University of California, Santa Barbara
The University of California, Santa Barbara is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an independent teachers college, UC Santa Barbara joined the University of California system in 1944. It is the third-oldest campus in the system, after UC Berkeley and UCLA.
UCSB's campus sits on the oceanfront site of a converted WWII-era Marine Corps air station. UCSB is organized into three undergraduate colleges and two graduate schools, offering more than 200 degrees and programs. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and is regarded as a Public Ivy. The university has 12 national research centers and institutes, including the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics and NSF Quantum Foundry. According to the National Science Foundation, UC Santa Barbara spent $305.48 million on research and development in fiscal year 2023, ranking it 105th in the nation. UCSB was the No. 3 host on the ARPAnet and was elected to the Association of American Universities in 1995.
UCSB alumni, faculty, and researchers have included 11 Nobel Prize laureates, founders of 90+ companies, 1 Fields Medalist, 50 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 34 members of the National Academy of Engineering, and 56 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The faculty also includes two Academy and Emmy Award winners and recipients of a Millennium Technology Prize, an IEEE Medal of Honor, a National Medal of Technology and Innovation and a Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics.
History
UCSB traces its origins back to the Anna Blake School, which was founded in 1891, and offered training in home economics and industrial arts. The Anna Blake School was taken over by the state in 1909 and became the Santa Barbara State Normal School, which then became the Santa Barbara State College in 1921.In 1944, intense lobbying by an interest group in the City of Santa Barbara led by Thomas Storke and Pearl Chase persuaded the State Legislature, Gov. Earl Warren, and the Regents of the University of California to move the State College over to the more research-oriented University of California system. The State College system sued to stop the takeover, but the governor did not support the suit. A state constitutional amendment was passed in 1946 to stop subsequent conversions of State Colleges to University of California campuses.
From 1944 to 1958, the school was known as Santa Barbara College of the University of California, before taking on its current name. When the vacated Marine Corps training station in Goleta was purchased for the rapidly growing college, Santa Barbara City College moved into the vacated State College buildings.
Originally, the regents envisioned a small, several thousand–student liberal arts college, a so-called "Williams College of the West", at Santa Barbara. Chronologically, UCSB is the third general-education campus of the University of California, after Berkeley and UCLA. The original campus the regents acquired in Santa Barbara was located on only of largely unusable land on a seaside mesa. The availability of a portion of the land used as Marine Corps Air Station Santa Barbara until 1946 on another seaside mesa in Goleta, which the regents could acquire for free from the federal government, led to that site becoming the Santa Barbara campus in 1949.
Originally, only 3000–3500 students were anticipated, but the post-WWII baby boom led to the designation of a general campus in 1958, along with a name change from "Santa Barbara College" to "University of California, Santa Barbara," and the discontinuation of the industrial arts program for which the state college was famous. A chancellor, Samuel B. Gould, was appointed in 1959.
In 1959, UCSB professor Douwe Stuurman hosted the English writer Aldous Huxley as the university's first visiting professor. Huxley delivered a lectures series called "The Human Situation".
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, UCSB became nationally known as one of the main national hotbeds of anti–Vietnam War activism. A bombing at the school's faculty club in 1969 killed the caretaker, Dover Sharp. In the spring of 1970, multiple instances of arson occurred, including a burning of the Bank of America branch building in the student community of Isla Vista, during which time one male student, Kevin Moran, was shot and killed by police. UCSB's anti-Vietnam activity impelled then-Gov. Ronald Reagan to impose a curfew and order the National Guard to enforce it. Armed guardsmen were common on campus and in Isla Vista during this time.
In 1968, twelve black students occupied North Hall — temporarily renaming it Malcolm X Hall — to force the Chancellor Vernon Cheadle and the administration to acknowledge the marginalization needs of black students. The university answered the demands of the group by creating the Department of Black Studies.
In 1995, UCSB was elected to the Association of American Universities, an organization of leading research universities, with a membership consisting of 59 universities in the United States and two universities in Canada.
On May 23, 2014, a killing spree occurred in Isla Vista, California, a community near the campus. All six people killed during the rampage were students at UCSB. The murderer was a former Santa Barbara City College student who lived in Isla Vista.
In 2009 Professor William I. Robinson became the subject of a formal inquiry after circulating course-related material comparing Israeli military actions to Nazi persecution - a controversy that highlighted tensions between academic freedom and the imperative to avoid content that Jewish students found intimidating. Even though the faculty code process eventually dismissed the charges, the episode raised questions about how Jewish concerns are handled within campus governance and highlighted ambiguities in procedural responses to allegations of antisemitism.
More recently the same Multi-Cultural Center where Professor Robinson still teaches was the backdrop for another antisemetic incident. Though the signage was not attributed to any specific individual or entity, one of the posters at the gathering was signed by the Jackson Social Justice Legacy Scholarship interns and MCC faculty and student staff.
Campus leaders
was under the supervision of a president. In 1944, the college became affiliated with the University of California. The school name was changed to the Santa Barbara College of the University of California. The title of the campus leader was changed to Provost. In September 1958, the Regents of the University of California established Santa Barbara as a full campus of the University of California. The school was renamed the University of California, Santa Barbara. The official title of the campus leader was changed to Chancellor.Henry T. Yang served as the 5th chancellor of the University of California, Santa Barbara from June 23, 1994, to July 14, 2025. With more than 31 years in office, he is the longest-serving chancellor in the University of California history. After leaving the chancellor's office, Yang continues to serve as a professor of mechanical engineering at the UC Santa Barbara College of Engineering. David Marshall, the then-executive vice chancellor and provost of UC Santa Barbara, started to serve as the interim chancellor on July 15, 2025. On July 17, 2025, the UC Board of Regents announced that Dennis Assanis would assume the role of UC Santa Barbara's sixth chancellor on September 1, 2025.
Campus
UCSB is located on cliffs directly above the Pacific Ocean. UCSB's campus is completely autonomous from local government and has not been annexed by the city of Santa Barbara, and thus is not part of the city. While it appears closer to the recently formed city of Goleta, a parcel of the City of Santa Barbara that forms a strip of "city" through the ocean to the Santa Barbara airport, runs through the east entrance to the university campus. Although UCSB has a Santa Barbara mailing address, as do other unincorporated areas around the city, only this entry parcel is in the Santa Barbara city limits. The campus is divided into four parts: the Main Campus of, which houses all academic units, plus the majority of undergraduate housing; Storke Campus; West Campus; and North Campus. The campuses surround the unincorporated community of Isla Vista.UCSB is one of the few universities in the United States with its own beach. The campus, bordered on two sides by the Pacific Ocean, has miles of coastline, its own lagoon, and the rocky extension, Goleta Point, which is also known as "Campus Point". The campus has numerous walking and bicycle paths across campus, around the lagoon, and along the beach. It also owns and manages the Coal Oil Point nature preserve on the West Campus.
Much of the campus's early architecture was designed by famed architect William Pereira and his partner Charles Luckman and made heavy use of custom-tinted and patterned concrete blocks. This design element was carried over into many of the school's subsequent buildings.
The UCSB Libraries, consisting of the Davidson Library and the Arts Library, hold more than three million bound volumes and millions of microforms, government documents, manuscripts, maps, satellite and aerial images, sound recordings, and other materials. Situated at the center of campus, the Davidson Library in June 2013 broke ground on a significant addition and renovation project, which was completed in November 2015 with re-opening to the public in January 2016.
Campbell Hall is the university's largest lecture hall with 862 seats. It's also the main venue for the UCSB Arts & Lectures series, which presents special performances, films, and lectures for the UCSB campus and Santa Barbara community.
Storke Tower, completed in 1969, is the tallest steel/cement structure in Santa Barbara County. It can be seen from most places on campus, and it overlooks Storke Plaza. It is home to a five-octave, 61-bell carillon. KCSB 91.9 and the Daily Nexus have headquarters beneath Storke Tower.
The UCSB Family Vacation Center, founded in 1969, is a summer family camp located on campus that draws over 2,000 guests each summer. The staff of over 50 includes many UCSB students who have been extensively trained as camp counselors.
UCSB is known for its extensive biking system. A recent survey says that 53% of UCSB students get around by cycling.