ANTEATER ANTICS

Balboa Island Ferry, ca. 1970

ucisca — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 23:22:36 +0000

Since 1919, the Balboa Island Ferry has provided service between Balboa Island and the Balboa Peninsula. Finals are over, some of you are graduating, time to go down to the peninsula for a ride on the ferry once more…!

AS-061_S00139_004.jpg

1993 Commencement

ucisca — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 20:50:42 +0000

The 2013 UCI Commencement weekend is quickly approaching! Soon the campus will be filled with excited graduates and proud families and friends celebrating their achievements. Congratulations to the Class of 2013! ZOT!

For more information about this year’s commencement festivities, click here:

http://www.commencement.uci.edu/

Here’s a look at some commencement scenes from 20 years ago, in June of 1993:

Click to view slideshow.

AS-061. University Communications Photographs. Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.

Gateway Plaza

ucisca — Fri, 24 May 2013 16:51:36 +0000

Gateway Plaza has been a central hub of activity on the UC Irvine campus since its opening in 1965. From the flagpoles to the stairs leading into Aldrich Park, this area between Langson Library and Gateway Commons has seen countless protests, speeches, events, memorials, pep rallies and performances by students and community members alike. To this day, this area is a central place for students to congregate and share their ideas. Check out these photos from UCI’s early years:

These images, along with thousands more of the UCI campus, are available on the Online Archive of UCI History. Check back soon for more photos, videos, and publications, as additional material from UCI’s history is continuously being uploaded. As always, even more is available in the University Archives on the 5th floor of Langson Library. Come visit us!

Remembering Sam McCulloch

ucisca — Wed, 15 May 2013 22:14:52 +0000

Sam McCulloch

It is with great sadness that we report the passing of Sam McCulloch, the founding Dean of Humanities and Professor Emeritus of History at UC Irvine. McCulloch first arrived at UCI in 1964 as one of the founding faculty members and remained an important leader on campus throughout his entire life. He was UCI’s unofficial historian, compiling records, stories, letters, and other historical material for his 1996 book Instant University, which covers the history of the UCI campus from 1957 to 1993. McCulloch also conducted oral history interviews with 97 members of UCI’s prominent faculty and staff from 1967 to 1993, including Chancellors Daniel Aldrich and Jack Peltason, as well as Nobel Laureates F. Sherwood Rowland and Frederick Reines. In 2009, McCulloch donated his faculty papers to UCI Special Collections and Archives, which include correspondence, research notes, clippings, and bibliographies. We at Special Collections and Archives are forever indebted to Sam McCulloch for his commitment to documenting, preserving, and sharing the rich history of this campus.

Numerous interviews from the collection of Samuel McCulloch Oral Histories (AS-033) are available here at the Online Archive of UCI History. Both audio recordings and transcripts of selected interviews are available for use online, and the remaining interviews from the collection will be digitized and added to the Online Archive soon.

The finding aid for the faculty papers of Sam McCulloch (MS-F031) is available here through the Online Archive of California.

Instant University is available for use in the Special Collections and Archives reading room and is also available for check-out.

Sam McCulloch speaking at student rally supporting UC President Clark Kerr in Gateway Plaza, 1967

Sam McCulloch and James G. March speaking with a prospective UCI student, 1965

Photos from AS-061, UCI Communications Photographs Collection; and AS-056, Early Campus Photograph Albums. Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.

Langson Library expansion in February 1969

ucisca — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 23:18:08 +0000

The Library-Administration building (now Langson Library) was one of the eight original buildings that were ready for occupancy when the campus opened in the Fall of 1965. According to the original plan, work began early in 1968 to double the size of the Library-Administration Building for occupancy in the fall of 1969. Photos of the construction of the expanded building (below) were taken in February 1969. Expanding rapidly to keep pace with the equally rapid development of research and graduate instruction, the UCI Library grew from 85,000 volumes on opening (October 1965) to 312,000 volumes by June 30,1969.

Photographs from Early Campus Photograph Albums. AS-056.

2012-2013 Archival Research Awards — Win $500

ucisca — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:55:49 +0000

Are you still searching for a topic for your thesis or a major paper? Do you want to conduct serious, original research in unique, historical archives? If so, there are many fascinating primary sources in the UCI Libraries Special Collections and Archives that deserve your attention in your next research project. You can even win $500 when you write a paper based on these archival collections.

Two $500 research awards are available, one for a UCI undergraduate and one for a UCI graduate student. To apply, submit a completed research paper based on extensive archival research in the UCI Libraries Special Collections and Archives’ collections before Friday, June 14, 2013. Winning papers will be published online in eScholarship.

Special Collections and Archives collects archives from many significant individuals and organizations. Some examples:

Critical theory (including the papers of Jacques Derrida, Paul de Man, and Richard Rorty)
Orange County, California (such as on the history of planning and development, women in the public sphere, the LGBT community, and environmental issues)
Southeast Asian Americans (particularly the refugee and immigrant experience)
Dance and performing arts (including the papers of Robert Cohen, Donald MacKayle, and Eugene Loring)
UC Irvine history
The work of UCI’s Nobel Laureates (Frederick Reines and F. Sherwood Rowland)

For more information about the award and the criteria, please see http://special.lib.uci.edu/services/award.html. UC Irvine undergraduate and graduate students of any level are encouraged to apply. We especially encourage undergraduates who are involved in the first-year integrated program or who are writing an honors thesis to participate.

This is a great time to investigate potential paper topics in Special Collections and Archives, and we are eager to help you plan your archival research projects. Email us at spcoll@uci.edu, visit our website, or visit our Reading Room in the Langson Library, Room 525.

John Mason’s Ceramics Class Fall 1968

ucisca — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:07:14 +0000

Legendary ceramics artist John Mason taught at UCI from 1967-76 and then again in 1987. He was the Chair of Studio Art from 1974-1976. Recent attention to his work occurred in Pacific Standard Time exhibits throughout Southern California and in the current exhibit of his landmark piece 21-foot-long Blue Wall (1959) at the Laguna Art Museum. In the Fall of 1968, the UCI Studio Art faculty consisted of Robert Irwin, Craig Kaufman, Tony de Lap, John Mason and Philip McAleer. John Mason taught Ceramics 86A that quarter, a class for freshmen and sophomores. Below are photographs from that class.

Click to view slideshow.

Get Ready for Celebrate UCI!

ucisca — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 23:04:43 +0000

This Saturday, April 20th, the UC Irvine campus will hold its annual Celebrate UCI event in Aldrich Park. This campus-wide celebration includes live entertainment, carnival games and rides, lots of food, arts & crafts, performances, the annual car show (15 years running!), and Wayzgoose, one of UCI’s oldest traditions. The festival also features an Open House, where many campus services will remain open in order for prospective students and the community to learn about the UCI campus. All events are free and parking is complimentary!

This celebration has been a campus favorite for decades. Here are some photos of Celebrate UCI and Wayzgoose festivals from the 1980s:

These photos and more are available to view in our reading room at Special Collections and Archives, on the 5th floor of Langson Library. They will soon be available online via the Online Archive of UCI History, which documents the first 50 years of the campus in photographs, videos, audio recordings, publications, the New University newspaper, and other publications. Check back often, as new materials are continuously being added.

Check out this video of last year’s celebrations, and get ready for another great year of Celebrate UCI!

Photos from AS-061, UCI Communications Photographs Collection. Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.

Discover UCI

ucisca — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 16:28:21 +0000

We’d like to give a warm welcome to the newly admitted freshmen and their families who are visiting UCI this week! Here is a slideshow of students discovering the new UCI campus in the 1960s (looks a bit different now, doesn’t it?):

Click to view slideshow.

These images, along with thousands more, are available at the Online Archive of UCI History. The site also features videos (like the quirky Wot ZOT?), interviews with founding faculty members, and the New University student newspaper, with more coming soon!

First Campus Landscaping in 1965 and 1966

ucisca — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 23:46:01 +0000

Coulson Tough (Left, Campus Architect) and Gene Uematsu (Right, Landscape Architect) inspect new plants for the campus in August 1965.

The two people primarily responsible for the early campus landscaping that has resulted in the wide variety of trees and plants that we now enjoy on campus were Coulson Tough (Campus Architect) and Gene Uematsu (Landscape Architect). The photographs (below) of the grounds preparation and the new campus landscaping were taken in 1965 and 1966.

Aldrich Park (formerly Central Park) being prepared for new landscaping in 1965.

New lawn and trees just planted on campus in 1966.

Gateway Study Center (left) and Langson Library (right) with new trees in 1966.