UCI Named as Site for Prestigious New Humanities Center

University of California President David P. Gardner on Friday formally announced his selection of UC Irvine as the site for the prestigious new Humanities Research Institute.

The announcement means that UCI will serve as the centerpiece of humanities study for the UC system, hosting up to 25 scholars a year who will live on the Irvine campus and explore aspects of literature, languages and philosophy.

Also Friday, the UC Board of Regents meeting at UCLA voted $42.1 million for new or supplemental building projects for the Irvine campus.

The buildings include 204 apartments to be built on campus for graduate students. Construction of that $13.7-million project is scheduled to begin next summer and end in the summer of 1989.

Other Projects Approved

Other projects approved for UCI by the regents were:

- A $6.2-million high-rise parking structure for 700 cars at the UCI Medical Center in Orange.

- Four new dining facilities costing a total of $4 million and seating a total of up to 1,000 people per meal.

- A $17.2-million psychiatric inpatient facility for the UCI Medical Center.

- An additional $2 million for a new medical clinic on the Irvine campus, bringing the total allocation for the clinic to $6.5 million.

- An additional $150,000 for a new, $1-million housing office building on campus.

There was no debate by the regents as they unanimously approved the long string of projects. But the regents spent an hour Friday hearing Gardner unveil his “Humanities Initiative” for the UC system.

The focal point of that effort, the Humanities Research Institute, had also been sought by UCLA, Berkeley, Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara.

UCI Chancellor Jack W. Peltason said the selection of his campus is a notable honor. “Having the institute at UCI is a splendid tribute to our campus and the faculty’s past and future accomplishments,” Peltason said. “We look forward to immeasurable gains in humanities research systemwide.”

The institute will use existing facilities on campus, at least for now, . Gardner said.

“If we later propose a new building for this institute, we will come back to you,” Gardner told the regents.

UCI will get $800,000 a year extra from the UC system to help pay for being host to the scholars. UCI itself will contribute another $300,000 toward the institute’s annual cost.

Murray Krieger, UCI English professor, will serve as institute director. David McDonald, a UCI associate professor of drama, was appointed executive director.

UCI officials said a UC system advisory committee will help Krieger and McDonald plan research topics and select scholars.

Krieger said the institute’s purpose “is to explore the limits of collaborative research while fostering an atmosphere in which individual studies may flourish.”

Colleen Bentley-Adler, a spokeswoman for UCI, said the institute “is unique in that it focuses on collaborative research among scholars of various disciplines while still permitting some individual study.”

According to McDonald, the institute will sponsor conferences with various themes, such as art history, bioethics and legal studies.

Gardner, in his talk to the regents, said the renewed emphasis on the humanities is necessary for an educated society.

“Languages, literature, linguistics, history, jurisprudence, philosophy, archeology, comparative religion, ethics and the history, criticism and theory of the arts--these disciplines constitute the heart of our cultural legacy,” Gardner said.

“The health and vigor of the humanities are indispensable if we are to offer students the broad liberal education they will need to function in a dramatically changing world.”

PROJECTS APPROVED BY UC REGENTS 1 A new Psychiatric Inpatient Facility at UCI Medical Center in Orange will cost $17.2 million and will be a three-story building with an elliptical courtyard. Scheduled to open in the summer of 1990.

2 A six-story, 700-car parking tower will be built at UCI Medical Center and will cost $6.2 million. Scheduled to open in January, 1989.

3 An on-campus clinic will be housed in a two-story building and will cost $6.5 million. The College of Medicine faculty will be able to see and treat patients in the structure. Scheduled to open in the spring of 1988.

4 Four permanent food service facilities costing a total of $4 million with a total seating capacity of 1,000. Scheduled to open in the summer of 1989.

5 A $1,098,000 new building will consolidate all the office space for housing. Scheduled to open in the spring of 1988.

6 A complex of 204 new apartments costing $13.7 million will be built on the Irvine campus to house graduate students. The apartments, of various sizes, will accommodate 376 students. Scheduled to open in the summer of 1989.