University of California Berkeley - Blue and Gold Yearbook (Berkeley, CA)

Page 30 text:

c ' ONCERNING THE UNIVERSITY IT IS impossible to present a picture of the University of California in this brief com- pass. I shall merely set forth certain significant facts. The financial support of this institution comes pre- dominantly from the State. To be sure there have been generous gifts from individuals and organizations; the Federal Government gives aid in certain fields; moreover students contribute through the payment of fees. But all of t hese form a very small part of the total required to carry on the work of the Univer- sity. The University is giving professional train- ing in a very wide range of important fields medicine, law, dentistry, teaching (ele- mentary and secondary) , engineering, min- ing, agriculture, forestry, chemistry, phar- macy, business, architecture, librarianship, optometry, nursing, social service, and (not by any means least) scholarship and Univer- sity instruction. Not merely in the nature of its support, but also in its activities, it is a University of the State, by the State and for the State. We have seven centers in which work is being carried on, the largest being at Berkeley and Los Angeles; others are in San Francisco, Davis, Mount Hamilton, Riverside and La Jolla. Besides we have the state-wide activity of the College of Agriculture which ministers very literally to the needs of every part of the commonwealth; there is also the University Extension which through its departments of class instruction, correspondence and lec- tures likewise touches every corner of Cali- fornia. California Hall The State and even the Nation is served by the University through its researches in fields ranging from agriculture to zoology. It is in fact and by law a single institution under one President and one Board of Re- gents. Its policy is determined by the Regents who are appointed (save for certain ex officio members of the Board) by the Governor, the elected representative of the people of the entire State. It is their effort to coordinate the State ' s higher education. This University stands in the front rank of the educational institutions of the country in the judgment of the nation ' s most com- petent scholars. Obviously no rating in pre- cise numerical fashion is possible; but its place among the very best of the country ' s universities is conceded. The relation between its educational standing and the unification of higher educa- tion in California should not be overlooked. The development of a host of minor state colleges in an independent educational sys- tem would inevitably result in paltry finan- cial support for each and consequently a great lowering of the educational standing of the University and the possibility of its service to the people of the State. V ice-President and Provost.

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ROBERT GORDON SPROUL THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA in allies history has never been better, or finer, or greater than it is today. Having myself been president for only five years, that statement is reasonably modest, for, obviously, any contribution I may have made to the result is still microscopically minute. Moreover, the statement is scientifically unprejudiced, for it is based on the findings of the American Council on Education, recently made public in Washing- ton, D. C. This Council asked two thousand of America ' s greatest scholars to appraise the work of the leading universities of the United States. These scholars in seventy-nine different institutions were asked to rate universities as distinguished or adequate in re- spect to thirty -five fields. The results placed California with Harvard at the very top; it was the single western university to appear among the national leaders. This is a great record, a record indicating that the University of today may for the perpetuity of its fame repose on the virtues of its descendants as well as its ancestors. of California.

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CAMPBELL GETTELL LlPMAN PROBERT STEBBINS PUTNAM DEUTSCH NICHOLS LOUDERBACK