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African-American studies first appeared in the UC Davis course catalog in 1971, when historian Roland Marchand began teaching a course in Black History. Prior to this, more general courses covering the black experience were taught within the psychology, sociology, history, or geography curricula. The program development committee included Turner, Bruce Glassburner (economics), William Lotter (physical education), and three Black Student Union representatives.
Program planners decided to hire faculty capable of teaching in traditional departments as well as in the African-American Studies program. James Fisher, jointly appointed to history, was the first appointee. Albert McNeil (music) and Gus Davis (education) received other joint appointments. Carl Jorgenson, appointed to sociology and psychology and African-American Studies in 1971, has since served a term as director of the program and nearly continuous member of the program committee.
For several years academicians questioned the legitimacy of both ethnic studies in general and the specific programs at. UC Davis, including African-American Studies. The program had only one or two ladder faculty at a time, none of them tenured, and the research and teaching demands on these faculty were compounded with a high demand for advising both undergraduates and the administration on attempts to ameliorate conditions on campus for persons of color. These problems, along with conflict within the department over direction, led to repeated resignations of faculty and one failure to achieve tenure. The resultant instability in the program continued until the late 1980s, when the administration and the Academic Senate helped strengthen all the ethnic studies programs and reduce faculty turnover by voting to allocate six FTE to each unit. Since then, the African-American Studies Program's commitment to excellence in teaching, service, and research has gradually increased its academic legitimacy to the point where it is now fully accepted within the UC Davis community. Its faculty is stable and has advanced at normal rates. source
At Davis, the first undergraduate instruction in the field began in 1929 with courses in production economics and farm management. By 1952 a full set of courses for the B.S. degree was in place. The M.S. degree was approved in Agricultural Business Management in 1958, followed by a Ph.D. program in 1964.
In 1966 the Department of Agricultural Economics at Davis became independent from Berkeley. At that time the department included 16 teaching-research and extension faculty and about 100 undergraduate and 35 graduate majors. Under the guidance of early chairs Ben C. French, Herb Snyder, and Hal Carter, the department grew quickly in both size and stature. Teaching and research initially emphasized the production and marketing of agricultural products and the economic analysis of land and water use, but over the years new fields came into focus, including econometrics, operations research, demand analysis, agricultural labor, international trade, economic development, environmental economics, and agricultural policy. The department pioneered in the application of quantitative analysis to agricultural and resource economic problems, and expertise in these difficult subjects has been a trademark of Davis Ph.D. graduates.
Davis agricultural economics faculty have earned national and international recognition. Between 1979 and 1999 nine faculty members were selected as fellows by the American Agricultural Economics Association: Varden Fuller, Harold O. Carter, Ben C. French, Oscar O. Burt, Cordon A. King, Sylvia Lane, Alex McCalla, Warren Johnston, and Daniel Sumner. Numerous faculty and Ph.D. students have won AAEA research awards, and several have served in prominent positions in UC administration, including C. O. McCorkle, Elmer Learn, Lawrence Shephard, Alex McCalla, Herbert Snyder, and Harold Carter.
The department administers a popular undergraduate program in managerial economics, which consistently ranks in the top five nationally. This program grew to nearly 900 students by 1999. In addition, about 75 graduate students currently pursue M.S. or Ph.D. degrees in a graduate program that has attained international prominence. A recent survey ranked the Davis doctoral program second nationally, the master's program third. UC Davis was also ranked first in production economics; second in marketing, price analysis, and trade; second in agricultural policy; and fifth in resource economics--making it the only school to attain top five rankings in four or more specialized fields. Davis Ph.D. graduates have been placed in every prestigious land-grant university in the United States and have won more awards for outstanding dissertations from the AAEA than any other department. source
With the passage of the Smith Hughes Act in 1917 (establishing goals for vocational and teacher education as an important function in land grant colleges), Professor Sam H. Dadisman was transferred from Berkeley to assume responsibility for teacher education work at Davis. There was a curriculum in agricultural education in the early 1920s and the department chairman (Frederick L. Griffin during most of this period) divided his activities between the Berkeley and Davis campuses. Acting in various teacher education capacities during this time were Professors William G. Hummel, Dadisman, and Benjamin R. Crandall.
The department continued under Henry M. Skidmore and in 1926, practice teaching was instituted in cooperation with the California State Department of Education under the "cadet system," in which student teachers were placed full-time in high school centers and were paid a small stipend. This was a major development in teacher education and the forerunner of the "intern system" that later came into vogue. Misunderstandings between the California State Department of Education and the University occurred, with the result that cooperative teacher education relationships were severed in 1929 and for a short period the department ceased to exist.
In 1932, this relationship was again renewed when Sidney S. Sutherland joined the staff and also assumed the title of State Teacher Trainer with the Bureau of Agricultural Education. It was not until 1938 that a curriculum in agricultural education was established under the Department of Education in the College of Agriculture. From that date until 1949, the primary responsibility of the department was the preparation of teachers of vocational agriculture. In 1946, a graduate program leading to the master of education degree, with a specialization in agriculture, was added to the offerings of the department.
The Department of Education was divided in 1960--the Department of Agricultural Education, administered by the College of Agriculture, and the Department of Education in the College of Letters and Science. In 1965, the function of the Department of Agricultural Education was expanded to include research work, especially in adult education and human resources. As such, its name was changed to Department of Agricultural Education and Development and Orville E. Thompson became chairman. As part of this change, the department joined the Division of Consumer and Family Science (which later Human and Community Development) under the direction of an associate dean. source
See also Human and Community Development and Division of Education.
As a result of this gift, 20 students were placed on farms and ranches during the summer of 1950. The experience acquired that first year emphasized the need to provide students with basic instruction in the operation and maintenance of the mechanized equipment essential to California agriculture, and led to the development in 1951 of an on-campus field laboratory curriculum.
Participation in this non-credit undergraduate program was voluntary, though students seeking summer placement were encouraged to enroll for one semester. Laboratory instruction related primarily to the maintenance and proper use of agricultural machinery, the need for this skill being evident in a large majority of placements.
Response to the summer placement and laboratory programs by students, farmers and ranchers, and agricultural industry was excellent. A majority of the cooperators continued to employ students for successive years, and many did so since the program's inception.
Initially, emphasis was directed to providing those skills associated with production agriculture; i.e., farming and ranching. By 1968, practice included placing students in the associated industries such as food processing, marketing and distribution, product development and conservation.
Enrollment in the summer placement program averaged about 120 per year in the 1960s, with 100 to 300 students enrolled in the machinery laboratory.
The benefits which accrued to students participating in the program were substantial. While the earnings received from summer employment were beneficial, money was secondary in importance to the value of the experiences in directing students to careers for which they were best suited. This counseling function was likely the most important aspect of the division's activities.
The placement, counseling, and instructional responsibilities of the division required the services of three full-time staff members in the mid-1960s. source
Following the reorganization of the College of Agriculture in the late 1960s, the Department of Agricultural Practices no longer existed as such.
In the early years of the division, the faculty was largely organized by crop or commodity basis, each member having a specialization such as plant breeding, crop physiology, or soil fertility. There were active programs on wheat, barley, ryegrass, white and berseem clovers, all classes of dry beans, safflower and other oil crops, cotton, sugar beets, range improvement, seed certification, and foundation seed. Plant breeding was a major part of the department's research, with an active program in cereals, forage and food legumes, and oil crops.
The division of agronomy, like the entire teaching program at Davis, was rebuilt after World War II. Immediately after the war, the faculty in the renamed Department of Agronomy grew rapidly in number, forming a young, energetic group similar in age. (As a direct consequence, the department experienced many retirements in the mid- to late 1980s, followed by many new appointments.)
In 1968, the name of the department was changed to Agronomy and Range Science to reflect the inclusion of a program devoted to the management of rangelands, which constitute a significant portion of the state. Over the years, departmental faculty and staff became active in other areas as well, including Integrated Pest Management and the Plant Growth Laboratory. More recently, members of the department have played a significant role in the development of crossdepartmental programs such as the Genetic Resources Conservation Program, the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, the Sustainable Agriculture Farming Systems Project, the Long-Term Research in Agricultural Systems 100-year experiment, the East Asia Center on Population Resources and Welfare, and the Global Livestock Collaborative Research Project.
Currently, the department is organized along four major broad disciplinary lines: genetics, breeding, and genomics; quantitative agronomy (applications of information technology to agriculture); crop physiology and ecology; and range and natural resource management. The department's ongoing challenge is to span the full spectrum of research from the basic to the applied levels. Outreach continues to be an essential component of department activities, with UCCE statewide specialists and farm advisors assuring the relevance of research programs. The undergraduate major, Agricultural Systems and the Environment, reflects a commitment to developing agricultural practices that are economically and environmentally sound. At the graduate level, A and RS faculty interact mainly with programs in Ecology, Genetics, International Agricultural Development, and Plant Biology. source
Patricia Turner joined the faculty in 1990, with a primary appointment in African-American Studies. A leading scholar in folklore and popular culture, she has also focused on African-American urban legends and images of African Americans in popular culture. In 1993 Ruth Frankenberg joined the program. In 1995-96 the reorganization of the College of Letters and Science into three divisions created the opportunity for two members of the former Department of Rhetoric, Carole Blair and Kent Ono, to transfer their positions into American Studies. In the fall of 1996, after 28 years in Sproul Hall, the American Studies program moved to Hart Hall to be in closer proximity to the other ethnic and gender-based cultural studies programs. The program currently has about 70 majors (2001). source
Anatomy was the first professional course taught in the new School of Veterinary Medicine when it was established in 1948. Under the leadership of Julian and Dr. Kenneth B. DeOme, instruction was organized around a new concept of teaching, with the objectives of reducing time devoted to teaching of anatomy, establishing an appreciation of the structural basis for functions, and clearly separating basic and applied anatomy, presenting each phase of anatomy in the portion of the curriculum which it best complemented. The approach involved the presentation of the anatomy of an idealized "generalized animal" followed by a description of how each domestic species differed from the generalized plan. The basic course was followed by a course in applied anatomy taught in the third year of the professional curriculum. Although this system of teaching veterinary anatomy was not adopted in its entirety by any other institution in this country, it had a significant influence upon the programs of a number of institutions and these innovations in teaching served as patterns in veterinary schools throughout the world.
Research in the Department of Anatomy emphasized the application of anatomical techniques and approaches to the solution of medical and biological problems and the establishment of biomedical models. Among these were the diagnosis of dwarfism in cattle as achondroplasia, the pathogenesis of pulmonary emphysema, the establishment of the existence of hereditary muscular dystrophy in domestic chickens, and the pathogenesis of degenerative equine myopathies. Research involved widespread interdepartmental cooperation within the school on the Davis campus and between members of various campuses. source
Following a restructuring of the School of Veterinary Medicine in the early 1970's, the department no longer exists as such. See also School of Veterinary Medicine.
After World War II, the number of animal physiologists on the Davis faculty was greatly augmented. In 1951, 19 of them organized an informal group, which in 1953, as a result of persistent efforts, become formalized as a component of the College of Agriculture in the Group in Animal Physiology with departmental functions, but no budget. The group developed new courses and also offered a major leading to the B.S. degree.
On January 1, 1964, the Department of Animal Physiology was established under the chairmanship of Lorenz. The research fields initially brought together were high altitude and chronic acceleration physiology under the direction of Arthur H. Smith, reproductive physiology (Lorenz), and economic vertebrate ecology under Dr. Walter E. Howard, vertebrate ecologist in the experiment station. Subsequently, the department staff was augmented by the appointment of Dr. H. W. Colvin to develop a research field of wildlife physiology. Irving H. Wagman was appointed jointly to the department and the National Center for Primate Biology to initiate a research program in neurophysiology and Dr. Dorothy E. Woolley was appointed jointly with the Agricultural Toxicology and Residue Research Laboratory to develop research in physiological consequences of chronic exposure to toxicants. The department staff in 1968 also included an assistant specialist and five extramurally supported professional personnel.
The department enjoyed collaboration with other physiologists through interdepartmental courtesy appointments, which brought the total faculty roster to 12, plus two lecturers, and materially augmented its teaching program. This "grass roots" development of the department gave it great strength on the campus. Its teaching, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels, was showing steady growth in the late 1960s. At that time, the most recent additions to the departmental offering were a graduate lecture and laboratory course in neurophysiology and the beginnings of a strong graduate research program in this subject.
In the late 1960s, the department advised 18 undergraduate majors in animal physiology; six received the B.S. degree in June of 1965. It administered a National Institutes of Health graduate training grant in animal physiology and seminars for the graduate group. There were 37 graduate students in animal physiology, seven of whom worked in the department. source
Following a restructuring of the School of Veterinary Medicine in the early 1970's, the department no longer exists as such. See also School of Veterinary Medicine.
Animal Science at UC Davis is the only such department in the UC system. Department members are engaged in teaching, research, and extension related to the biology and production of domestic species. Their primary focus is on animals used for food and fiber, including freshwater and marine species, but departmental programs also include horses, companion animals such as dogs, cats, and birds, laboratory animals (rabbits, hamsters, rats, and mice), and some wild species. Disciplines represented among the department's 31 teaching and research faculty include animal behavior, ecology, genetics, microbiology, nutrition, and physiology. Departmental scientists use modern techniques in molecular biology but also focus on whole animal biology and problems related to animal production.
The department has one of the largest undergraduate enrollments at UC Davis, with approximately 800 students enrolled in 1999 in three undergraduate majors: animal science, avian sciences, and animal science and management. Graduates often take positions in the livestock industry, teaching or extension work, and biomedical research. The department offers two master's programs: the M.S. in Animal Science and the Master of Agriculture and Management in cooperation with the UC Davis School of Management.
The department's 45 to 50 individual ongoing research projects produce more than 100 publications yearly. Faculty members collaborate with colleagues in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, the School of Veterinary Medicine, and the School of Medicine. Ten Cooperative Extension specialists are currently housed in the department, conducting research on livestock, birds, and aquatic animals, while some 37 local livestock and dairy farm advisors in county Cooperative Extension offices are also key members of the UCD team in the animal sciences.
A number of campus buildings bear the names of distinguished departmental faculty. Regan Hall was named after W.M. Regan, an expert in dairy cattle, and Hughes Hall after E.H. Hughes, a specialist in swine production. Hart Hall commemorates G.H. Hart, department chair for 22 years, who contributed significantly to the development of scientific emphasis in departmental teaching and research and later became the first Dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine. H.H. Cole (Cole Facility) and M. Kleiber (Kleiber Hall) helped establish the campus as a center of excellence in reproductive physiology and energetics, respectively. V .S. Asmundson (Asmundson Hall) was an early pioneer in poultry genetics. J.M. Meyer (Meyer Hall), a faculty member and department chair, went on to become dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and chancellor of the campus for eighteen years. source
From the outset, the anthropology program at Davis strove to include all four subdivisions of the field: cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, archaeology, and biological anthropology. Daniel Crowley was the first cultural anthropologist to join the faculty, and several years later a physical anthropologist was added. In 1962 anthropology and geography split into two separate departments, and more anthropologists were hired in each of the four sub-disciplines as the department reached its current size of 20 members.
Because of the great breadth of the field, Davis anthropologists have carried out a wide range of research activities. Several specialties stand out. One of these is the study of Native American peoples of California, first pursued by Olmsted and Baumhoff and later continued by archaeologists Delbert True and Robert Bettinger. Among the UC campuses Davis has played a preeminent role in organized research regarding the languages, cultures, and archaeological record of California Indians. In recent years the department has worked with faculty in Native American Studies, and one faculty member, Martha Macri, has joint appointments in both departments. The Davis program in biological anthropology is nationally recognized for its research and graduate teaching. Sarah Hrdy, Peter Rodman, Lynn Isbell, and Alexander Harcourt have concentrated on primate studies, training a number of Ph.D. students. Henry McHenry has carried out important work in the study of hominid fossils, and David Smith has conducted research in the genetics of human populations since the 1970s.
Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, the cultural, or social, anthropologists have emphasized ecological and economic anthropology. In recent years, the field has included studies of politics, gender relations, and global issues. Latin American studies has become a particularly strong interest among a number of Davis faculty and graduate students.
The department has been highly ranked in several recent national surveys. Although the job market for academic anthropologists is small, Davis Ph.D.s have competed successfully for academic positions, and many have become prominent in their fields. source
The curriculum provided graduate training leading to the M.S. and Ph.D. degree in engineering. There was a free interchange of staff, courses, and students between the two locations and students could fulfill the requirements for a master's degree at either or both places. Specialized research leading to dissertation requirements for the doctorate were conducted primarily at Livermore, where there were extensive, modern, and in some cases unique facilities in such fields as plasma physics, nuclear and atomic science and technology, materials science, electronic computers, and hydrodynamics.
Initially five courses were offered at Livermore; in 1965, 12 courses were offered at Livermore and four at Davis. In addition, three special non-credit remedial courses were given in the summer of 1964. Average enrollment the first year numbered 63, in the second year, 93. In the fall of 1965, 103 students enrolled at Livermore and seven at Davis. Many of these students studied on fellowships, ranging from $4,000 to $7,000; the Armed Forces also assigned some of their officers to study in the department.
Some staff members of the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory were recruited to lecture on a part-time basis, supplementing the full-time professors in the department. The total staff numbered 16, or a full-time equivalent of eight by 1968.
The department awarded its first two master's degrees in 1964 and a total of ten in 1965. Ph.D. degrees were not awarded until 1966.
The purpose of the department was to integrate advanced study in physics, chemistry, mathematics, and engineering, thereby preparing students to enter careers in which a broad knowledge of several subjects was required.
The University, by utilizing academic resources already existing at Livermore and Davis, provided high quality advanced training for those who could work competently as both engineers and scientists. source
See also College of Engineering.
A major in art history began in the early 1960s. Wayne Thiebaud was appointed in studio art. In 1961 sculptor Tio Giambruni joined the department, an M.A. program was developed, and Daniel Crowley began a joint appointment in anthropology and art history. The following year William T. Wiley was appointed in drawing and painting. In 1963 Cramer, Horsting, and Shapiro transferred into the department along with ceramicist Robert Arneson. In 1965 Manuel Neri and Roy DeForest joined the faculty, and in 1966 Cramer became chair of the department while Richard Nelson became director of the Laboratory of Fine Arts and Museology. The present art building was designed and built in 1966 as part of a complex including music and dramatic art. The graduate studios were completed and occupied in 1989. The M.A. in studio art was changed to the M.F.A. in 1969.
Additions to the faculty in the 1970s included Craig Harbison, Tony Fehm, Lynn Matteson, and Price Amerson in art history; and Mike Henderson, Harvey Himelfarb, Cornelia Schulz, and Garner Tullis in studio. Jeffrey Ruda and Dianne MacLeod were appointed in art history in 1980 and 1981. The department has been graced over the years with a competent and dedicated staff, including Jeanne Bernauer, administrative assistant, librarians Barbara Hoerman, Joan Rush, and Bonnie Holt, and department MSO Jerry Wright.
Roland Petersen was the earliest member of the department to achieve national and international recognition, beginning in the early 1950s. About 1960, Robert Arneson's work was exhibited in the Oakland Museum, and William Wiley's at the Whitney in New York. In 1961 Manual Neri's creations appeared at the Staempfli Gallery in New York, Petersen had a one-man show at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, and Wayne Thiebaud had one-man shows in New York and at the Palace of the Legion of Honor. Works of Neri, Petersen, Wiley, Thiebaud, Arneson, and De Forest were exhibited widely and reviewed in prestigious periodicals. Thus the reputation of the Davis studio faculty over nearly 20 years was based fairly evenly on the work of six members, with occasional contributions from one or two others, and was not limited to the work of one or two stars.
Art history became an autonomous program within the department in 1990, first headed by Mary Fong, then by Ruda and MacLeod. Since Cramer's service as chair (1966-81), chairs of the department have included R. Johnson, Himelfarb, Schulz, Atkinson, G. Laky, and R. Sommer. source
In 1970, Asian-American Studies was incorporated into the Department of Applied Behavioral Sciences. George Kagiwada moved from the University of Manitoba in Canada to become the full-time director of the program. Peter Leung joined the faculty to teach Cantonese. For many years UC Davis held the distinction of having the only College of Agriculture in the United States to offer Cantonese.
Since its inception, the Asian-American program has had a strong community orientation, and faculty have helped to establish organizations such as the Asian Community Center, the Asian Legal Services Organization, and, with Dr. Kumagai in the UCD School of Medicine, the Asian Free Clinic--all based in Sacramento. Faculty members were also involved with minority group issues such as the Bakke case, the Fantasia Miniature Golf case, Kenne Chang's tenure issue, and UC divestment from South Africa. The program became an issue itself when it faced the loss of its library and during the tenure battles surrounding faculty active in ethnic studies programs.
In 1989 the Asian-American Studies program moved from the College of Agriculture to the College of Letters and Science. With the support of Chancellor Hullar and Vice Chancellor Cartwright, the program was stabilized through the addition of new faculty and new resources. A bachelor's degree major in Asian-American Studies was established in 1999.
The program at Davis is nationally recognized for its scholarship in media/cultural studies and in Asian-American psychology. It currently has seven full- or part-time faculty, several of whom have joint appointments in other units such as American Studies, dramatic arts, psychology, and women's studies. Stanley Sue currently serves as the program's director. source
The University became the first in the nation to employ a full-time poultry pathologist when, in 1915, Dr. Jerry R. Beach started giving full-time to this work. Fowl pox was the first disease he attacked and within a year a method of vaccination was developed which, with certain modifications, became a routine procedure throughout the world.
With the establishment of the School of Veterinary Medicine, teaching and research in avian diseases was organized within an unofficial department under Beach's leadership until his death in 1951. Dr. William J. Mathey was then temporarily in charge until Dr. Raymond A. Bankowski was appointed unofficial chairman in 1952. It was during Dr. Bankowski's tenure that the membership of the department as it stood in 1968 was largely brought together. Dr. Livio G. Raggi succeeded Dr. Bankowski in 1959 and then served as chairman from 1960, when the department gained official status, until 1964, at which time Dr. Henry E. Adler became chairman.
The department offered instruction in avian diseases to veterinary and poultry husbandry students. Instruction was also given to many graduate students. Short courses of instruction were offered for veterinary practitioners and poultry pathologists. Research in the tradition of the early pioneers continued on a broader scale. Studies on Newcastle disease, bronchitis, hepatitis, encephalitis, Mycoplasma infections, and vesicular exanthema of swine were of great importance. By 1968, there were five academic staff members. source
Following a restructuring of the School of Veterinary Medicine in the early 1970's, Avian Medicine has been incorporated into the Department of Population Health & Reproduction. See also School of Veterinary Medicine.
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