University of California, Los Angeles

The University of California, Los Angeles  is a public research university located in the Westwood district of Los Angeles, California, United States. It became the Southern Branch of the University of California in 1919, making it the second-oldest undergraduate campus of the ten-campus system after the original University of California campus in Berkeley (1873).  It offers 337 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines. UCLA has an approximate enrollment of 30,000 undergraduate and 12,000 graduate students, and has 119,000 applicants for Fall 2016, including transfer applicants, the most applicants for any American university. 

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2015–2016 ranks UCLA 16th in the world for academics and 13th in the world for reputation  In 2015/16, UCLA is ranked 12th in the world (10th in North America) by the Academic Ranking of World Universities   and 27th in the 2015/16 QS World University Rankings.  In 2015, the Center for World University Rankings   ranked the university 15th in the world based on quality of education, alumni employment, quality of faculty, publications, influence, citations, broad impact, and patents. 

The university is organized into five undergraduate colleges, seven professional schools, and four professional health science schools. The undergraduate colleges are the College of Letters and Science; Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science   School of the Arts and Architecture; School of Theater, Film and Television; and School of Nursing. Thirteen Nobel laureates, three Fields Medalists, and three Turing Award winners have been faculty, researchers, or alumni. Among the current faculty members, 55 have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, 28 to the National Academy of Engineering, 39 to the Institute of Medicine, and 124 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences  The university was elected to the Association of American Universities in 1974. 

UCLA student-athletes compete as the Bruins in the Pac-12 Conference. The Bruins have won 126 national championships, including 113 NCAA team championships, more than any other university.  UCLA student-athletes, coaches and staff have won 251 Olympic medals: 126 gold, 65 silver and 60 bronze. The Bruins have competed in every Olympics since 1920 with one exception (1924), and have won a gold medal in every Olympics that the United States has participated in since 1932. 

In March 1881, after heavy lobbying by Los Angeles residents, the California State Legislature authorized the creation of a southern branch of the California State Normal School (which later became San Jose State University) in downtown Los Angeles to train teachers for the growing population of Southern California. The State Normal School at Los Angeles opened on August 29, 1882, on what is now the site of the Central Library of the Los Angeles Public Library system. The new facility included an elementary school where teachers-in-training could practice their teaching technique on children. That elementary school is related to the present day version, UCLA Lab School. In 1887, the school became known as the Los Angeles State Normal School 


In 1914, the school moved to a new campus on Vermont Avenue (now the site of Los Angeles City College) in East Hollywood. In 1917, UC Regent Edward Augustus Dickson, the only regent representing the Southland at the time, and Ernest Carroll Moore, Director of the Normal School, began working together to lobby the State Legislature to enable the school to become the second University of California campus, after UC Berkeley. They met resistance from UC Berkeley alumni, Northern California members of the state legislature, and Benjamin Ide Wheeler, President of the University of California from 1899 to 1919, who were all vigorously opposed to the idea of a southern campus. However, David Prescott Barrows, the new President of the University of California, did not share Wheeler's objections. On May 23, 1919, the Southern Californians' efforts were rewarded when Governor William D. Stephens signed Assembly Bill 626 into law, which transformed the Los Angeles Normal School into the Southern Branch of the University of California. The same legislation added its general undergraduate program, the College of Letters and Science.  The Southern Branch campus opened on September 15 of that year, offering two-year undergraduate programs to 250 Letters and Science students and 1,250 students in the Teachers College, under Moore's continued direction. 


Under University of California President William Wallace Campbell, enrollment at the Southern Branch expanded so rapidly that by the mid-1920s the institution was outgrowing the 25 acre Vermont Avenue location. The Regents conducted a search for a new location and announced their selection of the so-called "Beverly Site"—just west of Beverly Hills—on March 21, 1925 edging out the panoramic hills of the still-empty Palos Verdes Peninsula. After the athletic teams entered the Pacific Coast conference in 1926, the Southern Branch student council adopted the nickname "Bruins", a name offered by the student council at UC Berkeley.  In 1927, the Regents renamed the Southern Branch the University of California at Los Angeles (the word "at" was officially replaced by a comma in 1958, in line with other UC campuses). In the same year, the state broke ground in Westwood on land sold for $1 million, less than one-third its value, by real estate developers Edwin and Harold Janss, for whom the Janss Steps are named. 

The original four buildings were the College Library (now Powell Library), Royce Hall, the Physics-Biology Building  and the Chemistry Building   arrayed around a quadrangular courtyard on the 400 acre (1.6 km²) campus. The first undergraduate classes on the new campus were held in 1929 with 5,500 students. After further lobbying by alumni, faculty, administration and community leaders, UCLA was permitted to award the master's degree in 1933, and the doctorate in 1936, against continued resistance from UC Berkeley. 

A timeline of the history can be found on its website,  as well as a published book