A National Reputation for Excellence:
UCSC has earned national recognition for the quality of its research and teaching. Some examples of major national rankings follow.
- UCSC ranked 1st in the nation for its research impact in the field of physics, according to an analysis conducted by Thompson Scientific that was reported in Science Watch in 2007.
- According to Science Watch (2008), in the field of molecular biology and genetics, UCSC scored highest among leading institutions for the number of citations per high-impact paper.
- Shakespeare Santa Cruz has frequently been named one of the top Shakespeare Festivals in the country.
- UCSC ranked as the 2nd most influential research institution in the world in the physical sciences, according to a 2001 Institute for Scientific Information report.
- In an analysis reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education in 2007, UCSC ranked 3rd nationally on the Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index among doctoral programs in music.
- In the same analysis reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education in 2007, UCSC ranked 3rd nationally on the Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index among doctoral programs in environmental health engineering (environmental toxicology).
- In a survey of U.S. engineering schools reported in ASEE Prism, UCSC ranked 3rd in the nation in the percentage of master’s degrees awarded to women (44.2 percent). The Jack Baskin School of Engineering celebrated its 10th anniversary year in 2007.
- UCSC ranked 5th in the nation for its research impact in the field of space sciences, according to an analysis conducted by Thompson Scientific that was reported in Science Watch in 2007.
- The Environmental Protection Agency’s College and University Green Power Partners named UCSC the 6th largest green power purchaser in the country through October 1, 2007.
- In economics, international finance was ranked 9th in the world in 2005 (econphd.net).
- Among universities with 5,001 to 15,000 undergraduates, UCSC ranked 6th in the number of volunteers who have served in the Peace Corps.
- In a survey of 60 elite Association of American Universities member schools, UCSC ranked 15th for the percentage of its students whose bachelor's degrees led to doctorates.
- UCSC's Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems oversees research, education, and public-service programs that have an international reputation for increasing ecological sustainability and social justice in the food and agriculture system.
- In the area of conservation research, UCSC is the 4th most productive institution in North America, according to a study published the October 2007 issue of Conservation Biology.
- U.S. News & World Report's rankings for 2008 place UCSC in the top 21 percent of national public universities.
- UCSC is headquarters to UC Observatories/Lick Observatory, which operates Lick Observatory and is a managing partner of the world's largest ground-based optical and infrared telescopes at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii.
- The Dickens Project is internationally recognized as the premier center for Dickens studies in the world and is one of the leading sites for research on 19th-century British culture.
- In a study of preferences of 3,240 high-achieving high school students, UCSC ranked 16th among the country's most desirable public colleges and universities (National Bureau of Economic Research, 2004).
- In 2005, Hispanic magazine ranked UCSC 23rd in the nation for Hispanic students.
- UCSC ranked 11th in the nation among public universities for the quality of its research productivity in The Rise of American Research Universities: Elites and Challengers in the Postwar Era, by Hugh Graham and Nancy Diamond.
- UCSC ranked 1st in the nation among public universities in the Social Sciences in the quality of research productivity, according to the Graham and Diamond publication mentioned above.
- UCSC ranked 6th in the Arts and Humanities index of the same Graham and Diamond publication.
- UCSC faculty include two of the University of California's honored University Professors, 24 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 12 members of the National Academy of Sciences, and two members of the Institute of Medicine.
- UCSC's Center for Justice, Tolerance, and Community is a nationally recognized research institute tackling issues of social justice, diversity, and tolerance through collaborative relationships between the university and its state and local communities.
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Innovation Rewarded with External Funding:
The following list underscores the excellence of UCSC research, which has resulted in significant increases in contracts, grants, and private funding.
- UCSC researchers received $111.2 million in external contracts and grants in 2006-07.
- UCSC received about $25.7 million in private support in the form of gifts and grants during 2006-07, with nearly 2,000 alumni and parents contributing for the first time.
- UCSC's New Teacher Center (NTC) is part of a $36 million program that is providing a mentor for all first-year teachers in the New York City public school system. Now active in 41 states and four countries, the center has dramatically increased teacher retention and boosted student achievement.
- UCSC is managing a national research program valued at more than $330 million under an agreement with UC and NASA announced in 2003. The 10-year contract, a first-of-its-kind for NASA, established a University Affiliated Research Center at the NASA Ames Research Center. The center received an “excellent” rating from NASA in fall 2006.
- In 1999, a $20-million grant to UCSC from the National Science Foundation established the Center for Adaptive Optics; in 2002, a $9.1-million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation established the Laboratory for Adaptive Optics; and in 2003, a $17.5-million grant from the Moore Foundation funded the conceptual design for the 30-meter telescope project.
- Funded largely by a $5 million grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, UCSC's Center for Ocean Health, a state-of-the-art research facility, was dedicated in 2002.
- UCSC faculty are leading a $1.5 million study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, to identify the strengths of programs that encourage underrepresented minorities to pursue biomedical research careers.
- The David and Lucile Packard Foundation has augmented a $17.7 million grant to UCSC and three other institutions studying and monitoring coastal ecosystems with an additional $2.3 million grant to UCSC.
- With a $2.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation, researchers at UCSC are leading an interdisciplinary team from seven institutions in a project to study the consequences of global warming.
- Implantable microelectronic devices for overcoming blindness, paralysis, and stroke damage are the focus of a new center in which engineers from UCSC are collaborating with scientists at the University of Southern California and the California Institute of Technology. The National Science Foundation (NSF) is providing $17 million to fund the Center for Biomimetic MicroElectronic Systems (BMES), a national Engineering Research Center.
- A gift of $350,000 from Talat and Kamil Hasan established the Kamil and Talat Hasan Endowed Chair in Classical Indian Music, which provides ongoing support for UCSC's Indian arts programs.
- In 2007, UCSC received $1 million from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to fund human embryonic stem cell research.
- UCSC environmental studies faculty direct a $2.6 million project to help communities assess the viability of desalination as a method to extend their water supplies. The project has attracted participants and funding from water agencies, environmentalists, consultants, academics, nongovernmental organizations, and a manufacturer of desalination equipment.
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Quality Attracts Awards and Honors:
The following list includes just a few of the many UCSC faculty and alumni who, through their achievements, have received significant honors:
- In 2006, literature professor Nathaniel Mackey won the National Book Award in poetry for Splay Anthem.
- In 2004, alumnus Joseph DeRisi, an associate professor of biochemistry and biophysics at UC San Francisco, received a $500,000 "genius" grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. DeRisi is developing the means to measure thousands of genes simultaneously in an effort to decode the mysteries of cellular function. He is the seventh person affiliated with UCSC to receive a MacArthur Fellowship.
- Professor emeritus of education Roland Tharp received the "Nobel Prize of Education," the University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award. The $150,000 award, which Tharp shared with a faculty member from UCLA, recognizes their book Rousing Minds to Life: Teaching, Learning and School in Social Context, advocating redesigning education to fit students' needs.
- In 2007, film scholar B. Ruby Rich chaired a panel at the Sundance Film Festival about how the counterculture has changed since the 1960s; this was her 20th Sundance Festival. She was also presented the 2007 James Bruder Award, by the Fund for Lesbian and Gay Studies at Yale University.
- In 2002, Paul Ortiz, associate professor of community studies, received the Lillian Smith Book Award for his work on Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell about Life in the Segregated South. In 2005, he published Emancipation Betrayed, concerning the history of black organizing and white violence in Florida leading up to the election of 1920. Emancipation Betrayed won the 2006 Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Book Prize from the Florida Historical Society.
- David Haussler, professor of biomolecular engineering and director of UCSC's Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering (CBSE), won the World Technology Award in the IT software category, presented at the World Technology Summit in 2005 in San Francisco. Carnegie Mellon University awarded its prestigious 2005 Dickson Prize in Science to Haussler.
- In 2007, Harry Noller, Sinsheimer Professor of Molecular Biology, received the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize, the most distinguished award in biomedical research in Germany, and also the Gairdner Award for his identification of the detailed structure and function of the ribosome.
- In 2006, associate professor of history Pedro Castillo was appointed to the California Council for the Humanities, an independent, nonprofit state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
- In 2007, Elliot Aronson, professor emeritus of psychology, received the William James Fellow Award for lifetime achievement from the Association for Psychological Science; he was named one of the 100 most eminent psychologists of the 20th century in a study reported in the July/August 2002 issue of the Review of General Psychology.
- UCSC alumnus Kent Nagano, one of the most sought-after conductors in the world and a Grammy Award winner, is music director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and the Bavarian State Opera.
- In 2008, UCSC alumna Dana Priest, a Washington Post reporter, received a Pulitzer Prize for exposing mistreatment of wounded veterans at Walter Reed Hospital; in 2006, she received a Pulitzer for her reports on the Bush Administration's black-site prisons and other controversies surrounding the so-called war on terror. Priest is the fifth UCSC grad to receive a Pulitzer, and the first to receive two.
- The U.S. Department of Energy awarded the 2004 E. O. Lawrence Award in Physics to Claire Max, a UCSC professor of astronomy and astrophysics. Max, who is director of the Center for Adaptive Optics at UCSC, received the award for her contributions to the theory of laser guide star adaptive optics and its application in ground-based astronomy. In 2006, she received the Chabot Science Award from the Chabot Science & Space Center in Oakland, in recognition of her work in adaptive optics.
- In 2006, Sandra Faber, University Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics, received the Centennial Medal from Harvard University for contributions to society emerging from her graduate education at Harvard; she was also elected to serve on Harvard’s Board of Overseers. The University of Chicago awarded her an honorary D.Sc. degree for her accomplishments in observational astronomy.
- In 2002, Patricia Zavella, professor of Latin American and Latino studies, was named one of the most influential Hispanics in Hispanic Business magazine and received the 2002-03 National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies Scholar Award. She also coauthored, with the Latina Feminist Group, the award-winning Telling to Live: Latina Feminist Testimonios.
- In 2006, Jean Langenheim, professor emerita and research professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, received the Fellows Medal of the California Academy of Sciences and a Centennial Award from the Botanical Society of America.
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