ANNUAL REPORT 2024-2025

Philanthropic Support

Strathearn Ranch Natural Reserve offers invaluable opportunities

UC Santa Cruz announced the establishment of the Strathearn Ranch Natural Reserve, 2,400-acre oak-studded grassland property in San Benito County, which has served as a cattle ranch for most of the last 100 years.  

Made possible by an anonymous estate gift to the campus, the site will provide invaluable ecological, educational, and research opportunities for UC students, faculty, and other researchers. Strathearn Ranch is now the 42nd reserve within the University of California’s Natural Reserve System (NRS) and the seventh UC Santa Cruz reserve.

The reserve will serve as a living laboratory and outdoor classroom for field courses, research projects, and hands-on learning experiences. The campus anticipates the reserve will host a variety of undergraduate and graduate-level courses, offering students the chance to study ecology, conservation biology, geology, and environmental science in a unique and diverse setting. UC Santa Cruz students in these programs will be able to stay overnight, enabling extended field trips and immersive learning experiences. The reserve’s accessibility to area K-12 schools and community colleges will provide valuable educational outreach opportunities.

Science Division debuts ‘degree-defining experiences’ 

To profoundly inspire undergraduate students with the kind of optimism that forever changes how they see their time at UC Santa Cruz and their future careers, the Science Division launched a major new program centered on “degree-defining experiences.”

A $1 million gift by the Helen and Will Webster Foundation has allowed the division to launch experiential field courses beyond the Natural Reserves—where they were initially developed with foundation support—through collaborations with colleges and departments campus-wide. 

The gift will enable many new programs, including overnight and daylong visits to Lick Observatory to meet astronomers and use the Shane 3-meter telescope;  expanding early access to SCUBA diving and associated community building, for undergraduates pursuing scientific diving and underwater science; and opportunities to engage undergrads in cancer-bioinformatics research.

Extensive research led by Science Division faculty has shown that field courses have an overwhelmingly positive impact on students.