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See also College of Engineering.
Following the death of Bisson in 1940, Young became chair of the department, which moved into a new building in 1941 (Young Hall). During the years 1942-45, Young briefly headed the "Davis Group" of the Manhattan Project before moving to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to become a director there. Reiber stayed on campus working on methods for separating uranium isotopes, while other chemistry faculty left to pursue various war-related jobs. After the war Young, Reiber, Volman, and Keefer all returned to Davis and, because of high enrollments in chemistry, were joined on the faculty by Lawrence J. Andrews, Richard E. Kepner, Edgar P. Painter, Robert K. Brinton, and Thomas L. Allen.
The 1950s were a time of great change for the department. In 1951, when the College of Letters and Science was established, Young became its founding dean. A major in chemistry was initiated. Reiber became chair, and the department received accreditation by the American Chemistry Society. In 1954 the department expanded upper-division offerings and began teaching a complete selection of graduate courses. In 1956 the department was authorized to offer M.S. and Ph.D. degrees, eliminating the requirement that graduate students commute to Berkeley for certain courses. Andrews became department chair in 1959, while Reiber became associate dean and later dean of the Graduate Division. Also in the 1950s, Charles P. Nash and Albert T. Bottini joined the faculty.
The 1960s and 1970s were marked by growth, ably orchestrated by Keefer, who became chair in 1962 when Andrews became dean of the College of Letters and Sciences. Between 1960 and 1966 the department grew from 11 to 24 faculty members. In 1965 chemistry moved from Young Hall to the present Chemistry Building, and in 1971 took over much of the Chemistry Annex.
In the early 1990s many chemistry faculty members opted for early retirement, but the department later regained much of its strength through new appointments. Research has diversified greatly in recent years from the traditional areas of analytical, inorganic, organic, and physical chemistry. The department has been honored by the establishment of the Bradford Borge Graduate Scholarships in Chemistry and by a graduate fellowship endowment from former student Fred Corson and the Dow Chemical Corporation. source
In 1975-76 the Chicana/o Studies major was established. The program has flourished despite leadership and structural changes, faculty turnover, budget limitations, and small size. By 1999 the program was an autonomous unit in the Division of Humanities, College of Letters and Science, with a director, six full-time faculty, a student affairs coordinator, and two staff. The dual-emphasis major, Cultural Studies and Social/Policy Studies, reflects the cultural and political origins of Chicana/o Studies, development of the discipline on a national/international scale, and internal shifts and expansions in the conceptualization of the discipline.
Program faculty have been prominent in the development of the discipline, both through their pioneering roles in the establishment of professional academic organizations and through their research and publications. They have founded, officiated, and/or participated in the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS) and Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MALCS, or Women Active in Letters and Social Change). They are leaders in the areas of theory development in cultural studies, Chicana feminism, gender relations, identity formation, family issues, protest art, reproductive issues, and Chicana politics. New goals include the expansion of course offerings (particularly in newly emerging sub-areas such as border experiences, Latino studies, immigration studies, and cultural analysis), the establishment of a formal Department of Chicana/o Studies, and the development of a graduate program. source
Dr. John W. Kendrick was then appointed chairman and served until 1963, at which time he was succeeded by Dr. Robert M. Cello. This department carried a heavy teaching load because most of the instruction of the final two years of the veterinary medical curriculum fell under its jurisdiction. It was also responsible for the operation of a teaching and research hospital to facilitate instruction of students in the veterinary, medical, and clinical sciences and the research of clinical specialists on various animal diseases. By 1965, there were 19 academic staff members in the department.
Although members of the former Division of Veterinary Science (1901-48) were concerned with problems of a clinical nature, they did not conduct a clinical practice or instruct in clinical subjects. Therefore, the department's activities may more appropriately be said to have originated with the beginning of the school (established, 1947; began instruction, 1948). Members of the faculty investigated a wide range of diseases. Their work included the discovery and diagnosis of new diseases, such as blue tongue in sheep, and contributions to the knowledge of older diseases, such as vibriosis, trichomoniasis, canine distemper, feline pneumonitis, cardiovascular disorders, infertility in mares, bovine lymphosarcoma, and surgical correction of a host of conditions in pet animals, horses, and farm livestock.
The department pioneered in the training of interns in the various specialties of clinical medicine and surgery and contributed markedly to the postgraduate or continuing education programs for practitioners in the state. 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.
On July 1, 1966, five faculty from the speech division of that department separated to form a new Department of Rhetoric. This was the first department in the country to take that name, though UC Berkeley and a number of other universities nationwide soon followed. Undergraduate courses included public speaking, group discussion, history of rhetoric, rhetorical criticism, and, for the first three years, oral interpretation of texts.
The faculty shaped a strong humanistic B.A. program before creating the departmental M.A. program, which was established in 1972. There were then about 600 undergraduate majors, with another 1,200 students enrolled each year in the various courses within the department curriculum.
During the 1970s the department began to reflect the shift toward behavioral and social-science approaches to the study of communication. New faculty included scholars trained in contemporary communication theory and social science research methods. New courses were added in various subareas of interpersonal communication and mass communication. By the 1980s the department faculty and curriculum represented, more or less equally, the three primary areas of the discipline -- rhetoric and public address, interpersonal and small-group communication, and mass-media communication. Accordingly, in 1987 the department name was changed to Rhetoric and Communication.
In the late 1990s, due in part to the reorganization of the College of Letters and Science, rhetoric faculty were transferred to various departments within the Division of Humanities while communication faculty stayed in the Social Sciences Division. In 1998 the department name was changed to Communication.
From its early years to the present, the department has enjoyed a strong reputation for research, both nationally and internationally. In one five-year period, for example, faculty received ten research awards, including two book awards. National rankings of communication departments have repeatedly placed the UCD department at the top ranked level -- higher than the majority of Ph.D. granting departments, and usually the very highest of terminal M.A. departments. source
See also Dramatic Art and Speech.
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