Shortly after his selection as the new president of the University of California, Robert C. Dynes described for the University of California Regents a new mission for the public research university of the 21st century:

Much of our research mission has changed dramatically in just the past few years. The era of R&D ended on Sept. 11, 2001. We are now in an era of R, D & D – research, development and delivery.

We must move discoveries from the bench to the public domain more effectively. And we must hand them off more quickly to end-users, whether they are first-responders in a crisis, farmers, health care professionals, social workers or teachers.¹

This emphasis on “delivery” focuses on the special relation any public research university has to the state and region it serves, but it has special meaning for the University of California because our system began as a land grant institution.

Although the land grant program today is often associated with agricultural campuses or teachers’ colleges, the original academic and social objectives of the program in the 19th century were much broader. The first Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 stipulated that each state use the funds generated by the act to maintain “at least one college where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies …. such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts …. in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes on the several pursuits and professions in life.” In 1890, a second Morrill Act added to that charge instruction in “the English language and the various branches of mathematical, physical, natural and economic science,” and it included the caveat that “no money shall be paid out under this act to any state or territory for the support and maintenance of a college where a distinction of race or color is made in the admission of students.”² This integration of scholarly, scientific and professional training, the emphasis on “delivery,” and the social ideals of access and social mobility regardless of race and economic class were combined with other innovative ideas such as providing residences for students within a research university, and that combination resulted in the creation of what we know today as the modern public research university.³

The University of California was founded on this ideal in 1868. The “California Idea” of higher education quickly became what John Thelin calls “the fulcrum for a distinctively Western Version of Progressivism,” a unique combination of “a political reform ideology and a state system of higher education” that was designed to produce not only an educated public but also an engaged citizenry (pp. 138, 139).⁴

The philosophical base of this Progressive plan for higher education was the premise that a sound, affordable state university was a good way to educate future generations of enlightened, capable state leaders and citizens …. This policy, combined with a statewide public elementary- and secondary-school system, would nurture an educated, informed state citizenry that would be an antidote to the abuses and corruption of the “trusts” associated with the Southern Pacific Railroad and the oil companies …. The distinguishing feature of the “California idea” in higher education was that utility was to be fused with educating for character and public service. (Thelin, pp. 139-40)

This goal of educating a broad spectrum of citizens to be both leaders and critics of society is an important legacy of the land grant tradition as embodied in the University of California. Its power as an institutional ideal was evident in UC’s rapid rise to the top ranks of universities in the United States.⁵ This land grant origin is also of special relevance to UCI because it informed the creation of the campus in the early 1960s. Clark Kerr, then president of the university, says he selected Daniel Aldrich as founding chancellor at UCI because they shared the dream of creating “a land grant university for the 21st century.”⁶

Today, UCI continues this tradition of combining research and teaching to produce new leaders for our region, state and nation. This combination has resulted in the extraordinarily high quality of research and graduate programs on our campus, an extensive commitment to undergraduate education, and a growing number of professional schools and programs of academic importance and great social significance. Among these professional programs are our existing schools of medicine, engineering and business; recently established programs in public health, pharmaceutical sciences and nursing science; and a recently approved school of law at UCI.

University of California, Irvine • Irvine, CA 92697
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Last Updated: January 22, 2007