History of the University of California, Riverside

On February 14, 1907, the University of California Board of Regents established the UC Citrus Experiment Station on 23 acres (93,000 m2) of land on the east slope of Mt.

Dubbed the Rubidoux Laboratory, the initial purpose of the station was to concentrate on various soil management problems such as fertilization, irrigation, improvement of crops.

[2] In 1913, a record killing freeze in Southern California caused a panic throughout the $175 million citrus industry, which demanded more state-funded agricultural research.

Herbert John Webber, a professor of plant breeding from Cornell University and newly appointed director of the Citrus Experiment Station, considered various site proposals but ultimately worked with the Riverside Chamber of Commerce, city officials, and local growers to assist in drafting and endorsing a proposal for the CES to be relocated to its current site on 475 acres (1.92 km2) of land 2.5 miles (4.0 km) from downtown Riverside, adjacent to the Box Springs Mountains.

On December 14, 1914 the UC Regents approved the selection, news of which caused jubilation in downtown Riverside: "The entire city turned into the streets, the steam whistle on the electrical plant blew for 15 minutes, and the Mission Inn bells were rung in celebration."

He also planted hundreds of other subtropical crops, including 70 varieties of avocado, imported from Mexico, that produced more than 45,000 hybrids through controlled pollination.

The original laboratory, farm, and residence buildings on the Box Springs site was designed by Lester H. Hibbard of Los Angeles, a graduate of the University of California School of Architecture, in association with a colleague, H.B.

While this wave was expected to eventually subside by the early 1950s, state and federal studies released in the late 1940s all projected massive demand for access to higher education in California in the near future.

[3] As the Strayer Committee was empowered to make recommendations regarding the establishment of any new state campuses, a group of Riverside citrus growers and civic leaders, including many Cal (Berkeley) alumni, formed the Citizens University Committee (CUC) to lobby for a small liberal arts college attached to the UC Citrus Experiment Station.

After diligent lobbying by the CUC, which sent gifts of oranges and grapefruit to every member of the Legislature, the Strayer Committee recommended that Riverside become the location for the fourth UC undergraduate campus.

Governor Earl Warren signed the bill approving the establishment of the College of Letters and Science in Riverside in 1949, after reducing its initial allocation for construction to $4 million.

The onset of the Korean War delayed construction, and the CUC continued to lobby for basic resources such as steel and concrete to build the new campus.

[8] Watkins was able to attract many excellent faculty members to Riverside with good pay, a relatively light teaching load, and no obligation to conduct research.

[8] When the university opened in February 1954, many students wanted a bear symbol in keeping with the traditional ursine mascots at UC Berkeley and UCLA.

In November 1954, the men's basketball team championed freshman Donna Lewis' suggestion of "Hylanders" as a write-in candidate in a run-off between "Cubs" and "Grizzlies."

The corrected name won easily, as Provost Watkins was noted for speaking with a Welsh accent, and the UCR campus was located at the highest elevation among all UC schools.

The liberal arts college model, implemented by the Regents as a money-saving measure, was ultimately deemed too small and costly in light of the needs of California's rapidly growing population.

[11] The news of his appointment stirred up such open hostility from the faculty members who thought they had signed up under Watkins to work for a liberal arts college that Spieth never held a ceremony to inaugurate his provostship.

[13] In October 1959, President Kerr prohibited the student governments on all UC campuses from taking positions on off-campus political issues without the expressed permission of their resident chancellors.

As the editor of the UCR Highlander summed up the opposition: In accordance with the Kerr directives, which also affected speakers on campus, in 1962 Spieth refused to let Nobel chemist Linus Pauling speak on disarmament because the subject was outside his academic field of expertise.

[11] In his memoirs, Kerr expressed regret for not having recognized earlier and not having thought harder about how to alleviate the great burdens placed upon Spieth as UCR's first chancellor.

In doing this, he had to confront the early faculty whom Watkins had recruited on the premise that UCR Letters and Science would be a small liberal arts institution dedicated to teaching undergraduates.

It simply was the original faculty members and some who were hired shortly thereafter vs. the fact that Hinderaker was sent here to change that and make this a regular part of the university system...

By 1972, UCR's official description in the UC statewide undergraduate admissions packet was already openly disclosing that Riverside was "hot with too much smog .... We are not perfect.

"[20] In 1973, Riverside's Mayor Ben H. Lewis asked Governor Ronald Reagan to declare the South Coast Air Basin a disaster area.

This caused Riverside to become famous throughout the United States for its air pollution and had disastrous effects on student enrollment and faculty recruitment at UCR.

Due to poor receipts, Hinderaker terminated UCR's two-time Division II state championship football team in 1975.

While enrollment began to make modest but sustained annual gains in 1984, more than doubling by 1991,[22] no single chancellor at Riverside was ever in office long enough during the 1980s to strategically direct UCR's overall development.

Daniel G. Aldrich served a one-year interim appointment as Chancellor before being replaced by Theodore L. Hullar, who began the push for more professional schools and locally supported development practices that would characterize later administrations.

Schraer as his replacement to serve as the UC system's first female chancellor at Riverside (in both cases without a formal committee-reviewed search process).