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Sociology
Soils and Biogeochemistry
Soils and Plant Nutrition
Spanish
Statistics, Division of
Surgery
Surgical and Radiological Sciences
Sociology
Sociology was first introduced to the curriculum of the Davis campus
during the 1952-53 academic year as part of a joint department with
Economics and Geography. At the time, Sociology offered only two
courses with a total enrollment of 43 students. After Economics
split off in 1956, Sociology, Geography, and Anthropology formed
a multidisciplinary department that lasted until 1959, when Sociology
became an independent unit.
Edwin M. Lemert, who by the time of his death in 1996 was internationally
known for his work on deviance and criminology, was a key figure
in the department's development. In 1953, Herbert F. Young, then
dean of the very small College of Letters and Science, persuaded
Lemert to leave his post at UCLA to head up the new Department of
Economics, Geography, and Sociology. When Sociology finally attained
independent status, Lemert became its first chair. With independence
came the establishment of a sociology major, the expansion of the
undergraduate curriculum, and, by the mid-t96os, the creation of
an M.A. and a Ph.D. program
Over the years the department has grown gradually, though with
some periods of shrinkage as a consequence of the ebb and flow of
UC budgets, variations in campus administrative support for the
social sciences, effects of the VERIP program, and the ups and downs
of national trends in undergraduate enrollments. Beginning in 1959
with only four faculty, a small undergraduate enrollment, and no
graduate programs, the department by fall 1999 claimed a distinguished
faculty of 24 (9 full-time appointments), an annual undergraduate
enrollment of over 5,000 (with nearly 600 majors), an average of
40 to 50 graduate students, and a Ph.D. alumni group of 78, a large
proportion of whom have found academic employment. With growth and
time, national reputation has also increased. In 1983, one survey
placed the graduate program in 52"d place nationally. In the
1998 U.S. News and World Report survey, UCD Sociology was placed
28th among all universities and 17th among public universities.
Additionally, the department ranked 12th in economic sociology and
13th in historical sociology.
At both the undergraduate and graduate levels, the department offers
a wide array of courses and specializations. At the graduate level,
the emphasis is on the development of a high level of methodological
and theoretical competence, i.e., on the production of Ph.D.s who
understand the history and traditions of their discipline, who have
an appreciation for the diversity and strength of theoretical "schools,"
and who have the methodological and analytic skills necessary to
do high quality research. The goal is to produce young scholars/researchers
who are qualified to formulate and explore critical questions in
whatever substantive areas interest them. As such, the department's
"specialty" is its ability to offer graduate students
serious and solid training in three basic methodological approaches
(comparative/historical, fieldwork, and quantitative) and to provide
them with an intellectual atmosphere characterized by theoretical
and substantive pluralism as well. source
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Spanish
Since its creation as a separate unit from
Classics in 1965, the Department of Spanish has been a focal point
in the literary, intellectual, pedagogical, and political life of
the university. Just as "Spanish" itself has meant different
things in the last century, expanding from a peninsular focus on
Spain itself to include the phonology, literature, culture, and
peoples of Spanish-speaking Latin America, so has Spanish changed
as a discipline. From the mid-1960s through late 1980s, the Spanish
department at UC Davis was primarily dedicated to the teaching of
the Spanish language and to a peninsularist literary curriculum.
The presence of prominent scholars of Spanish literature such as
Antonio Sanchez Romeralo, German Gulton, and Samuel Armistead gave
visibility to the department, especially at the graduate level,
and made it into what was arguably the most vital center for the
scholarly study of peninsular literature in California for a considerable
number of years.
Latin or Spanish-American literary studies, as
well as theoretical and applied Spanish linguistics, were also important
in the 1965-1990 period. Among its faculty from the 1970s on, the
department counted such recognized scholars and critics of Latin
American literature as Didier Jan, Hugo J. Verani, and Zunilda Gertel.
Visiting scholars included the prominent Mexican author Elena Poniatowska,
and many of the most signficant literary figures in both Spain and
LatinAmerica (e.g., Jorge Luis Borges) were invited speakers at
Davis. As a result, the department's graduate program was ranked
14th in the country by the National Research Council in 1993.
In the late 1980s, the department gained notoriety
of another sort: A set of conflicts erupted over questions of the
treatment of Chicano students and faculty, academic standards, charges
of autocratic departmental leadership, and, in effect, the meaning
of "Spanish" itself as a discipline. Public demonstrations
led to resignations, and the eventual splitting off from the department
of some Chicano and linguistics faculty. Hard on the heels of this
political crisis, the department was also hit with a number of VIREO
retirements, reducing the numerical strength of its senior faculty
even further.
The department is currently carefully rebuilding
after the events of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Under the chairmanship
of Robert J. Blake (1994-1998), a linguist recruited in 1992, the
department began a course of reform that has enabled it to maintain
its standing as a center for peninsular studies while, in keeping
with changes in society itself, placing increasing emphasis on Latin
Americanism and second language acquisition as the clearly emergent
foci of the discipline of Spanish in the United States. The Spanish
graduate and undergraduate programs (the latter consistently attracting
upwards of 200 majors) are stronger and more highly regarded than
ever. The department continues to count among its faculty a world-class
Spanish medievalist and philologist (Samuel Armistead), as well as
prominent Latin-Americanists (Hugo Verani, Neil Larsen) and Spanish
linguists (Robert J. Blake). Meanwhile, a series of fortuitous hires
at the junior level over the last five years has placed Spanish
at UC Davis in a position both to retain its reputation for excellence
and to transform that reputation in a manner consonant with the
new, more global meaning of "Spanish." source
See also Foreign
Languages.
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Statistics, Division of
The intercollege Division of Statistics
was established on January 1,1979. Then-associate professor Francisco
J. Samaniego, serving first as faculty assistant to the Vice Chancellor
for Academic Affairs and then as acting associate dean of the division,
authored the proposals for the establishment of the unit, the associated
Graduate Group in Statistics, and the Statistical Laboratory, and
oversaw the initial recruitment of faculty. The initial faculty
included
four junior faculty members (Fenech, Glaser, Matloff,
and Utts) transferred from the Department of Mathematics and then-associate
professor Wiggins from the School of Veterinary Medicine. In July
1979 professor Julius R. Blum joined the division as its first official
associate dean.
In its first three years the division grew substantially.
Blum made it his top priority to recruit senior faculty members
to the unit. P.K. Bhattacharya and R.H. Shumway joined the division
as full professors in 1980. Blum's untimely death in April 1982
dealt the division a severe blow, but his enthusiasm, fairness,
and commitment to quality continue to influence his colleagues to
this day. Samaniego, Bhattacharya, and Shumway served, in succession,
as acting associate deans until, in July 1985, George G. Roussas
joined the faculty as associate dean.
Under the leadership of Roussas, the Division
of Statistics grew in size and prominence, encompassing 15 faculty
FTE and 35 full-time graduate students in 1999. In a recent study
by the Canadian Research Council, the Division of Statistics at
UC Davis ranked 14th in the world (as well as 11th in the nation
and third in Northern California) among 300 institutions engaged
in statistical research.
While the Division of Statistics today has broad
experience spanning the full spectrum of statistical specializations,
certain areas receive emphasis. The majority of the faculty has
either primary or collateral interest in biostatistics. Most faculty
have research interests that include a nonparametric perspective,
and specializations include density estimation, nonparametric curve
estimation, nonparametric modeling and inference in reliability,
and non- and semiparametric approaches to survival analysis. Several
faculty members have strong interest in Bayesian methods, and several
others work in time series analysis. In applied work, many faculty
are involved in collaborative studies, and the Statistical Laboratory
offers consultation to campus researchers while maintaining a diverse
portfolio of grants and contracts from state departments and agencies.
On July 1, 1999, Professor Jane-Ling Wang assumed
the position of chair of the Division of Statistics. Plans for the
future include the development of graduate degree programs in the
field of biostatistics and the expansion of faculty work in the
areas of biostatistics/bioinformatics, statistical computation,
and environmental statistics. source
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Surgery
There is no history currently available for this department. See
School of Medicine.
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Surgical and Radiological
Sciences
There is no history currently available for this department. See
School of Medicine.
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