Talk:History of the University of California, Berkeley

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External links modified
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External links modified
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External links modified
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Brainstorming about revising this article
I am planning to make major revisions to this article over the next year or so. I am brainstorming on the talk page in advance, so that other editors don't freak out when I start making major changes to the article.

First, there is a serious factual error that needs to be fixed:


 * The Organic Act was not an actual merger of the College of California and the Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts College. Rather, the idea was to create a new institution with the benefit of their assets and then the existing colleges would dissolve.  The Stadtman book makes this very clear and I have already cited it for this point in the main article on the University of California.

Second, a lot of important things are missing from the article:


 * The formation of the original colleges at Berkeley.
 * Frederick Law Olmsted's original campus plan.
 * The Berkeley farm. There was a farm on the Berkeley campus when Ezra S. Carr was on the faculty.
 * The long-running problem of whether buildings should follow the Berkeley street grid (which is a bit closer to but still does not line up with the cardinal directions) or should be at a slight angle along the Campanile Way axis so they directly face the Golden Gate.
 * Founding of the law school.
 * Whether the health sciences should consolidate at Berkeley or at San Francisco.
 * Berkeley's global leadership in the physical sciences, especially chemistry. We are talking about a university that reserves parking spaces for Nobel laureates.
 * Berkeley's global leadership in computer science, especially TCP/IP and Berkeley Software Distribution.
 * The detour into ugly Brutalist architecture during the 1960s like Evans Hall and Wurster Hall.
 * Reagan got himself elected in part on a promise to fix Berkeley and then moved ahead on his plan to clean up UC by immediately firing Kerr, even though Kerr had been stuck with difficult circumstances largely beyond his control.

Third, some things need to be expanded:


 * The loyalty oath controversy was a major milestone in the university's history because of how it laid the foundation for the Free Speech Movement and subsequent campus turmoil.

Fourth, some things should be transferred back to the main article on UC Berkeley:


 * The lengthy discussion of the name issue.

Fifth, some things need to be reduced or eliminated as violations of WP:UNDUE:


 * Excessively long discussions of various controversies circa 2006 that are rather minor in comparison to real controversies like the Free Speech Movement and the loyalty oath controversy.

So that's just the first batch of thoughts. If anyone has any feedback or additional ideas, that would be great. --Coolcaesar (talk) 17:45, 28 September 2020 (UTC)