UCSD’s Future Looks Bigger and Brighter, Chancellor Reports : Education: Atkinson tells UC Board of Regents that UCSD is on the way to becoming one of the “great academic centers of the world.”

UC San Diego can call itself one of the “great academic centers of the world” if its growth in academics and faculty excellence continues for the next six years at the pace of the past six years, Chancellor Richard T. Atkinson told the UC Board of Regents Friday in Los Angeles.

Atkinson detailed the university’s accomplishments--which he credited to the quality of education the faculty provides to 17,595 students--during the campus’s annual presentation to regents at UCLA.

After the presentation, University of California President David Gardner told Atkinson that UCSD “already is a world-class institution.”

This month marks the 10th anniversary of Atkinson’s appointment as UCSD chancellor. He has been credited by many campus observers with having enhanced the reputation of an already-strong faculty over the decade, despite a 97% increase in its size, from 559 to 1,104 members.

In his remarks on Friday, Atkinson noted that 47 UCSD professors belong to the National Academy of Sciences, the fifth-largest contingent among all U.S. universities, behind only Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University and UC Berkeley. The number is second only to Caltech in the ratio of members to total faculty, he said.

Although UCSD has only 9.3% of the total UC faculty, it has 26% of the Nobel Prize winners (5), 13% of the prestigious Guggenheim fellowship winners (109), 22% of the National Academy of Science members (47), and 25% of its faculty members belong to the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science (51), he said.

Atkinson recently completed a yearlong term as president of the AAAS, where he lobbied for increased funding for and attention to graduate science and engineering training as a way to ensure the nation’s future competitiveness. Atkinson will take a two-month leave of absence from his chancellor’s post next month to testify before Congress and talk with national leaders about specific programs to address graduate student needs.

The university ranked first in the average amount of research and development funding per faculty member between 1985 and 1988, as well as first in the average number of federal art and humanities awards per faculty member between 1980 and 1990, and first in the number of publications per faculty member between 1986 and 1988, Atkinson said, citing a UC Santa Barbara study.

UCSD enrollment has climbed from 11,000 in 1980 to 17,595 this year, and is expected to grow another 50%, to 26,000, by 2005. While the university maintains the science and engineering foundation it began with in 1960, it now offers more than 100 undergraduate majors, with the three most popular being biology, political science and psychology.

In 1989, Atkinson said, 43% of undergraduate degree recipients majored in social sciences, 24% in science or math, 14% in engineering and 13% in arts and humanities.

The chancellor said that the student experience continues to improve. In 1979, the campus had a one-year student retention rate of 77%, the lowest in the UC system. Today, the one-year retention rate is 90%, among the system’s highest, he said.

Atkinson said that 38% of undergraduates live on campus, the second highest rate among all campuses. Housing is guaranteed for the first two years to any student living more than 15 miles from the La Jolla campus.

UCSD is the nation’s top public university in the percentage of undergraduates who go on to medical school and ranks 16th among all universities, he said. It is the top public university in the percentage of undergraduates who obtain advanced degrees in all subjects, as well as the top--and seventh among all universities--in the percentage of undergraduates who pursue advanced science degrees, he said.

Atkinson said that UCSD faces several challenges, including the high cost of housing that deters some potential faculty members from moving to Southern California. In an interview last month, Atkinson said the school plans to build university housing for junior faculty members.

In addition, Atkinson said the campus would like to increase the number of graduate students on campus, because postdoctoral students in particular are important in research and in the effort to provide new science and engineering faculty. Funding for expansion of graduate programs has been tight, however, he said.