100
Reasons
Why

Celebrating the first

Century of the UCLA College

UCLA was founded in 1919, its origins in a two-year teachers college in the orange groves of Hollywood. It would take an ambitious transformation to convert the Los Angeles Normal School into the vast educational enterprise that would become UCLA — and creating the College of Letters and Science in 1923 was the major milestone in that process.

As we honor our first century, join us in exploring 100 reasons why the UCLA College is the beating heart of the nation’s No. 1 public university.

#1 Our Story Begins

(1923) While UCLA is only four years old and still located on Vermont Ave., the UCLA College is established with 13 majors: chemistry, economics, English, French, history, Latin, mathematics, philosophy, physics, political science, psychology, Spanish and zoology.

(1923) Black Greek life on campus is in full swing. In January, Black women form UCLA’s first-ever Greek-lettered organization, the Pi chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority. In April, a Black fraternity, the Upsilon chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi, is launched. These become valuable sources of support for countless students.

(1925) UCLA’s first bachelor of arts degrees are awarded to 100 women and 24 men.

(1926) The UCLA College becomes the fifth-largest liberal arts college in the nation.

(1928) The first endowed professorship (in philosophy) is established by Mr. and Mrs. C. N. Flint.

(1929) The Westwood campus opens with 5,500 students enrolled.

(1929) Shortly after UCLA begins classes in Westwood, the botanical garden is established along an arroyo on the east side of the campus. Fifty years later, in 1979, the garden is named after Mildred E. Mathias, director from 1956 to 1974 and a UCLA professor.

(1932) Albert Einstein speaks at Royce Hall, one of the earliest globally renowned guest lecturers on UCLA’s campus — but by no means the last.

(1933) The first UCLA master’s programs are approved in 16 fields.

#10

(1934) Helen Cecilia Bender earns the first master’s degree awarded by UCLA.

#11

(1934) William Andrews Clark Jr. bequeaths a 13,000-volume book collection and library to UCLA, creating the Clark library.

#12
(1934) The UCLA Meteorite Collection is created when William Andrews Clark, Jr. donates a 357-lb fragment of the Canyon Diablo meteorite, now known as the Clark Iron. Today, the collection is one of the largest in the U.S., and the UCLA Meteorite Gallery even holds an annual poetry contest.

#13

(1936) James “Jimmy” LuValle wins a bronze Olympic medal alongside teammate Jesse Owens, who is also Black, at the games in Berlin, presided over by Adolf Hitler. LuValle goes on to become a world-renowned chemist.

#14

(1938) Kenneth P. Bailey earns the first doctoral degree awarded by UCLA: a Ph.D. in history.

#15

(1942) Marion Lucy Queal becomes the first woman to earn a doctoral degree from UCLA: a Ph.D. in zoology.

#16

(1945) Launching as a “friendly competition in Royce Hall for the title of ‘Champion Serenader of Sorority Row,’” the competition now known as Spring Sing quickly grows into a phenomenon that continues to this day. One of its most famous present-day champions is Tony- and Grammy-winning singer and UCLA College alumna Sara Bareilles.

#17

(1946) With enrollment rising sharply after WWII, the UCLA College is reorganized into four divisions, each headed by a dean: humanities, life sciences, physical sciences and social sciences.

#18

(1946) The first deans of the UCLA College are Paul A. Dodd, professor of economics (overall dean), Albert W. Bellamy (life sciences), Dean E. McHenry (social sciences), Franklin P. Rolfe (humanities) and William Young (physical sciences).

Today’s UCLA College deans are Miguel García-Garibay (senior dean and dean of physical sciences), Adriana Galván (undergraduate education), Tracy Johnson (life sciences), Alexandra Minna Stern (humanities) and Abel Valenzuela (social sciences, interim).

#19

(1950) Sherrill Luke, the first Black student body president at UCLA and the second in the U.S., graduates. His Bruin connections remain strong: he stays involved at UCLA as a member of the Foundation Board of Directors, president of the Alumni Association and as a UC Regent.

#20

(1950) Alumnus Ralph Bunche becomes the first Black winner of a Nobel Prize, earning the Nobel Peace Prize.

The other UCLA faculty and alumni recipients thus far are:
1951 – Glen T. Seaborg, chemistry
1960 – Willard F. Libby, chemistry (the first faculty member in the College to win)
1965 – Julian S. Schwinger, physics
1984 – Bruce Merrifield, chemistry
1987 – Donald J. Cram, chemistry
1990 – William F. Sharpe, economics
1997 – Paul D. Boyer, chemistry
2009 – Elinor Ostrom, economics
2010 – Richard F. Heck, chemistry
2012 – Lloyd S. Shapley, economics
2013 – Randy W. Schekman, physiology or medicine
2016 – Sir J. Fraser Stoddart, chemistry
2020 – Andrea Ghez, physics
2021 – Ardem Patapoutian, physiology or medicine

#21

(1954) Diane Donoghue graduates, so changed by her college experience traveling to India as part of a UCLA program that she chooses to become a nun. Her work leads to the creation of 11 housing developments in South Central Los Angeles.

#22

(1954) UCLA psychologist Evelyn Hooker begins publicly presenting her research showing that there is no detectable difference in the psychological health of homosexual and heterosexual men. Hooker’s research is considered to be the foundation for the decision to remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

#23

(1960) Walt Cunningham earns his undergraduate degree in physics from UCLA, going on to get his master’s one year later. Chosen to train as an astronaut by NASA in 1963, he became the first Bruin in space in 1968.

Many other UCLA alumni have followed in Walt Cunningham’s footsteps, including Megan McArthur, a 1993 engineering alumna. UCLA College Bruins who have gone to space include:

– Taylor Wang

– Anna Lee Fisher

– John Phillips

– Jessica Watkins

#24

(1966) Arthur Ashe graduates from UCLA with a degree in business administration and goes on to become a global athletics icon, activist and humanitarian. In 2017, the Arthur Ashe Legacy at UCLA is established, which will include the UCLA Arthur Ashe Jr. Scholarship.

Recipients of this scholarship are:

– Maripau Paz

– Vahagn Aldzhyan

– Solia Valentine

– Senay Zedingel

– Sydney Do

#25

(1967) Margaret Kivelson joins the UCLA faculty as an assistant research geophysicist. She goes on to become a giant in her field.

#26

(1969) In one banner year, the Center for African American Studies, the American Indian Studies Center, the Asian American Studies Center and the Chicano Studies Research Center all open. Today, the UCLA Institute of American Cultures serves as their central hub under David K. Yoo, vice provost of IAC and professor of Asian American studies and history.

#27
(1969) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar graduates with a degree in history and goes on to become a basketball superstar, pillar of the UCLA community and influential historian, activist and cultural ambassador.

#28

(1971) The Academic Advancement Program is created to enhance access and success for underrepresented students.

#29

(1973) The UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology is created. Today, celebrating its fiftieth anniversary, the institute has grown into one of the world’s largest consortia of working archaeologists, including some 30 UCLA professors from 11 different disciplines who work alongside roughly 60 research associates affiliated with nearby colleges and universities.

#30

(1979) The first chair in Holocaust studies at an American public university is established in the College, thanks to the 1939 Society.

#31

(1979) OutWrite, the oldest queer college publication in the United States, is founded at UCLA. Originally called TenPercent after the assertion in Alfred Kinsey’s “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male” that 10% of men identified as homosexual, the name was changed in 2005 to be more inclusive of all experiences.

#32

(1980) A major figure in the history of the UCLA College and the department of linguistics, Professor Victoria Fromkin is appointed UCLA’s vice chancellor for graduate programs, the first woman to achieve the rank of vice chancellor in the UC system. Fromkin also broke barriers at the national level as the first woman to serve as president of the Association of Graduate Schools in the American Association of Universities. One of the department’s first Ph.D. recipients, she was a faculty member from 1965 until her death in 2000, and department chair from 1973–77. She also created a language for the 1970s TV show “Land of the Lost.”

#33

(1984) The UCLA Center for the Study of Women is founded, becoming the first organized research unit of its kind in the UC system.

#34

(1984) The Bruin, the iconic 10-foot long and 6-foot bronze statue, is installed.

#35

(1985) UCLA students organize the first Pow Wow, which has become a much-loved annual tradition.

#36
(1986) Jackie Joyner-Kersee graduates, already a silver medalist in the Olympic Games in the heptathlon. Considered to be perhaps the greatest woman athlete of all time, she goes on to win three gold and two bronze medals, ultimately competing at four Olympic games.

#37

(1994) The UCLA Center for Jewish Studies is established, now the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies.

#38

(1996) The Scholarship Resource Center, now the Center for Scholarships & Scholar Enrichment, is founded. Today it is still led by its original director, Angela Deaver Campbell.

#39

(1997) Although the interdisciplinary LGBTQ studies program within the humanities division at the UCLA College was founded in 1997, UCLA has sponsored research in LGBTQ studies for more than 50 years, longer than almost any other university in the U.S.

#40

(1997) The Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA is founded.

#41

(2001) The Center for Community College Partnerships is founded, thanks to the vision of its founder and director, Alfred Herrera.

#42

(2002) After their founding in 2001, the first Fiat Lux seminars — small classes to empower students (especially first-years) and faculty to engage in meaningful discussions on a range of impactful topics while building community and curiosity — are offered.

#43

(2005) The UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o Studies is created. In 2020, the name is expanded to the UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies.

#44

(2006) La Kretz Hall, home of IoES, becomes UCLA’s first LEED-certified building.

#45
(2007) Gene Block, a biologist serving as vice president and provost of the University of Virginia, becomes the sixth chancellor of UCLA. He will conclude his tenure at the end of the 2023-24 school year and focus on teaching and research at UCLA.

#46

(2008) Pulitzer Prize-winning alumna Kay Ryan is appointed the U.S. Poet Laureate. Her work uses irony and humor to unravel idiosyncrasies of the human experience. In 2015, Juan Felipe Herrera (pictured to the right) becomes the first Latino U.S. poet laureate. He received the UCLA Medal in 2017 for his achievements as an artist and activist.

#47

(2008) UCLA mathematicians discover the world’s largest known prime number to date, which is also the first prime with over 10 million digits. Over the last 50 years, members of UCLA’s mathematics department have discovered eight of the 51 currently known Mersenne Primes, defined as a prime that is one less than a power of two.

#48

(2008) The UCLA Department of Economics’ William Sharpe Fellows Program is founded through the generous support of alumnus Kevin Albert and the UCLA Economics Board of Visitors. The program is named in honor of Nobel Prize-winning economist and alumnus William F. Sharpe.

#49

(2009) Founded by astronomy graduate students, the annual all-ages science festival Exploring Your Universe launches. It is the largest science outreach event on campus and the largest science fair of any kind in L.A. County.

#50

(2010) Faculty member and alumnus Paul Terasaki donates $50 million to the UCLA Division of Life Sciences, the largest gift in the history of the College. The new Terasaki Life Sciences Building is named in his honor. When he died in 2016, tributes from around the world poured in.

#51

(2011) The Luskin Lecture for Thought Leadership is established as part of a transformative gift from Meyer and Renee Luskin with the goal of sharing knowledge and expanding the dialogue among scholars, leaders in government and business, and the greater Los Angeles community.

Distinguished speakers in the series have included Bob Woodward, France Cordóva, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bill Clinton.

#52

(2011) The American Statistical Association DataFest, a celebration of data in which teams of undergraduates work around the clock to find and share meaning in a large, rich and complex dataset, is founded at UCLA.

#53

(2012) Breakthrough prostate cancer drug Xtandi, designed by a chemistry team led by UCLA faculty Michael Jung in collaboration with a team of biologists led by Dr. Charles Sawyers, is approved by the FDA. The royalty interest in Xtandi was sold for $1.14 billion in 2016, which has permitted scholarships, matching gift funds and support for research.

#54

(2013) The IoES receives an impact gift of $15 million from the Anthony and Jeanne Pritzker Family Foundation.

#55

(2013) UCLA’s annual Undergraduate Research Week launches. A week-long celebration of Bruin undergraduate research and creative inquiry, it gathers students from all disciplines to share their impactful, innovative work.

#56

(2014) The Interdepartmental Program in Afro-American Studies becomes the UCLA Department of African American Studies.

#57

(2014) The annual UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report is launched. The reports primarily examine the relationship between diversity and the bottom line in the entertainment industry.

#58

(2015) The Congo Basin Institute is founded as a partnership between UCLA and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture. It is UCLA’s first foreign affiliate.

#59

(2015) UC Grad Slam, an annual systemwide contest for students to communicate research in three minutes or less, launches. Each of the UC’s 10 campuses hold local contests and the winners square off, with the ultimate goal to provide emerging scientists and scholars with the skills to engage the public in their work.

#60

(2016) Physicist Mani Bhaumik donates $11 million, the largest gift in the history of the UCLA Division of Physical Sciences, to create the Mani L. Bhaumik Institute for Theoretical Physics.

#61

(2017) UCLA ties for No. 1 public university in the rankings by U.S. News & World Report, seven years running as of 2023.

#62

(2017) Presented by the IoES and made possible as part of a $20 million gift to UCLA from the Anthony and Jeanne Pritzker Family Foundation, the annual Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius Award launches, the first major environmental award restricted to those under the age of 40.

#63

(2017) A gift from Anahita Naficy Lovelace, granddaughter of the late Ebrahim Pourdavoud, and her husband, James Lovelace, makes possible the establishment of the Pourdavoud Center at UCLA — the first center in the Western Hemisphere that aims to advance the knowledge of ancient Iranian languages, history and religions. In 2023, the center is renamed the UCLA Pourdavoud Institute for the Study of the Iranian World, becoming the first institute in the UCLA College’s Division of Humanities.

#64

(2017) The Stavros Niarchos Foundation gives a $5 million grant to create the UCLA Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture. Opening in 2020, the center builds on the university’s strengths in Hellenic studies, serves as a vibrant cultural hub and supports research across disciplines ranging from archaeology and classics to languages and digital humanities.

#65

(2018) The largest-ever gift to the UCLA Division of Humanities and the Department of Philosophy, $25 million, is donated by Jordan and Christine Kaplan and Ken Panzer. UCLA’s Humanities Building is renamed Renée and David Kaplan Hall in honor of Jordan’s parents, both of whom are longtime UCLA faculty members.

#66

(2018) Housed in the UCLA Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, the world’s first climate science major launches.

#67

(2018) 250 UCLA students and alumni celebrate the launch of the Electron Losses and Fields Investigation (ELFIN) satellites. Not only is this the first time an entire spacecraft has been built, managed and operated on UCLA’s campus, but these students and alumni did almost all of the work over five years.

#68

(2018) UCLA renames the historic botany building the La Kretz Botany Building after alumnus Morton La Kretz gave a total of $20 million to renovate it.

#69

(2019) Four years older than the UCLA College, the university itself celebrates its first century.

#70

(2019) UCLA Social Sciences receives $20 million from Jennifer and Matthew C. Harris, an alumnus, to establish the UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute.

#71

(2019) UCLA’s leadership in the study of Japanese literature, language and culture got a major boost when the humanities division received the largest gift from an individual donor in its history. A $25-million gift from Tadashi Yanai, the chair, president and CEO of Japan-based Fast Retailing and founder of clothing company Uniqlo, established the Tadashi Yanai Initiative for Globalizing Japanese Humanities.

#72

(2019) Student gymnast Katelyn Ohashi gets a perfect 10 on a floor routine that also goes viral. Graduating the same year, Ohashi returns to serve as the 2022 UCLA College commencement speaker.

#73

(2019) The annual Chancellor’s Award for Community-Engaged Scholars launches, offering $10,000 awards to support UCLA ladder faculty in developing new, community-engaged research courses for undergraduates.

#74

(2019) UCLA receives a $30 million commitment from the Anthony and Jeanne Pritzker Family Foundation to support a major renovation of the Psychology Tower on the UCLA campus. In recognition of the gift, the building is named Pritzker Hall.

#75

(2020) Andrea Ghez becomes the fourth woman to win the Nobel Prize in physics, earning the honor “for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the center of our galaxy.”

#76

(2020) The UCLA College responds to the pandemic in creative ways, such as participating in UCLA’s COVID-19 Care Package, which included video messages from Professor Michelle Craske — who would go on to hold the inaugural Kevin Love Fund Centennial Chair at UCLA — offering mental, physical and emotional health tools and tips.

#77

(2020) The Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies is established, bringing together the former departments of French and Francophone Studies, Germanic Languages, Italian and Scandinavian.

#78

(2020) Uniting the mathematics and statistics departments, the data theory major at UCLA launches. This capstone major is the first in the world, both in name and content.

#79
(2021) The Jewish Histories in Multiethnic Boyle Heights exhibit launches, part of the Mapping Jewish L.A. project, a decade-long partnership between the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies, UCLA Library and Special Collections, USC and other community archives.

#80

(2021) Director Zrinka Stahuljak announces the transformation of the UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies into the UCLA CMRS Center for Early Global Studies.

#81

(2021) Thanks to a visionary gift from the icon, artist and activist, the Barbra Streisand Center is founded. It will become a future institute that will include four research centers that address her concerns: the Center for Truth in the Public Sphere, the Center for the Impact of Climate Change, the Center for the Dynamics of Intimacy & Power Between Women & Men, and the Center for the Impact of Art on the Culture.

#82

(2020) Construction is completed on the Mani Bhaumik Centennial Collaboratory in Physical Sciences. Opening in 2022, it is an innovative lecture hall, study lounge and meeting space meant to spark unique and inspiring collaborations.

#83

(2021) The UCLA Labor Center’s historic MacArthur Park building is named in honor of Rev. James Lawson Jr., a civil and labor rights icon and 20-year UCLA labor studies faculty member.

#84

(2022) Thanks to an anonymous $13.5-million gift, the UCLA Rothman Family Institute for Food Studies is founded.

#85

(2022) UCLA launches the Initiative to Study Hate, an ambitious social impact project that brings together a broad interdisciplinary consortium of scholars to understand and ultimately mitigate hate in all its forms.

#86

(2022) UCLA’s American Indian studies program becomes a full academic department.

#87

(2022) Alumna Mayim Bialik is named one of the hosts of “Jeopardy,” but she is not the only UCLA College community member to participate on the show. Alumnus and assistant adjunct professor Hung Pham competed this same year as well.

#88

(2022) Presented by the Yanai Initiative of UCLA and Tokyo’s Waseda University, the augmented reality exhibition “BeHere / 1942 – A New Lens on the Japanese American Incarceration” opens.

#89

(2023) Hydroclimatologist Park Williams, a professor in the department of geography, wins a MacArthur Fellowship, one of the many UCLA College Bruin recipients over the years, including internet studies and race scholar Safiya Noble (2021), historian Kelly Lytle-Hernández (2019), anthropologist Jason De León (2017), neurobiologist Elissa Hallem (2012), astrophysicist Andrea Ghez (2008), mathematician Terence Tao (2006), historian Saul Friedlander (1999), linguistic anthropologist Elinor Ochs, sociologist Rogers Brubaker (1994) anthropologist Sherry Ortner (1990), historian of religion Gregory Schopen (1985) and environmental historian and physiologist Jared Diamond (1985).

#90

(2023) The UCLA Center for Reproductive Science, Health and Education launches.

#91

(2023) To facilitate collaboration between the UCLA College Division of Physical Sciences, the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, the UCLA Anderson School of Management and other campus partners, the UCLA SPACE Institute opens. In May, the SPACE Economy Forecast is held; watch it here.

#92

(2023) UCLA receives a gift of $11 million from the Persian Heritage Foundation to establish the Yarshater Center for the Study of Iranian Literary Traditions. Administrative infrastructure and leadership will be provided by the UCLA Pourdavoud Institute for the Study of the Iranian World, formerly known as the Pourdavoud Center and the first institute in the UCLA College’s Division of Humanities.

#93

(2023) Professor Kevin Terraciano and many UCLA alumni complete an international collaborative project with the Getty and other partners to digitize the Florentine Codex, a 16th-century document and global treasure “widely regarded as the most reliable source of information about Mexica culture, the Aztec Empire and the conquest of Mexico.”

#94

(2023) To better highlight all UCLA College faculty, student, alumni and staff authors, the Bruin Bookshelf launches. All College community members are invited to submit their book publication news.

#95

(2023) Disability studies becomes a major at UCLA — the first of its kind at any public university in California.

#96

(2023) The UCLA College magazine goes digital, marking an exciting new chapter in its storied history. Explore all the past issues here.

#97

(2023) UCLA astronomers launch a new program, “Are We Alone in the Universe?” to crowdsource the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

#98

(2023) Jessica Cook, a UCLA doctoral candidate in English, uses artificial intelligence tools to make the documents of the world’s first computer programmer, Ada Lovelace, broadly accessible.

#99

(2023) Professor Adam Bradley co-curates “Hip-Hop America: The Mixtape Exhibit” at the Grammy Museum, which runs from Oct. 7 through Sept. 4, 2024.

#100 OUR STORY (AND YOURS) CONTINUES

Share your favorite milestone or story with us! Along with those of our graduating seniors and incoming Bruins-to-be, we’re thrilled to celebrate your UCLA College story.