Nobel Prizes shine on California schools
Lower-profile universities gaining academic glory
Friday, October 15, 2004 Posted: 1:47 PM EDT (1747 GMT)


GOLETA, California (AP) -- The University of California system is amassing
Nobel Prizes at campuses once noted more for beer bashes and odd mascots than
academic excellence.

By pumping money into a few select departments and aggressively recruiting
top researchers, UC Santa Barbara and UC Irvine have hauled in more Nobels in
recent years than UC Berkeley and UCLA, the system's traditional centers of
scholarship.

University leaders said the international prizes have become a badge of
prestige for students and validation for professors toiling in relative academic
obscurity.

"UC is not just Berkeley," said Bill Parker, vice chancellor for research at
the fast-growing Irvine campus, located in the middle of Orange County's
suburban sprawl. "The campuses formed 30, 40 years ago are now emerging as some of
the best in the country."

Since 1994, UC Irvine researchers have collected three Nobels, including one
last week. Santa Barbara has picked up five in the past six years, including
two in recent weeks.

By comparison, UCLA got two Nobels in the past decade, while Berkeley -- the
system's first campus and consistently rated the nation's top public
university by U.S. News & World Report -- collected three.

The stockpiling of prizes in Irvine and Santa Barbara comes after years of
steady enrollment growth prompted in part by crowded conditions at other UC
sites. Undergraduate applications to UC Santa Barbara have doubled over the past
10 years and the mean GPA of enrolled freshmen has climbed to 3.71.

The 10-campus UC system is the most prestigious of the state's public
education program that also includes California State University and community
colleges.

To build their academic reputations, UC administrators have concentrated on a
handful of disciplines and avoided spreading resources too thin.

"Not everybody can be good at everything any more, so you try to focus on
those things that have a competitive advantage," said David Ward, president of
the American Council on Education, a Washington-based lobbying group.


Academic ascendence
Irvine zeroed in on chemistry and molecular and evolutionary biology --
though its sports teams haven't dropped their quirky anteater mascot.

Santa Barbara -- home of the Gauchos mascot -- went for marine biology,
engineering and physics. Established in 1944 in Goleta, just west of Santa Barbara,
the campus is perched on surf-licked cliffs and laced with bicycle path
"freeways" so clogged that visitors have to look both ways before crossing.

It began its gradual academic ascendence about two decades ago with the
establishment of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics.

Scientists at the institute and the campus' four other National Science
Foundation-sponsored research centers work across various disciplines in ways that
are often restricted by traditional boundaries, Kavli Institute director David
Gross said.

"There's a remarkable lack of ego," said Gross, who won a Nobel last week for
his work involving the strong force that binds the fundamental subatomic
particles known as quarks into protons and neutrons.

Gross can gaze out his office window at the picturesque oceanfront that helps
attract about 1,000 visiting physics researchers and their families each year
for stays of up to six months.

"It's just raw, in-your-face paradise," he said.

It's also a laid-back setting for frequent beer-swigging parties by students.
The Princeton Review lists the campus as the nation's No. 12 party school.
Among other things, students have dubbed it the "University of Casual Sex and
Beer" and note "U Can Study Buzzed."

But the hard-drinking reputation is fading. Overlooking the campus lagoon as
he crammed this week for a marine biology test, senior Nick Namikas said a
recent crackdown by university officials, including banning alcohol from big
fraternity parties, has worked.

"The scales changed," he said. "There's less parties, the frat scene has
died. SAT scores are going up, there's money coming in."

Indeed, 17 buildings or additions, worth $800 million, are currently under
construction.

"You cannot win five Nobel Prizes just by lying on the beach," said campus
Chancellor Henry Yang.


Luring professors
But even administrators acknowledge the prestigious awards don't translate
into immediate benefits for students. Some of the Nobels have come for work that
was completed long before researchers arrived at the campus, and winners
often continue to focus exclusively on research rather than teaching.

Economics professor Finn Kydland, UC Santa Barbara's other 2004 laureate,
plans to teach intermediate macro-economics for undergrads in the spring. But
Gross doesn't teach, nor does UC Irvine's new chemistry laureate, Ross Irwin.

"All these star faculty that you read about, that win Nobel prizes, you're
not necessarily going to be taught by them," said Erik Olson of the Princeton
Review, which advises students not to base their college choices on faculty
awards.

Ward of the American Council on Education said an accumulation of Nobel
winners historically leads to an increase in outside research funding and is "an
extremely good measure of the quality of the total system."

At Santa Barbara, officials said the burgeoning reputation allows deans to
lure top-notch new professors and may have helped them hang onto others.

In a hiring binge over the past two years, officials brought in nearly 100
new faculty members. All but six of 33 current faculty with formal offers from
other universities were persuaded to stick around.

"It is utter cut-throat competition," Gross said of science hiring between UC
schools. "We steal their people. They steal ours."

Gross, who earned his doctorate from Berkeley, cited a 2003 outside review
that found that campus' physics department had fallen into a state of "genteel
decline." Meanwhile, he said, Santa Barbara has aggressively expanded.

"The system works well. It allows a place like UCSB to equal Berkeley," Gross
said, adding with a slight smile: "It also helps that the big universities
get complacent."

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