• Student Signatures

  • Trailblazing Class of 1968

  • Bonner-Mayer 1965

  • Revelle 1968

  • Class of 1968

But a university is not great because it has many hundreds of buildings, thousands of employees, tens of thousands of students or millions of dollars of annual income. A university is not great because it has elegant classrooms, laboratories full of equipment, a well stocked library, a business-like administration or a winning football team. Like all human institutions, a university is the product of the work and devotion of individual men and women, and it can be great only in so far as it can obtain the fullest measure of creative accomplishment from the men and women who give it life and meaning.

~ Roger Revelle, March 22, 1950

Revelle College Students

On June 14, 1967, Dr. Hugh Bradner, then-Acting Provost of Revelle College, presented 20 Candidates for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts. Storm Fagersten gave the Undergraduate Student Address and Sandra Hutchins, President of the Senior Class, presented the class gift. John S. Galbraith, then-Chancellor of UC San Diego, gave the Commencement Address and conferred degrees.

In 1964, the first class of 4-year undergraduates enrolled at UC San Diego, the first of whom was Nancy Ann Walker, a Granite Hills High School graduate, on September 15, 1964. In June 1968, Chancellor Galbraith conferred degrees on this first 4-year undergraduate class of Candidates for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts. Roy Dimon gave the Student Address.

A basic curriculum prepared students for majors in the humanities, the social sciences, the biological sciences, the physical sciences, and mathematics. The first undergraduate library was established in Building E, which is now known as Galbraith Hall. Between 1964 and 1968, approximately 560 graduate and undergraduate students and 140 faculty members studied and taught at UC San Diego.  The Class of '68... Birth of a University was recorded in the San Diego Union, September 13, 1964, along with an interview with Roger Revelle.

Read Helen Raitt and Beatrice Moulton's "Scripps Institution of Oceanography: First 50 Years" here.

In September 2014, the UC San Diego Alumni Magazine was devoted to PioneersThe Class of 1968, when the campus population grew from 552 students in 1964 to 3.743 students in 1968. 

UC San Diego Press Release, September 4, 1964

In the Beginning... a photo gallery

Revelle College, from 1964 - 1968, as it was constructed, developed, and enjoyed!