ABOUT THE CAMPUS AND COMMUNITY
The University of California, Santa Barbara campus is situated on an 989-acre promontory on the Pacific coast. The main campus is bordered on two sides by the ocean and on the third by the community of Isla Vista. On the fourth side, the campus faces the Santa Ynez mountain range across an expansive valley of rolling hills, orchards, and farmlands. The main campus contains the majority of the 300 buildings that house the university. The outlying Storke campus includes playing fields and a family student housing complex. The west campus, which is largely undeveloped, contains an ecologically significant expanse of dunes that has been set aside as a natural preserve.
While UCSB's physical environment is stunning, it is the conjunction of the natural environment and the learning environment that makes the campus unique. With about 19,000 students, 17,000 undergraduates and 2,000 graduates, and 900 faculty members, UCSB is large enough to offer the educational resources and research facilities of a world-class institution, but small enough to foster close relationships among faculty and students. The campus is home to seven national research centers and three professional schools, and has received a prestigious Research I ranking as one of America’s top institutions by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Nearly half (45%) of UCSB’s academic departments and programs are ranked among the top 20 in the U.S. Because of these rankings and other indicators of academic excellence, UCSB is an elected member of the Association of American Universities (AAU), placing it among 62 leading institutions of higher learning in the U.S. and Canada. For the second time in three years, UCSB was named one of “America’s 25 hot schools” in the Newsweek/Kaplan guide for 2005:
If there’s a more beautiful campus than this one at the edge of the Pacific, we haven’t seen it. For many students, that would seal the deal, but UCSB also boasts Nobel Prize winners on its faculty, top research centers in science and technology and an extensive study-abroad program.
The UCSB campus is part of the historic Santa Barbara community and is adjacent to the large cosmopolitan region of Los Angeles and Southern California. It is part of the multiversity system of the University of California, which allows for interaction with library, faculty and other academic resources of Berkeley, UCLA and all nine campuses in the UC system. Though located in a setting of pristine beauty, the campus is rich in regional, national, and global connections.