As another exciting academic year at UC Santa Barbara gets underway, I want to take a moment to welcome our new and returning students and all of the members of our campus community.
On September 21, we officially welcomed our new class of incoming freshmen and transfer students at our annual New Student Convocation ceremony on the Faculty Club Green. We are proud to say that these students were selected from the largest applicant pool in UC Santa Barbara history — and they comprise our most accomplished and diverse incoming class. Our new Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, Dr. Margaret Klawunn, joined us at Convocation to welcome our new students.
Stature of the Campus: In case you missed it, I’d like to mention that UC Santa Barbara was once again named a Top Ten public university by U.S. News & World Report in its rankings of 1,376 national universities. In fact, UC Santa Barbara was ranked number 8 among the Top 30 public universities. Times Higher Education of London last month ranked UC Santa Barbara #7 worldwide for producing Nobel laureates in the 21st century. We are proud of our outstanding academic reputation, forged by the collective efforts of our award-winning faculty, outstanding students, and dedicated staff.
New Faculty Recruitment: Maintaining the excellence of our academic programs is one of our highest priorities. Our improved budget has allowed us to increase faculty recruitment. We are pleased to welcome 45 new faculty members this academic year, the largest increase we have seen in many years. In addition, 66 new searches were approved for recruitments to take place over the next three years, with 29 new searches approved for 2015-16. Combined with previously authorized searches, this adds up to a total of 63 faculty recruitments underway during the current academic year.
Yang goes on to discuss Health Care Updates, New Buildings and Expansions, Isla Vista Initiatives, Sexual Assault Prevention, and Plans for Halloween 2015 – read the entire text here.
