Former names College of Agriculture Dean J. Keith Gilless Undergraduates 1,700 Postgraduates 300 | Established 1868 Founded 1868 Academic staff 120 | |
 | ||
Type Public Professional School Parent institution University of California, Berkeley Location Berkeley, California, U.S. Parent organization University of California, Berkeley Similar University of California, Goldman School of Public Po, University of Wisconsi, University of Idaho, Utah State University Profiles | ||
The College of Natural Resources (CNR) is the oldest college in the UC system. It is considered to be one of the most prestigious schools in Agricultural Economics in the world, ranking #1 according to the Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, #1 by the Chronicle of Higher Education, #1 by Perry for its Ph.D. programs and in International Trade, #1 by the National Research Council in Agricultural & Resource Economics, and #1 by U.S. News in Environmental/Environmental Health. QS World Rankings recognizes the University of California, Berkeley, as the world's leading university in Environmental Studies with 100 points in Academic Reputation. U.S. News also ranks it as the best global university for environment and ecology. A study of AJAE authors and their university affiliations found it to have the highest number of pages per research faculty member.
Contents
Established in 1868 as the College of Agriculture under the federal Morrill Land-Grant Acts, CNR is the first state-run Agricultural Experiment Station. The college is home to four academic departments: Agriculture and Resource Economics; Environmental Science, Policy, and Management; Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology; and Plant and Microbial Biology. Faculty include 40 Fulbright Fellows, 29 American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellows, 16 National Academy of Sciences members, 12 Guggenheim Fellows, 8 American Academy of Arts and Sciences members, 7 MacArthur Fellows, 4 Nobel Laureates, 2 Wolf Prize winners, and 2 World Food Prize winners.
History
Plans for the creation of this public university were first developed at the 1849 Constitutional Convention, but when the State of California was established in 1850, it lacked the funds necessary to create such a school. Missionaries sent west by the Home Mission Society of New York, however, created the College of California and eventually transferred its ownership to the State in 1855.
By 1862, the State had secured the land necessary to establish a college as a result of the Morrill Act. This college was known as the Agricultural Mining and Mechanical Arts College, and opened formally in 1866.
On March 23, 1868, Governor H.H. Haight combined the resources of this college with the College of California to create the first University of California.
The Board of Regents began admitting women to the University of California in 1871, and the first woman to graduate was Rosa L. Scrivner, with a PhB in Agriculture.
Campus
The College of Natural Resources is located on the northwest end of the UC Berkeley campus, and is composed of six buildings.
It includes the historic group of Wellman, Hilgrad, and Giannini halls that composed the original college. This trio, known as the Agriculture Complex, is the most unified grouping of buildings on campus. They are on the National Register of Historic Places, and are visually unified by a Mediterranean landscape of olive and stone pine trees.
The first hall, Wellman, is a Classical Revival building designed in 1912 by John Galen Howard and named after Harry R. Wellman, a professor of Agricultural Economics, and acting president of the University.
Hilgrad was constructed six years later by the same architect, and named after Eugene W. Hilgrad, professor of Agricultural Chemistry and father of modern soil science. Its neo-classical design is inscribed with the phrase "To Rescue for Human Society the Native Values of Rural Life."
Giannini Hall was designed by Howard's co-worker, William Charles Hays, through an endowment from the Bancitaly Corporation (now known as Bank of America) in memory of their founder, Amadeo Giannini.
Departments
- Agricultural and Resource Economics (ARE) researches global food production, nutrition and health, development economics, climate change, environmental economics, applied econometrics, policy evaluation, energy economics, natural resource economics, and international trade. Admissions to ARE's graduate program are highly competitive, with an acceptance rate of 8.8%. ARE offers one undergraduate major, Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Environmental Economics and Policy (EEP). Admissions to EEP are capped.
- Environmental Science, Policy & Management (ESPM) is the largest department with the College of Natural Resources, including Ecosystems Sciences, Organisms and Environment, and Society and Environment divisions. Admissions to ESPM's graduate program are highly competitive, with an acceptance rate of 8.75%. ESPM graduates may earn a Ph.D. in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, a M.A. in Forestry, or a M.S. in Range Management. ESPM also offers five undergraduate majors: Conservation and Resource Studies (CRS), Environmental Sciences (ES), Forestry and Natural Resources (FNR), Molecular Environmental Biology (MEB), and Society and Environment (SE).
- Nutritional Sciences & Toxicology (NST) researches the function of nutrients, phytochemicals, toxicants, and the metabolic interaction of these elements in living organisms in order to inform recommendations for dietary patterns to achieve optimum health and the treatment or prevent of chronic disease conditions. NST offers doctoral degrees in Molecular and Biochemical Nutrition, as well as in Molecular Toxicology. The department oversees one undergraduate major program in Nutritional Sciences, with specialized tracks in Physiology & Metabolism, Dietetics, and Molecular Toxicology.
- Plant and Microbial Biology encompasses theoretical and applied research in ecology, computational biology, genomics, host-microbe interactions, physiology, and biochemistry. It offers a Ph.D. in Plant or Microbial Biology, and oversees two similarly named undergraduate major programs.