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Los Angeles: Departments and Programs
Aerospace Studies
African Studies Program
African American Studies Program
Agricultural Sciences
American Indian Studies Program
Anatomy
Anesthesiology
Anthropology
Applied Linguistics and Teaching
English as a Second Language
Archaeology Program
Architecture and Urban Design
Art
Art History
Asian American Studies Program
Astronomy
Atmospheric Sciences
Aerospace Studies
On July 1, 1949, the Department of Air Science
and Tactics was established at the Los Angeles campus to reflect
the emergence of the Air Force as an independent department in the
defense establishment. The Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC)
program was compulsory for freshmen and sophomores until 1962, when
a voluntary program was introduced. In 1964, the title of the department
was changed to reflect added curriculum emphasis on space operations.
Simultaneously, a new two-year Air Force ROTC program was introduced
to operate concurrently with the standard four-year course of study.
A new curriculum was introduced in the mid-1960s
which emphasized student-centered activity to provide practice in
recognizing, defining, and solving aerospace problems similar to
those encountered by career officers in the Air Force. Beginning
in the fall, 1965, the department planned to award a proportionate
share of 5,500 financial assistance grants offered by the Department
of the Air Force to deserving juniors each year. source
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African Studies Program
The African Studies Center at UCLA was established
in 1959 as an organized research unit to meet the growing national
interest in the region and to develop outreach, academic, and research
programs on Africa. Increased national demand for new language and
area skills soon led to its designation as a National Resource Center
for African Studies. In 1989, the Center was renamed to honor its
founder, James S. Coleman, whose pioneering scholarship marks him
as one of the architects of African Area Studies in the United States.
The Center is a broadly based academic support and research program
dedicated to the following activities: education of undergraduate
and graduate students as well as the community at large in the areas
of African languages, culture and society; preparing graduate students
for careers in the public and private sectors and for academic positions
with an Africa focus both in the United States and abroad; conducting
scholarly research on Africa and disseminating that research to
a wide audience, both nationally and internationally; promoting
dialogue and cooperation among students, scholars, policy makers
and the general public through lectures, symposia, publications
and other activities. source
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African American Studies
UCLA’s Center for African American Studies
(CAAS) was founded in 1969, the outgrowth of demands for relevant
multi-disciplinary research into the social,
cultural, and political experiences of Black Americans. At that
moment in history, social forces were profoundly transforming the
nation and its official relationship
to race. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act
of 1965 had wounded de jure discrimination just a few years earlier.
Race-specific remedies like
affirmative action were coming into vogue, accepted by the establishment
as practical tools for attacking the de facto discrimination that
remained. The Black Power
movement popularized an entirely new domain of possibilities for
Black Americans, possibilities vividly expressed in popular music
and fashion.
Established as an Organized Research Unit
(ORU), the Center's mission is to develop strong academic and research
programs in African American Studies through its five primary organizational
branches: research, academic programs, library, special projects
and publications.
CAAS supports research that: (1) expands the knowledge
of the history, lifestyles, and sociocultural systems of people
of African descent and (2) investigates problems that have bearing
on the psychological, social and economic well-being of persons
of African descent. Research sponsored and conducted by CAAS is
multidisciplinary in scope and spans the humanities, social sciences,
fine arts, and several professional schools.
The Interdepartmental BA and MA Programs (IDP)
oversee the granting of undergraduate and graduate degrees in Afro-American
Studies. CAAS provides assistance to the IDP through administrative
support and coordination of the curricula. The Center also administers
two competitive undergraduate scholarship programs -- the Julian
"Cannonball" Adderley Memorial Scholarship and the John
Densmore Scholarship -- which provide funding to students majoring
in Afro-American Studies or other disciplines.
Through the production of books and monographs,
the CAAS publishing unit provides wide access to research on issues
relevant to peoples of African descent throughout the world. The
CAAS Publications imprint includes the Afro-American Culture and
Society Series, the Special Publications Series, the Urban Policy
Series, the Community Classics Series, and the Minority Economic
Development Series. The unit also oversees the production of the
CAAS Report, distributed without charge to interested individuals
and organizations throughout the United States and abroad.
The CAAS Special Projects division is responsible
for the development and presentation of cultural and scholarly programming
designed to enrich the experiences of the local UCLA and off-campus
communities. Among its notable activities are the annual Thurgood
Marshall Lecture on Law and Human Rights. The Special Projects unit
also interacts with businesses, cultural organizations, and other
academic institutions to foster a better understanding of its mission,
and the Special Projects staff plays a key role in CAAS fundraising
efforts.
The Center for African American Studies is administered
by a Director, with the guidance of an advisory committee appointed
by the Executive Vice Chancellor and composed of faculty from across
campus.
CAAS is affiliated with the Institute of American
Cultures (IAC). Established in 1972, the IAC promotes the development
of ethnic studies at UCLA by providing a structure for coordination
of the four ethnic studies centers on campus. Through CAAS, the
IAC awards annual predoctoral and postdoctoral fellowships. source
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Agricultural Sciences
See Colleges and Schools, College
of Agriculture.
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American Indian Studies
Program The initial beginnings of the American
Indian Studies Center date to 1969, when students and community
members asked UCLA to create a curriculum and research center concentrating
on Native American history and culture. Many Native students at
UCLA and community members believed that UCLA was not conducting
research or disseminating accurate information about Native American
issues, history, and culture. In 1970, Chancellor Young secured
a five-year Ford Foundation Grant for support of the Center and
the three other ethnic studies centers, Asian American, African-American
and Chicano. The Ford grant supported research, grant writing, a
library, publications, and curriculum development. In the early
1970s, the student affairs position was secured from the university
and was designed to focus on student retention and recruitment.
In the fiscal year 1975-1976, UCLA agreed to assume financial support
for the four ethnic studies centers, including the American Indian
Studies Center. Also in 1975, and in association with the new UCLA
commitments to the four ethnic studies centers, the Institute of
American Cultures was created to distribute research grants and
fellowships in ethnic studies. All four ethnic studies centers participate,
and each year, by means of competitive review processes, each center
awards one postdoctoral fellowship, one predoctoral fellowship,
and a series of research grants to faculty, student, and postdoctoral
fellow applicants. Over the past 25 years, the fellowships and grants
have been major sources of research support in the Center. The Center,
in 1975, was endowed with five faculty FTE (full-time equivalents)
and is charged with faculty recruitment and development of Native
scholars and scholars working in Native Studies. In 1982, the Center
faculty created the Interdepartmental Program's (IDP) master's degree
in American Indian Studies and developed a series of core courses.
The IDP is endowed with few resources and no space, therefore the
Center has provided administrative and resource support to the IDP.
IDP students study and often work in the Center, and the student
affairs officer has increasingly taken on many of the IDP's routine
administrative duties. The faculty members are appointed in academic
departments and agree to participate in the IDP and ORU. Faculty
do not have appointments directly to the Center or IDP. In the mid-1990s,
the Center and IDP faculty created a minor in American Indian Studies
through IDP and just recently, in 2002, the major was approved.
At present, the Center is divided into five operational units: administration,
publications, the student affairs officer, the library, and the
research department. The American Indian Studies Center is dedicated
to culturally appropriate research, information distribution, and
community service for and about American Indians. Over the past
three decades, the Center has become nationally and internationally
recognized as one of the foremost American Indian studies programs.
source
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Anatomy
Shortly after the mid-century founding of
a medical school on the Los Angeles campus, a chair of anatomy was
established on July 1, 1950, with Horace W. Magoun as its first
occupant. Dr. Magoun set out to assemble a department representing
modern trends in anatomy: electron microscopy and ultrastructure,
histo- and cytochemistry, radiobiology, and functional neuroanatomy,
as well as the more classical disciplines of gross, surgical, and
microscopic anatomy. By the fall of 1951, he had recruited Daniel
Pease, Charles Sawyer, and Earl Eldred to assist him in microscopic,
gross, and neuroanatomy, respectively. During the summer of 1951,
the former Religious Conference Building on the south edge of campus
was renovated into teaching laboratories and offices, and the first
class of 28 medical students was admitted in September. Between
1952 and 1954, the department recruited John Green, Carmine Clemente,
Richard Greulich, Robert Livingston, Robert Tschirgi, and W. Ross
Adey, the last three for the correlated course in basic neurology.
In 1954, the new Medical Center laboratories were available and
the class size gradually increased to 72. After the completion of
Basic Sciences Unit 2A and the School of Dentistry Building, the
enrollments reached 128 medical students and 100 dental students.
While teaching programs were being instituted,
research laboratories were developed in Veterans Administration
Hospitals, especially at Long Beach where Superintendent Edward
Edwards and Neurosurgery Chief John French encouraged Dr. Magoun
to expand research operations. The enterprise was so successful
that within a few years some 17,000 square feet of space were serving
most members of the department and the many postdoctoral fellows
attracted to the Los Angeles campus by Dr. Magoun. These
extensive research activities culminated in the establishment of
the Los Angeles Brain Research Institute
(BRI) in 1957. The BRI's building on campus was opened in 1961,
with Dr. French, a professor of anatomy as well as neurosurgery,
as its director. A Space Biology Laboratory was instituted in 1959,
with Dr. Adey as its director.
Meanwhile, a graduate program had been approved
in 1953, and the predoctoral enrollment increased from two students
initially to 31, with 24 Ph.D. degrees awarded during the first
12 years.
Since 1953, the department included a Division
of Medical History, long an interest of Dr. Magoun. In 1959, Dr.
C. D. O'Malley accepted the chairmanship of this division, which
numbered among its lecturers Magoun, L. R. C. Agnew, Elmer Belt,
John Field, Louise M. Darling, Robert J. Moes, and Chancellor Franklin
Murphy, who held a professorship in the division.
In keeping with the University policy of
rotating chairmanships, Dr. Magoun resigned in 1955 and Dr. Sawyer
served as chairman for eight years, with Dr. Eldred as acting chairman
in 1958-59. In 1963, on Dr. Sawyer's resignation, Dr. Clemente accepted
the chairmanship as the unanimous choice of his colleagues. Dr.
Magoun became dean of the Graduate Division in 1962, but he retained
his professorship in anatomy. source
The Department of Anatomy no longer exists as such.
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Anesthesiology
There is no history currently available
for this department.
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Anthropology
Anthropology instruction began on the Los
Angeles campus under the auspices of the Department of Psychology
in February, 1936. A joint Department of Anthropology and Sociology
was established on July 1, 1940, with three full-time and one half-time
staff members. An undergraduate major in anthropology, initially
leaning heavily on supplementary courses in psychology and sociology,
was approved in 1941. An independent Department of Anthropology
was established on July 1, 1964.
Initially, two lower division and nine upper division
courses in anthropology were offered, some in alternate years. The
following year two graduate seminars were offered in alternate years.
The 1964-65 catalog carried 42 undergraduate courses and 21 graduate
courses (including research courses). In 1955 total anthropology
enrollments were 1,159, including 34 graduate students. By the spring
of 1965 total class enrollments exceeded 3,000.
By the mid-1960s, the department awarded between
40 and 50 A.B. degrees a year (including summer session degrees).
The first M.A. degree was awarded in 1946. By 1961 a total of 47
M.A. degrees had been awarded and by spring, 1965, the total reached
89. The first Ph.D. was awarded in 1952. Up to 1961 a total of 16
Ph.D. degrees were awarded; by spring, 1965, the total was 44.
The regular staff, static during the war years,
grew from two in 1940 to 22 in 1965, including six who taught partly
in other departments, plus five persons on temporary or visiting
appointments. By the mid-1960s, the staff was able to offer instruction
and graduate student guidance in major fields of anthropology, although
some geographical areas were not covered.
The initial curricular emphasis was on basic courses
in cultural anthropology. The major trends in the first 25 years
of the department were toward increasing specialization and depth
in the core fields as the graduate program developed, and the addition
and subsequent development of such special fields as anthropological
linguistics, archaeology and physical anthropology.
Part of this growth was aided by the establishment
of the Archeological Research Facility in 1958. The department participated
in and benefited from the establishment of special area centers,
especially those for Latin America and Africa, and the Center for
the Study of Comparative Folklore and Mythology. In 1964 the Laboratory
of Ethnic Arts and Technology was established as an independent
organization and was of great value to the department. source
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Applied Linguistics and Teaching
English as a Second Language
There is no history currently available
for this department.
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Archaeology Program
There is no history currently available
for this program.
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Architecture and Urban Design
There is no history currently available
for this department. See School
of Architecture and Urban Planning.
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Art
Instruction in art began in 1907, under Nellie
Huntington Gere, in the Los Angeles State Normal School. Drawing,
painting, design, crafts, and a general appreciation of art and
the history of art were offered. This general grouping persisted.
In the earlier years, however, the intention was to train teachers
of art. By 1912, the faculty had increased to six. When the normal
school moved to the new campus on Vermont Avenue, the department
occupied well-equipped studios for the creation and display of student
work.
By 1920, the staff had been doubled and by 1927,
66 courses were offered. More choice for concentration in art training
was provided and more academic work was required for teaching credentials.
The facilities, however, had their limitations. When the Los Angeles
campus moved to Westwood in 1929, the department was part of the
Teachers College and was housed in the Education Building, later
called Moore Hall. A small gallery on the third floor of a building
without elevators was the only exhibition space for the next 23
years.
In July, 1939, the College of Applied Arts was
established. As a part of this college the department experienced
a major change that made it possible for art students to secure
degrees without necessarily working for teaching credentials. By
1948, there were 84 courses and eight specializations still clustered
in four specific groups: art history, fine arts, applied arts, and
art education. A more professional trend began in the training of
painters and the faculty was again enlarged to meet these needs.
Five M.A. and 85 A.B. degrees were conferred in 1948. Two years
later, the number of courses stood at 113.
Another move for the department came in 1951-52,
with the opening of a new building, later named the Dickson Art
Center. Exhibition space was greatly increased and the Willitts
J. Hole Collection, that had formerly hung in the library, was housed
in the galleries. Gibson Danes was appointed chairman. The specializations
offered were history; painting, sculpture, and graphic arts; advertising
art; interior design; costume design; applied design; industrial
design; and art education--the last devoted to the training of teachers,
the concern with which the department began.
The Grunwald Graphic Arts Foundation came into
being during Danes' chairmanship and the important print collection
of Fred and Sadie Grunwald was gradually transferred to the University.
The foundation became a monumental collection of prints and a major
teaching resource.
The College of Applied Arts was replaced by the
College of Fine Arts in July, 1960 and this change heralded a review
of the department's specializations, resulting in a shift of emphasis
toward a theoretical approach and away from technology, particularly
in the area of design. Lester Longman, chairman from 1958 to 1962,
was instrumental in introducing the M.F.A. degree for the performing
arts and the Ph.D. degree in art history. The first doctorate was
conferred in 1963. Frederick Wight, who had become director of the
art galleries in 1953, succeeded Longman as chairman. source
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Art History
There is no history currently available
for this department. See Department of Art.
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Asian American Studies Program
There is no history currently available
for this program.
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Astronomy
Instruction in astronomy at Los Angeles began in 1922 with the appointment
of Frederick C. Leonard as instructor of astronomy in the Department
of Mathematics. On Leonard's initiative, a separate Department of
Astronomy was created in 1931. Leonard's research interest was primarily
in meteoritics, and he built a valuable collection of meteorites
which became the property of the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary
Physics on his death in 1960.
The first addition to the department was Samuel
Herrick in 1938. Specializing in celestial mechanics, Herrick established
courses in interplanetary navigation in 1942, the first in the country.
With the advent of space flight in the mid-1950s, the contributions
of Herrick and his students became more and more in demand. In 1961,
activities in celestial mechanics and space navigation were transferred
to the College of Engineering.
After World War II, emphasis in the department
gradually broadened to include instruction and research in stellar
astronomy and astrophysics with the appointments of Daniel M. Popper
(1947), George O. Abell (1956), and Lawrence H. Aller (1962). Prior
to 1947, Joseph Kaplan of the Department of Physics had also participated.
In 1965, the department had the three tenure staff members just
referred to, Herrick, and five non-tenure members. Two staff members
held joint appointments in the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary
Physics.
The M.A. degree in astronomy was first offered
in 1953; the Ph.D., in 1963.
During the four-year period 1948-52, total enrollment
in astronomy courses averaged 270, undergraduate majors averaged
seven, and there were no graduate students. During the period 1960-64,
there was an average of 344 students enrolled in astronomy courses,
43 undergraduate majors, and 21 graduate students.
Over the years the department built up a good
complement of instructional observing equipment; the roof of the
Mathematical Sciences Building, occupied in 1957, was specially
designed to support and house it. Because of the unfavorable location
in a large city, major research telescopes have not been contemplated
at Los Angeles. Staff members requiring such equipment have made
use of the University's Lick Observatory or of the telescopes on
Mount Wilson and Palomar Mountain. A
new aspect of the instructional and research program of the department
commenced with the establishment of a 24-inch reflecting telescope,
with the cooperation of the Institute
of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, on the grounds of the Thacher
School in Ojai in 1965. source
Astronomy is now part of the Department of Physics
and Astronomy. See also Department
of Physics.
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Atmospheric Sciences
Since its inception in 1940 under the leadership
of the late Professor Jacob
Bjerknes, originator of the polar-front theory of cyclones, the
Department of
Atmospheric Sciences (formerly the Department of Meteorology) at
UCLA has been at the forefront of atmospheric
research and education. A broad curriculum is offered in Dynamic
and
Synoptic Meterology, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, and Upper
Atmosphere and Space Physics.
The Department of Meteorology was born in 1940
under the protective shelter of the physics department and the energetic
leadership of Joseph Kaplan. Jacob Bjerknes, the Norwegian-born
originator of the polar front and air mass theories which form the
basis for modern weather analysis and forecasting, then became the
first chairman of the Department of Meteorology and guided it through
its early years. The small meteorology faculty was immediately drafted
into the war effort. Answering the need of the armed forces, the
department trained well over 1,000 weather officers; it again performed
this function during the Korean conflict.
A campaign to obtain suitable campus quarters
reached a low point immediately after World War II, when the faculty
was housed in temporary barracks. The campaign produced results,
however, and the department moved into quarters in the Mathematical
Sciences Building in 1957.
Degrees in meteorology as a separate specialty
were first offered in 1940. By 1941, the first two bachelor of arts
and the first two master of arts degrees in meteorology had been
granted; in 1946, the first doctoral degree was granted. As of the
mid-1960s, the department had a faculty of 13. It had awarded 353
bachelor's, 146 master's, and 30 doctoral degrees.
During 1965, there were 76 students majoring in
meteorology and 160 more taking Descriptive Meteorology, the elementary
survey course. In the mid-1960s, of the 76 meteorology majors, 38
were graduate students and 38, undergraduate students.
Besides notable teaching and research contributions,
the department played a leading role in the establishment of the
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research at Boulder, Colorado,
and also served as host to the national meeting of the American
Meteorological Society in 1964.
Major fields of study and research have included
dynamics of the atmosphere; synoptic meteorology; numerical weather
prediction and numerical general circulation experiments; instrument
development in conjunction with research in the laboratory and in
the field; cloud physics; electrical and magnetic phenomena of the
atmosphere; optical phenomena of the atmosphere and radiative transfer
in planetary atmospheres; phenomena of the upper atmosphere; and
interaction of the atmosphere and the oceans and the dynamical and
physical theory of ocean behavior. source
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