Exploring a Cliometric History of the University of California

Thursday, November 3, 2016
12:00pm-1:00pm with lunch to follow
Academic Innovation Studio, Dwinelle 117 
Ph.D Student in Applied Microecnomics, UC Berkeley and former Senior Research Analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Senior Research Fellow, Public Policy & Higher Education,Center for Studies in Higher Education, UC Berkeley

As part of an on-going study, this presentation will explore a data-oriented history of UC Berkeley and the University of California system, including the demographic and geographic origin of students and faculty, faculty to student ratios, and budget sources. Data are based on digitizations of previously-published financial and administrative statistics as well as novel analysis of recently-digitized historical student records and course catalogs.

Some of the analysis will provide new perspectives on UC’s history and that of higher education in California, including the substantial and balanced growth of UC enrollment in the early part of the 20th century, the impact of the World Wars, the consequences of the California Master plan for UC, and the historical shift from an environment of high state subsidization to the decline in pubic investment and the rise of research and tuition based operating and capital budgets.

Participants in the talk will be invited to explore with the speakers the historical and contemporary trends exposed by the data as UC nears it's 150th anniversary in 2018. We hope that this event might be the first in a series of research projects and presentation that reflect on the history of UC and its role in California, and the world, as the Berkeley campus approaches 2018.

Zach Bleemer is a PhD student in Economics and a Digital Humanities Fellow at UC Berkeley, where his research examines the educational and occupational decisions of young Americans. His most recent paper measures the impact of expanding female labor force participation, especially in medicine and high school education, on college-going and major selection in rural California in the early 20th century. Zach was previously a Senior Analyst in the Microeconomic Research Group at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
John Aubrey Douglass is Senior Research Fellow - Public Policy and Higher Education at the Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE) at the University of California - Berkeley. He is the author of The New Flagship University: Changing the Paradigm from Global Ranking to National Relevancy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), The Conditions for Admissions (Stanford Press 2007), The California Idea and American Higher Education (Stanford University Press, second edition 2007; published in Chinese in 2008), and with Jud King and Irwin Feller (ed) Globalization’s Muse: Universities and Higher Education Systems in a Changing World (Public Policy Press, 2009). A recent paper, with Patrick Lapid, looks at college affordability and “progressive tuition models."