UC Santa Cruz finally has a permanent home in Silicon Valley.
I'm delighted to announce today the purchase of a building that will house the UC Santa Cruz, Silicon Valley Campus. Located in Santa Clara, this 90,000-square-foot building will provide a fitting home for valley-oriented research initiatives, our burgeoning professional master's programs, and UC Santa Cruz Extension.
UC Santa Cruz has a lot to offer Silicon Valley, and vice versa. This multidisciplinary center will facilitate collaborations with industry, nonprofits, government agencies and nongovernmental organizations, artists, social activists, and other educational institutions. It will expand our reach, increase our visibility, and spread the ethos of UC Santa Cruz beyond the redwoods.
Faced with losing the leased space that housed our existing valley-based master's programs, as well as UCSC Extension, it made financial sense to invest for the long-term by buying a building. The purchase is being financed by a 99-year, interest-only loan that UC makes available to help campuses with strategic investments such as this.
Having this foothold in the valley will open doors for all of our faculty and students, both undergraduates and graduate; it will support both the research and instructional aspects of our mission. The campus is currently reviewing faculty-proposed masters degree programs in six areas: aeronautics, natural language processing, data science, global technology for social innovation, human-computer interaction, and serious games. My hope is that we will launch the first new program by Fall 2018.
Importantly, the UC Santa Cruz, Silicon Valley Campus will be a resource for the entire UC Santa Cruz community—not just those based in Santa Clara, and definitely not only those engaged in science, technology, and engineering. Like our coastal marine campus on the bluffs overlooking Monterey Bay, this location is a good fit for us. It builds on our strengths and will broaden our impact. I hope you'll stop by 3175 Bowers Ave. in Santa Clara and see for yourself that Banana Slugs can thrive in the heart of Silicon Valley.
