The black-and-white photo on the cover of this issue is a campus classic. The playful image captures the spirit of adventure founding Chancellor Dean McHenry brought to the job of building a new campus from the ground up. It's the early 1960s, a new campus is being created, yet all he's got to work with is a desk in the middle of a pasture.
As the current chancellor of UC Santa Cruz, I love that photo because it speaks to the boldness of McHenry and the enthusiasm of our first students who arrived from all across the nation when the campus opened in 1965. It speaks to all that future potential—the un-built buildings, the life-changing seminars and mentors, the discoveries and explorations.
It speaks to the fact that those students and their brave professors had to draft their own blueprint as they went along.
The photo also speaks to the whimsical aspect of UC Santa Cruz—the part of us that would embrace the Banana Slug as our official mascot in 1986, and, to paraphrase Henry David Thoreau, choose to march to a different drummer.
Fifty years after our opening, the campus remains bold, experimental, and dedicated to advancing knowledge— without losing our quirky individuality. We have stayed true to our founders' vision, providing immersive hands-on learning experiences in the broader context of pursuing UC's mission of education, public service, and research.
From the beginning, UC Santa Cruz was envisioned as a major research university that would offer students an experience that rivals what small private liberal arts colleges offer. As we enter our second half-century, many things have changed, but not that fundamental truth.
How I wish McHenry were around today to find out about the exoplanets we've discovered, the new fronts we've opened up in the war against cancer, the genomes we've mapped and shared with the world, and the convergences we've nurtured between literature, the arts, and the sciences.
Alumni Weekend is just around the corner. What better occasion to look back on our founding vision, celebrate our current achievements, and contemplate our future?
I hope you'll join us for the festivities from April 23–26. Come back to campus, celebrate UC Santa Cruz, and watch the sun set behind the very spot where the chancellor hauled out his desk all those years ago.
—George Blumenthal, chancellor
