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Southland U
There are dozens of reasons to go
back
to campus — at least for a visit
College and university campuses offer much more than lecture halls and dormitories. They're communities designed to encourage people to learn and think and dream, and through various public spaces and programs, many invite you to step into their world. Here's a sampling of the outstanding collections, gardens, visual arts, and agricultural programs you can experience on Southern California's campuses. Consider the following a refresher course in the joy of learning.
The Arts
Arts Plaza
University of California, Irvine
Todd Masinter
A once-uninspired concrete courtyard at UCI's Claire Trevor School of the Arts has become an inviting space that reflects the school's creativity, thanks to Maya Lin, the artist whose dramatic public spaces include the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.; the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama; and the Women's Table at Yale University.
Other Sites to See
University of Southern California, in Los Angeles: In front of the Fisher Gallery, a sculpture garden created by Jenny Holzer commemorates the "Hollywood Ten," 
who were jailed for asserting their First Amendment rights during the McCarthy era. Inside, rotating exhibits primarily showcase contemporary art. (213) 740-4561.
Art Center College of Design, in Pasadena: The Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery holds exhibitions of works by professional artists, while the smaller Main Student Gallery showcases exemplary student work. (626) 396-2200.
University of California, Santa Barbara: The University Art Museum's fine-art collection includes European Old Master paintings from the 15th through the 17th century, rotating exhibits on contemporary subjects, and an outdoor sculpture collection with a kinetic sculpture by George Rickey. (805) 893-7564.
California State University, Channel Islands, in Camarillo: The Studio Channel Islands Art Center features art galleries with rotating exhibits, as well as professional artists' studios that welcome visitors. (805) 383-1368.
University of California, Los Angeles: More than 70 outdoor works by artists including Isamu Noguchi, David Smith, and Francisco Zuñiga make up the recently refurbished Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden, located on five acres of UCLA's North Campus. At press time, some sculptures were not available for viewing because of nearby construction. (310) 443-7040.
University of California, Riverside: A few miles from the UCR campus, the UCR/California Museum of Photography houses a huge permanent collection of historical camera equipment and photographs and exhibits contemporary work. (951) 784-3686.
California State University, San Bernardino: The Robert V. Fullerton Art Museum displays about 200 artifacts from its large collection of Egyptian antiquities and exhibits contemporary art by the likes of Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg. (909) 537-7373.
California State University, Los Angeles: The Harriet & Charles Luckman Fine Arts Complex is a professional arts venue with an art gallery and two theaters that showcase dance, theater, and music, including performances by the school's resident professional company, the Luckman Jazz Orchestra. (323) 343-6600.
— A.W.B.
The Claire Trevor School recruited Lin to design its new $3.6-million Arts Plaza, which opened this past October. Nohema Fernandez, dean of the art school, hopes visitors will come to the plaza to see Lin's work, as well as the various performances and exhibits by other artists. "This is the largest space Maya Lin has ever designed," she says. "It's not just something to look at, but it's also something to experience."
Nestled among the school's theaters, galleries, and studios, the plaza features graceful native sycamore trees that shade one of Lin's signature "water table" fountains (pictured). Water bubbles out of an elegantly curved line in the center of a massive granite rectangle and cascades over the flat surface, inviting visitors to touch the cool stone. Speakers implanted in granite benches around the fountain play music, ambient sounds, and the spoken word.
Lin also transformed a grassy hillside into a terraced amphitheater and mounted four video screens to a wall near the Beall Center for Art and Technology to create an outdoor digital gallery. Throughout the plaza, the landscaping incorporates fragrant herbs and orange trees to awaken the senses. (949) 824-4339; www.arts.uci.edu.
— Amy Williams Bernstein
The Arts
Stuart Collection
University of California, San Diego
Todd Masinter
A tree recites poetry in a eucalyptus grove near the faculty club. A larger-than-life red shoe appears to prance through the woods along Torrey Pines Road. A 560-foot-long snake slithers up a hill toward the Geisel Library. A giant teddy bear made of boulders weighing more than 180 tons sits in the courtyard of the Jacobs School of Engineering.
These are not elements from a fairy tale, although they're as much fun to think about. Rather, these artworks — Trees (1986) by Terry Allen, Red Shoe (1996) by Elizabeth Murray, Snake Path (1992) by Alexis Smith, and Bear (2005, pictured above) by Tim Hawkinson — are part of the Stuart Collection of site-specific outdoor sculptures found throughout UCSD's 1,200-acre campus.
Since 1982, the Stuart Foundation and UCSD have worked together to build this renowned collection, which is still growing. Selected artists are encouraged to find a site on campus that inspires them. Once the artist forms an idea, the proposal goes through a review process that involves both the foundation and the university. The result: Works such as Niki de Saint Phalle's Sun God (1983), which are so well-integrated into the campus that students often come to think of them as friends.
"There's quite a bit of humor in many of the sculptures," says Mary L. Beebe, the collection's director. "And they're accessible. You can climb on some and interact with some."
Brochures featuring a self-guided walking tour of the Stuart Collection are available at UCSD's information kiosks or by writing to Stuart Collection UCSD, 9500 Gilman Drive, Department 0010, La Jolla, CA 92093-0010. (858) 534-2117; http://stuartcollection.ucsd.edu.
— Danielle Pedersen
Tom Zasadzinski/Cal Poly Pomona
W.K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Center
College of Agriculture
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
And God took a handful of southerly wind, blew his breath over it, and created the horse. This bedouin saying springs to life at Cal Poly Pomona's W.K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Center. With finely chiseled heads and large soulful eyes, the Arabian horses that graze on the center's 38 irrigated acres embody the breed's signature intelligence, endurance, and spirit. "Arabian horses love people," says Bill Hughes, director of equine sciences. "The bedouins kept their prize mares in the tents with them."
And people love Arabian horses. In 1949, cereal baron W.K. Kellogg donated his Pomona ranch to Cal Poly on the condition the school would maintain the purebred herd he'd established in 1926. Teachers, trainers, and students care for today's herd of about 130 — several of which are descendants of Kellogg's originals — and work with them in class instruction, equine research, and breeding. More than 70 percent of U.S. Arabian horses trace their lineage to the Kellogg breeding program.
The center's steeds also perform. Several horses march in the Rose Parade. And at public horse shows held at 2 p.m. the first Sunday of the month, October through May, trainers put about 10 horses through their paces. (909) 869-2224; ww.csupomona.edu/~equine/Kellogg.htm.
— Elizabeth Harryman
Other Ag Adventures
University of California, Riverside: In 1910, the staff at the Citrus Experiment Station and USDA researchers began the Citrus Variety Collection. Today, the collection is run by UCR researchers and contains two trees each of about 900 different citrus types. It also boasts one of the most highly regarded citrus germ plasm (genetic) collections in the world. The gardens are open to the public via the UC Extension class "Citrus Trees in the Garden" and during periodic tours. Visitors to the annual Riverside Orange Blossom Festival (held each spring) can taste citrus from the collection at UCR's booth. (951) 827-7360; www.citrusvariety.ucr.edu.
California Polytechnic State University, in San Luis Obispo: Much of what's grown on campus as part of the undergraduate agriculture program, the fourth-largest in the country, eventually hits the shelves at the Poly Plant Shop or the Campus Market, both of which are open to the public. The plant shop sells cut flowers and potted plants cultivated by ag students. The market sells products made through "Enterprise Projects," in which ag students design, produce, package, and market a product with help from faculty members. Cal Poly Cheese, Cal Poly Honey, Cal Poly Chocolates, and Cal Poly Eggs consistently offer their wares there. Poly Plant Shop: (805) 756-1106; www.polyplantshop.com. Campus Market: www.cpfoundation.org/campusdining/campusmarket.asp.
— Robin Jones
Gardens
Fullerton Arboretum
California State University, Fullerton
Todd Masinter
The Fullerton Arboretum, a cooperative effort of Cal State Fullerton and the city of Fullerton, opened in 1979 both to serve the needs of the university and help preserve the community's open space. With 26 acres — and room to grow — the arboretum has something for every green thumb. Among its collections are cycads, gingkoes, and relatives of magnolias from the Jurassic Period (220 million years ago). A Channel Islands collection was added about a year ago.
Its newest addition, an 8,500-square-foot visitor center scheduled to open in March, will reflect Orange County's agricultural heritage. The arboretum occupies the site of the former Gilman Citrus Ranch and in 2000 was chosen to hold the nation's citrus collection for the North American Plant Collections Consortium. So it seems appropriate that the center — a long, open building with a metal roof — is reminiscent of a packinghouse. It will tell the story of Japanese-American farmers who worked the local fields in the 1890s and early 1900s.
Another on-site museum, the 1894 Eastlake-Victorian style Heritage House (above), was once occupied by the town doctor's family. Docents in Victorian dress give weekend tours to the public. These programs and other popular arboretum events, including Green Scene plant sales, classes, and weekend workshops for kids, have created enduring community ties. (714) 278-3579; www.arboretum.fullerton.edu.
— Brenda Tabor
Other Great Gardens
California State University, Long Beach: The 1.3-acre Earl Burns Miller Japanese Garden features a koi pond, wooden bridges, a ceremonial teahouse, a dry rock garden, and an annual koi auction. (562) 985-8885.
Pepperdine University, in Malibu: The Heroes Garden honors the passengers, including alumnus Thomas F. Burnett Jr., who were killed on Flight 93 on 9/11. (310) 506-4000.
Pitzer College, in Claremont: The 10-acre John R. Rodman 
Arboretum's 16 different gardens demonstrate that drought-tolerant and native landscaping can be both environmentally responsible and beautiful. (909) 607-3608.
Scripps College, in Claremont: The enclosed Margaret Fowler Garden features a mural (pictured) by Alfredo Ramos Martinez, of the Mexican Muralist Movement. Open dawn to dusk Monday through Friday. (909) 621-8280.
University of California, Irvine: Aldrich Park offers tree-lined paths through 19 acres at the center of campus. Also on campus, the UCI Arboretum is known for its plants suitable for Southern California. (949) 824-5833.
— B.T.
Collections
UCLA Film & Television Archive
University of California, Los Angeles
UCLA Film & Television Archive
About 25 years ago, film professors at UCLA heard that Hollywood studios were throwing away the old films they didn't have room to store. Alarmed, they asked studio contacts to tell them when and where the films were being discarded. They'd then go collect the films and bring them to campus.
So began the UCLA Film & Television Archive, which is now the largest university collection of media materials in the world and the second largest of any film archive in the country. Only the Library of Congress stores more media/film materials.
The archive is prized by scholars and serious researchers. But the public can take advantage of it, too, through both the film series at the James Bridges Theater, in Melnitz Hall, and the Archive Research and Study Center, at Powell Library.
The film series shows several films weekly, everything from old classics to contemporary foreign films. Highly trained projectionists work with equipment that can screen 16-, 35-, and 70-millimeter film and can also show silent films at their correct speed.
Todd Masinter
The Archive Research and Study Center exists primarily so that researchers can view the archive's collection, which includes, among other things, about 100,000 news programs from the mid-1980s to 2003; Jack Denove's film and video collection of John F. Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign; and about 10,000 commercials from 1948 to the 1980s. Researchers can find the materials they want on a searchable database (http://cinema.library.ucla.edu) and ask the staff to organize a viewing at Powell Library. The center won't allow viewings for entertainment only, but it does define research pretty liberally. Filmmakers, writers, and journalists often use the collection.
General information: (310) 206-8013. Film series schedule: (310) 206-3456; www.cinema.ucla.edu. Archive Research and Study Center: (310) 206-5388.
— R.J.
Other Choice Collections
Chapman University, in Orange: Artifacts and writings about the Holocaust — including a piece of cobblestone from the Warsaw Ghetto — recently went on display at the new Sala and Aron Samueli Memorial Holocaust Library in the Leatherby Libraries building. (714) 628-7377.
Claremont Graduate School, in Claremont: An extensive collection of personal computers, portable computers, game systems, printers, and input and output devices make up the exhibits at the Paul Gray PC Museum. (909) 621-8209.
Claremont McKenna College, in Claremont: The signatures of every U.S. president hang on the walls of the Roy P. Crocker Reading Room, in the Bauer Center. (909) 621-8099.University of California, Santa Barbara: The Architecture & Design Collection in the University Art Museum documents the architecture of California and the Southwest through more than 850,000 original drawings, including many by Rudolph M. Schindler and Cliff May. By appointment only. (805) 893-2724.
San Diego State University: First editions of early astronomy books, including tomes by Copernicus and Galileo, highlight the Special Collections at the SDSU Library. (619) 594-6791.
University of California, San Diego: The world's largest collection of original Dr. Seuss materials, including manuscripts and drawings, resides at Geisel Library; they're only available 
to researchers with special permission, but items often are displayed in March to commemorate Theodor Geisel's (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss) birthday. (858) 534-3336.
University of California, Riverside: The more than 80,000-volume J. Lloyd Eaton Collection of Science Fiction, Horror, Fantasy, and Utopian Literature is considered to be the world's largest such compilation available to the general public. (951) 827-3233.
University of Southern California, in Los Angeles: The Specialized Libraries and Archival Collections at USC's Doheny Memorial Library feature a collection of clippings and photographs from the now-defunct Los Angeles Examiner, as well as the Lewis Carroll Collection, consisting of more than 500 items related to the author and his works (including a first edition of Alice in Wonderland). (213) 740-4035.
— R.J.
Places in History
Pioneer Aviators Flew Here
California State University, Dominguez Hills is located adjacent to the site of the country's first air show, the 1910 Los Angeles International Air Meet at Dominguez Field. The school will display artifacts from the event in the library extension, which is currently under construction. (310) 243-3696.
Albert Einstein Ate Here
The California Institute of Technology's self-guided walking tour, "Along the Olive Walk," highlights the campus's distinctive architecture, laboratories, gardens, sculptures, and exhibits (including an interactive display
on earthquakes), as well as the Athenaeum faculty club (pictured), which held its first formal dinner when Albert Einstein arrived for a three-month visit to campus in 1931. (626) 395-6327, www.caltech.edu.
For more details, including hours and parking, call the numbers listed or visit the schools' websites. Write to us about other hidden gems you've experienced at Southern California's college and university campuses. See Letters for our address.
You are reading the January/February 2006 issue of Westways. Some information contained in this publication is time-sensitive, and the terms of some offers (cruise or vacation packages, for example) or services (provisions for roadside assistance, for example) might have been superseded by subsequent information and might no longer apply.