University of California, Irvine
The University of California, Irvine is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California, United States. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and professional degrees, and roughly 30,000 undergraduates and 7,000 graduate students were enrolled at UCI as of Fall 2024. The university is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and had $609.6 million in research and development expenditures in 2023, ranking it 56th nationally. UCI became a member of the Association of American Universities in 1996.
The university administers the UC Irvine Medical Center, a large teaching hospital in Orange, and its affiliated health sciences system; the University of California, Irvine, Arboretum; and a portion of the University of California Natural Reserve System. UC Irvine set up the first Earth System Science Department in the United States. The university was rated as one of the "Public Ivies" in 1985 and 2001 surveys comparing publicly funded universities the authors claimed provide an education comparable to the Ivy League.
The UC Irvine Anteaters currently compete in the NCAA Division I as members of the Big West Conference.
As of 2025, alumni, academics, and affiliates of UCI include 5 Nobel Prize laureates, 7 Pulitzer Prize winners, 61 Sloan Research Fellowship recipients, 61 Guggenheim Fellows, and 1 Turing Award winner. In addition, of the current faculty, 24 have been named to the National Academy of Sciences, 7 have been named to the National Academy of Medicine, 17 to the National Academy of Engineering, 40 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and 20 to the National Academy of Inventors.
History
Early years
The University of California, Irvine was one of three new University of California campuses established in the 1960s under the California Master Plan for Higher Education. During the 1950s, the University of California saw the need for the new campuses to handle the expected increase in enrollment from the post-war baby boom. One of the new campuses was to be in the Los Angeles area; the location selected was Irvine Ranch, an area of agricultural land bisecting Orange County from north to south. This site was chosen to accommodate the county's growing population, complement the growth of nearby UCLA and UC Riverside, and allow for the construction of a master planned community in the surrounding area.On June 20, 1964, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson dedicated UC Irvine before a crowd of 15,000 people, and on October 4, 1965, the campus began operations with 1,589 students, 241 staff members, 119 faculty, and 43 teaching assistants. However, many of UCI's buildings were still under construction, and landscaping was still in progress, with the campus only at 75% completion. By June 25, 1966, UCI held its first Commencement with fourteen students, which conferred ten Bachelor of Arts degrees, three Master of Arts degrees, and one Doctor of Philosophy degree.
Development
Unlike most other University of California campuses, UCI was not named for the city it was built in; at the time of the university's founding, the current city of Irvine did not exist. The name "Irvine" is a reference to James Irvine, a landowner who administered the Irvine Ranch. In 1960, The Irvine Company sold of the Irvine Ranch to the University of California for one dollar, since company policy prohibited the donation of property to a public entity. On campus, UC Irvine's first Chancellor, Daniel G. Aldrich selected a wide variety of Mediterranean-climate flora and fauna, feeling that it served an "aesthetic, environmental, and educational ." To plan the remainder of the ranch, the university hired William Pereira and Associates. Pereira intended for the UC Irvine campus to complement the neighboring community, and it became clear that the original grant would not suffice. In 1964, the university purchased an additional in 1964 for housing and commercial developments.Much of the land that was not purchased by UCI remains held by The Irvine Company, but the completion of the university rapidly drove the development of Orange County. The City of Irvine became incorporated and established in 1971 and 1975, respectively. UCI remains the second-largest employer in Orange County, employing 34,076 people as of Fall 2024 and generating an estimated $8 billion in annual economic impact in California.
Aldrich developed the campus's first academic plan around a College of Letters and Science, a Graduate School of Administration, and a School of Engineering. The "principal author" of the plan was Ivan Hinderaker, who served under Aldrich as UCI's vice-chancellor for academic affairs before departing to become the second chancellor of UC Riverside. The UCI College of Letters and Science was to be divided into five divisions which together would initially offer about a dozen majors: Biological Sciences, Fine Arts, Humanities, Physical Sciences, and Social Sciences. Hinderaker came up with the idea "to appoint deans with strong authority for each of the divisions and to give them as much freedom as possible in determining the internal organization of their divisions". In 1967, the UCI Academic Senate voted to redesignate the divisions as "schools", with all their deans reporting directly to the vice chancellor for academic affairs. This is why schools became the dominant academic unit at UCI, in contrast to the relatively large colleges at the older UC campuses.
In 1967, the California College of Medicine became part of UC Irvine. In 1976, plans to establish an on-campus hospital were set aside, with the university instead purchasing the Orange County Medical Center around 12 miles from UC Irvine, in the City of Orange.
Recent history
On November 30, 2007, the Office of Civil Rights of the United States Department of Education issued a report finding insufficient evidence in support of allegations that Jewish students at UCI were harassed and subjected to a hostile environment based on their religious beliefs. The agency ultimately found that none of the incidents leading to the allegations qualified as "sufficiently severe, pervasive or persistent as to interfere with or limit the ability of an individual to participate in from the services, activities or privileges" provided by UCI, and that university officials had acted appropriately in response to each incident. In December 2007, UCI Administration was cleared of anti-semitism complaints by the US Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. Following a speech by Chancellor Drake at the national Hillel meeting in Washington, D.C. in March 2008, Anteaters for Israel, along with three other Jewish organizations, issued a press release defending Drake and claiming that the anti-Semitic activity was "exaggerated".Irvine 11 controversy
In 2010, eleven students from the Muslim Student Union disrupted a speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren. The students and the student's union involved were first disciplined by UCI and then had criminal charges brought against them. They were convicted of misdemeanor charges and sentenced to three years probation, community service, and fines. This led to a debate on whether the students' protest was free speech and whether filing criminal charges against them was fair after UCI had already disciplined them. Critics argued that the students were victims of selective prosecution and that they were targeted because they were Muslims and supported the Palestinians.In early July 2018, UC Irvine removed benefactor Francisco J. Ayala's name from its biology school and central science library after an internal investigation by the university's Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity substantiated a number of sexual harassment claims. Chancellor Gillman also authorized the removal of the Ayala name from graduate fellowships, scholar programs, and endowed chairs. Ayala resigned July 1, 2018 and was ordered to abstain from future university activities, following the university's consultative procedures that include a faculty review committee. The results from the investigation were compiled in a 97-page report, which included testimony from victims of Ayala.
Campus
The layout of the core campus resembles a rough circle with its center being Aldrich Park, lined up by the Ring Mall and buildings surrounding the road. Academic units are positioned relative to the center, wherein undergraduate schools are closer to the center than the graduate schools.Aldrich Park forms part of a campus-wide urban forest of approximately 30,000 trees.
Two ceremonial trees were planted in 1990, one for Arbor Day and the second for former chancellor Daniel Aldrich who had died that year. On the first anniversary of the September 11th tragedies, the chancellor planted a bay laurel tree in remembrance of the heroes and victims of the events of September 11, 2001. The tree itself was a gift from the UCI Staff Assembly. Reforestation and landscape revitalization efforts have shifted plantings away from earlier stands of fast-growing eucalyptus toward more native and ecologically suitable California species. The park is also reported to contain approximately 51 varieties of trees and is regarded as the first park in the City of Irvine.
Surroundings
While the university is located in Irvine, the campus is directly bounded by the city of Newport Beach and the community of Newport Coast. The western side of the campus borders the San Diego Creek and the San Joaquin Freshwater Marsh Reserve, through which Campus Drive connects UCI to the 405 freeway. The northern and eastern sides of UCI are adjacent to Irvine proper; the eastern side of the campus is delineated by Bonita Canyon Road, which turns into Culver Drive at its northern terminus. California State Route 73 marks UCI's southern boundary and separates the campus from Newport Beach.The "North Campus" houses the Facilities Management Department, the Faculty Research Facility, Central Receiving, Fleet Services, the Air Pollution Health Effects Laboratory, and the 1.2 million square foot Irvine Campus Medical Complex. It is located next to the UCI Arboretum, a 12.5 acre botanic garden and research facility which maintains major plant collections from the California Floristic Province and South Africa. The Arboretum is closed until further notice due to the COVID-19 pandemic with plans to relocate to the main campus. Both the North Campus and the arboretum are located about from the main campus. The UCI Ecological Preserve, located on the southern edge of the main campus, comprises approximately 60 acres of coastal sage scrub and grassland habitat. It is managed as part of the Nature Reserve of Orange County and is used for field instruction and ecological research. In 2024, construction of the Joe C. Wen & Family UCI Health Center for Advanced Care and the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center was completed. In late 2025, an all-electric 144-bed acute care hospital will follow suit, making this the nation’s first medical center to be powered by an all-electric central utilities plant.