UCI graduate programs by U.S. News & World Report: literary criticism and theory (2), criminology (4), behavioral neuroscience (5), creative writing (6), health care management (9), information systems (11), organic chemistry (11), drama and theater (12), third-world literature (12), cognitive psychology (13), English (16), psychology – neurobiology and behavior (16), experimental psychology (19), gender and literature (19), executive M.B.A. (20), cell biology/developmental biology (21), 19th- and 20th-century literature (22), psychology – cognitive science (22), sociology (27), aerospace engineering (29), computer science (29), chemistry (30), mechanical engineering (30), civil engineering (31), history (32), environmental engineering (34), fine arts (34), political science (35), biology (36), materials physics (38), biomedical engineering (40), engineering (40), materials science engineering (45), medicine (46), mathematics (47), psychology and social behavior (47), economics (48), business management (49) and electrical engineering (49).

UC Irvine is a member of the Association of American Universities. In the Academic Ranking of World Universities 2005 by Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Institute of Higher Education, UCI is ranked 35th in the U.S., 37th in the Americas and 47th in the world.

Three faculty have been named National Medal of Science recipients. Additionally, three researchers from UCI's faculty received the Nobel Prize during their tenure at UCI: Frank Sherwood Rowland (Chemistry, 1995), Frederick Reines (Physics, 1995) (deceased), and Irwin Rose (Chemistry, 2004). Dr. Rowland's Nobel-winning research was conducted exclusively at UC Irvine.

UCI's faculty are also members of the following U.S. learned societies:

As the second-largest employer in Orange County, UCI contributes an annual economic impact of $3 billion.

[edit]

Organization

[edit]

Chancellors

[edit]

Academic Units

Image:Uc irvine8300005.jpg

  1. Claire Trevor School of the Arts
  2. School of Biological Sciences
  3. The Paul Merage School of Business
  4. Department of Education
  5. The Henry Samueli School of Engineering
  6. School of Humanities
  7. Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences
  8. Interdisciplinary Studies
  9. School of Medicine
  10. School of Physical Sciences
  11. School of Social Ecology
  12. School of Social Sciences
  13. Summer Session
  14. UC Irvine Extension
[edit]

Campus and surroundings

Image:UC Irvine from USGS Satellite.jpg The campus is primarily composed of 1960s Modernist/Futurist buildings set in a circle around a large central park. Satellite parking lots lie in another circle outside the main circle of buildings. The park is completely encircled by a pedestrian walkway known as Ring Road. Each school at UCI is located on its own segment of the ring (except for the School of the Arts and the Medical School). Starting from the main Langson Library and Administration building and going clockwise, Ring Road passes through Social Sciences, Engineering, Physical Sciences, Biological Sciences, and Humanities.

UCI's library system consists of the main Langson Library which houses general media and electronic resources, the Science Library (the largest consolidated science and medical library in California), and the Grunigen Medical Library at the Medical Center.

Image:Kriegerhall.jpg

The first buildings were designed by a team of architects led by William Pereira and including A. Quincy Jones and William Blurock. The central park was designed by an association of three firms led by renowned landscape architect Robert Herrick Carter. The campus opened in 1965 with the inner circle and park only half-completed. There were only nine buildings, and a dirt road connecting the main campus to the housing units. Only three of the six "spokes" that radiate from the central park were built, with only two buildings each. Pereira was retained by the university to maintain a continuity of style among the buildings constructed in the inner ring around the park, the last of which was completed in 1972. Construction on the campus all but ceased after the Administration building was completed in 1974, and then resumed in the late 1980s, beginning a massive building boom that still continues today. This second building boom continued the futuristic trend, but emphasised a much more colorful, postmodern approach that somewhat contradicted the earthy, organic designs of the early buildings. Architects such as Frank Gehry and Arthur Erickson were brought in to bring the campus more "up to date".

The campus was designed favoring large open spaces and decentralized facilities over the dense layout of older campuses. On campus there is residence hall space for about only 3,200 undergraduates, and some on-campus apartment housing.(Note: As of Fall 2004, Vista del Campo opened providing an additional 1,500 beds for both Undergraduate [approx 1,200 beds] and Graduate students. A second, larger phase is scheduled to open fall term of 2006). The local economy is vibrant, and provides jobs in all ranges of skills and earnings, from unskilled service work to skilled professions.

Although the campus is located in the city of Irvine, it is located very close to the city of Newport Beach; in fact, the campus itself is directly bounded by the city Newport Beach on many sides.

Public transit consists of on-campus shuttle buses, campus bikeways (though they are few and frequently out of the way), and free use of OCTA buses via the U-Pass program. University parking is difficult despite large parking structures. Traffic jams on the local freeways are commonplace. Since the climate is warm, many students find a motorcycle or motorscooter convenient.

Despite the suburban environment, a variety of wildlife inhabits the University's central park and wetlands. The university had wolves up until 1985, and still has bobcats, mountain lions, hawks, golden eagles, great blue herons, peregrine falcons, rabbits, raccoons, owls, skunks, weasels, bats, and coyotes. The University of California, Irvine, Arboretum hosts a collection of plants from California and Mediterranean climates around the world.

[edit]

Transportation

Due to the facts that the city of Irvine is very suburban and that UCI students have little motivation to secure on-campus housing, the majority of students are commuters. Additionally, dorming freshmen can purchase residential parking permits. These factors have created a huge daily volume of cars, creating a severe parking shortage; methods such as stack parking have had limited success to alleviate the situation. The usage of bikes and the student-run shuttle service has done little help as the majority of the users of these are non-commuters, residents of on-campus or near campus housing.

The parking permits for students that exist are:

  • R - Residential
  • S - Student Commuter
  • P - Student Commuter Preferred
  • F - Freshman Commuter

The parking permits for employees (faculty/staff) that exist are:

  • C - Employee Commuter
  • AR - Employee Reserved (these are similar to Employee Commuter, but have special allocated parking spaces)
  • ?? - Employee Reserved Preferred
  • X - Executive Permit (for Deans, the Chancellor, the Executive Vice Chancellor, and other high level management positions)
  • ?? - Emeritus/Retiree
  • CP - Carpool

There are also permits/spaces for motorcycles, special staff, vendors, and service vehicles. A special permit called "Nobel Parking Pass" is only given to Nobel Prize recipients and has access to any parking space on campus, except for the service vehicle or disabled parking spaces.

Cars are the most popular form of transportation; motorcycles and scooters also have some popularity. Bicycles are used mainly by residents of on-campus or near campus housing. Public transportation is used by a few students to commute, which is provided free of charge to the surrounding areas. The student-run shuttle service is used by students to travel between the distantly located parts of campus; certain routes of the shuttle service cater to on-campus residents who live in communities located on the fringe of campus.

Ground public transportation connecting is provided by the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA); all the bus routes are available to the students for free. In this case, the student ID is used as an unlimited bus pass. This service is paid for by parking tickets at UCI. UCI is located close to John Wayne Airport, a major Southern California hub. Although the city of Irvine has a train station that services both Amtrak and Metrolink lines, there are no direct bus routes to it. As a result, the Santa Ana Depot and Tustin Station are the closest train stations (in terms of total travel time) for Amtrak and Metrolink respectively.

UCI is close to three freeways: the 405 (a major artery), the CA 55, and the CA 73 (which splits off southbound from the 405 and is a toll road south of the university). The streets of Irvine have speed limits that range from 45 to 55 mph, making them conveniently fast during their non-peak hours. Traffic is notoriously endemic in the region, with peak hours consuming most of the late afternoon and early night.

[edit]

Student life

Image:Uc irvine8300027.jpg Graduate students are housed at the Verano and Palo Verde apartments. Freshmen are typically assigned to live in either the Middle Earth or Mesa Court residence halls, while non-freshmen undergraduates live in the Campus Village, Arroyo Vista, or Vista Del Campo housing complexes, or in one of the many apartment complexes off-campus. Because of increasing enrollment in recent years, on-campus housing is only guaranteed for freshmen and transfer students. However, plans for two-year guaranteed housing are in motion with the opening of the latest on-campus housing complex, Vista Del Campo, and the construction of another housing complex, Vista Del Campo Norte. Two-year guaranteed housing will begin in the Fall 2006 semester.

Due to its location in a preplanned suburban community, general student apathy, reputation as an academic or suitcase school (students tend to go home on the weekends, but stay on campus during the week nights), UCI has had a reputation as a quieter college town. Newport Beach, which is less than 10 minutes away, is home to a vibrant night life.

The Anteater Recreation Center boasts several recreational and sporting facilities and is popular among students (and some faculty). The University Town Center has been heavily developed to provide shopping, entertainment, and dining next to the school. The campus is within driving distance of local attractions such as the Irvine Spectrum Center, and South Coast Plaza shopping malls, as well as some of Southern California's most popular beaches and surfing spots at Newport and Huntington Beach.

UCI's Student Center is currently undergoing a major expansion. The project will expand the center to 300,000 sq feet nearly doubling its size. Two new food courts, a large ballroom, and several conference centers and stores are among the additions that will become part of the larger renovated center. Completion is scheduled for fall 2007.

Wayzgoose, held each April, is a popular university event. This medieval fair and open house features student organization booths, live bands, food, car show, and costumed people in the university community. The event is open to the public and also functions as an open house for incoming and prospective students.

UCI's student newspaper, the New University, is published weekly. There are two ideologically oriented student magazines, the Irvine Review and The Irvine Progressive, as well as Alkalima, the Muslim student paper, and other independent publications.

[edit]

Sports

Image:Uci sign.jpg Image:Uci mascot.jpg Template:Main UCI's sports teams are known as the Anteaters. They participate in the NCAA's Division I, as members of the Big West Conference and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation.

UCI fields nationally competitive teams in cross country, track and field, basketball, baseball, volleyball, water polo, swimming, rowing, and sailing.

[edit]

Notable UC Irvine people

Template:Main As with any major public university, many UC Irvine alumni have achieved fame or notoriety after graduating. These people include athletes (Steve Scott, Greg Louganis and 34 Olympians), film and television actors (Jon Lovitz), and technological innovators. UC Irvine also boasts a number of authors, such as Michael Chabon and Richard Ford, who earned MFA degrees from the school's creative writing program.

Several members of the faculty have been honored with the Nobel and Pulitzer. Ralph Cicerone, an earth system science professor and former chancellor, is currently president of the National Academy of Sciences.

[edit]

UCI Medical Center controversies

The University of California, Irvine Medical Center has been involved in a number scandals.

In 2005 came news of the death of 32 patients waiting for liver transplants that were never going to come. The livers were available, but, for two years, UCI did not have a full time surgeon to implant them, in contravention of federal regulations. UCI's surgeon was actually on staff at UC San Diego, almost 100 miles away. UC Irvine never notified the dying patients that they didn't have a full time surgeon on staff. Just before leaving the program with no full-time surgeon, the last UCI transplant surgeon, who had been performing an unusually small number of transplants, with a survival rate below federal standards, is alleged to have threatened staff members with "liability" should "patients find out something and decide to sue."

The woman whose lawsuit eventually led to exposure of this scandal was Elodie Irvine. Ms. Irvine, who had liver and kidney disease, had 95 organs offered to her by UNOS, the United Network for Organ Sharing, while she waited for a transplant at UCI. All those organs were rejected by UCI, while she was told they were just waiting for organs. Only one UCI physician advised her to look elsewhere for a transplant. The rest of UCI allegedly left her, and most everyone else on the “transplant” list, to die.

In the 90s, UCI allegedly stole eggs from women who had come for fertility treatments. The responsible physicians fled the country to escape federal prosecution. At least one UCI trustee claims to have resigned his post largely because (he claimed) that the trustees were planning to support the errant physicians.

In 2006 it was alleged that, for approximately 15 years, the University had been covering up the existence of children from those stolen eggs. In at least one case, it appears that the process of removing eggs from an unwitting young woman, who had come for a fallopian tube procedure, rendered her infertile. That young woman's eggs developed into at least two children, who are now in their late teens, but the woman was never able to conceive. She did not know that she had children until 2005. Another approximately 20 such children, from 20 unwitting "donors," are now in their late teens, and the families are suing for damages and to learn the identity of their children. The University is arguing that the statute of limitations for this case has expired.

In December 2005, UCI settled a lawsuit brought over the (still-missing) body of Anneliese Yuenger. UC employees allegedly tried to pass off a bag of miscellaneous cremated body parts, instead of Yuenger’s body, to the family. This was only a small part of a willed-body scandal that affected many families, UCI, and UCLA.

In 2003, UCI hired Jagat Narula and Mani Vannan as the chief and division chief of cardiology. Neither was board certified in internal medicine nor cardiology, and neither had a California medical license. Narula then allegedly forced out electrocardiologist Michael Brodsky, and hired David Cesario, the son of med school dean Thomas Cesario, to take his place.

In 2003, Dr. Glenn Prevost presented a 13-signature petition alleging anesthesia safety problems. He says that soon after complaining about a supervisor forcing him "to take patients to the operating room without consent, chart, or preoperative check-in by the operating room nurse ... in an attempt to cut costs," he was fired and allegely blackballed.

In Feb 2001, the University of California agreed to pay $22.5 million to settle allegations that it's teaching hospitals routinely submitted false billings to Medicare, Medicaid and other Federally-funded health programs. The whistleblower, who had been at UCI, left UCI, and was allegedly blackballed. She’s since been embroiled in lawsuits against the University of California.

[edit]

Trivia

[edit]

Student traditions & culture

  • One of the biggest traditions at UCI is the Wayzgoose Medieval Faire in April, which includes student organization booths, live bands, food, costumed individuals, games and rides for children, an Earth Day celebration, academic information, car show, and campus tram tours. The event is free and open to the public. The day also functions as an Open House for incoming and prospective students.
  • The acronym UCI has often been jokingly claimed to stand for "Under Construction Indefinitely" (due to the recent surge of growth and construction activity on campus). It has also been said to stand for "University of Civics and Integras" because of the predilection for these two types of cars (popular as rice rockets) among the highly Asian student population. Furthermore UCI has reportedly been called the "University of Chinese Immigrants", mocking the abundance of said people.
  • Because of UCI's lack of a football team and general apathy towards athletics, some students enjoy making sarcastic comments about how "Anteater football remains undefeated!"
  • During the annual E-Week celebrations held by the Engineering Student Council, several engineering related contests are held including an egg-dropping contest from the roof of the 140-foot Engineering Tower (the tallest building on campus) and the construction of Rube Goldberg machines.
[edit]

Movies

  • Neuroscience labs and exteriors of UCI were featured in the 1985 science fiction/comedy film "Creator" starring Peter O'Toole, Mariel Hemingway, Virginia Madsen, David Ogden Stiers, and Vince Spano.

Image:Apes4.jpg

  • Aldrich Park (in the middle of the campus) was shown during the wheelchair chase scene in Mel Brooks' "Silent Movie".
  • The school was featured in the 2001 production of Ocean's Eleven. In the movie, the building where the crew steals the EMP device is actually the Gillespie Neuroscience Research Facility located in the College of Medicine.
[edit]

Miscellaneous

  • Broadcom Corporation, one of the top technology companies in the world, will be relocating its Irvine operations to UCI's University Research Park. (2005)
  • There exists an official "North Campus", consisting of several small buildings and trailers and has no academic use. It is located next to the UCI Arboretum; both the North Campus and the arboretum are located a considerable distance from the main campus.
  • In October 1970, a Bank of America branch across from campus was burned down as part of an apparent string of California bank arsons that year. The arsonists left radical slogans on graffiti and signs. Student and faculty public reaction was uniformly negative.
[edit]

See also

[edit]

External links

Template:Geolinks-US-photo

[edit]

Schools

[edit]

Student Media

[edit]

Student Clubs and Organizations


University of California
Berkeley | Davis | Irvine | Los Angeles | Merced | Riverside |
San Diego | San Francisco | Santa Barbara | Santa Cruz

Template:Big West Conferencefr:Université de Californie à Irvine zh:爾灣加利福尼亞大學

Retrieved from "http://www.netipedia.com/index.php/University_of_California%2C_Irvine"