Guests Get an Education at UCI Birthday Festivities

Praise U.

UC Irvine kicked off its 25th-anniversary festivities with a formal ceremony in the Student Center on Friday night honoring five university founders and six community supporters. Dressed in flowing robes and tasseled mortarboards, the honorees solemnly marched onstage in front of about 500 observers while a faculty brass band played and a university choir filled the room with harmonies. Each of the chosen received a glowing introduction, applause from the spectators and a memento--medals for the supporters, silver tureens for the founders.

Punchlines

Also onstage were UCI Chancellor Jack Peltason, University of California President David Gardner and Roy Brophy, chairman of the UC Board of Regents.

Peltason stuck to a rather dry prepared speech that nonetheless included some impressive stats: 1,589 students matriculated in 1965, 16,500 enrolled this year; the faculty has grown from 118 to 900; the library from 100,000 volumes to 1.4 million, the annual budget from $5.9 million to nearly half a billion dollars.

Gardner re membered his first visit to the campus in the early ‘60s--”one of the quickest tours I’ve ever had. There were no students, no faculty, no buildings, no walkways, no roads, no traffic, no trees.”

These days, Gardner joked, “UCI is thought of as an acronym for ‘Under Construction Indefinitely’. . . . By your 50th anniversary, I expect UCI will be an acronym for ‘Universally Celebrated Institution.’ ”

Visiting the campus “and seeing so much activity,” Brophy said, “I thought you might want to change the mascot from the anteater to the crane--the gantry crane,” he said, to appreciative laughter.

Reading and Righting

The only one of the honorees to address the group was Joan Irvine Smith, the South County heiress and great-granddaughter of rancher James Irvine I, whose vast landholdings once encompassed nearly a fourth of Orange County. Smith’s “perseverance and ability to rise above insurmountable odds made the donation of 1,000 acres of rolling ranch land a reality,” said Peltason. “Today, (the university) celebrates its 25th anniversary on this land.”

Smith has had her share of headlines in recent years due to a complex legal wrangle with Irvine Co. Chairman Donald Bren over the value of her and her mother’s 11% interest in the company. Not one to miss an opportunity to present her opinions, Smith--the last of the 11 honorees to be recognized--brought a seven-page typed speech with her to the podium.

In her 15-minute recitation, Smith sketched her family’s history from her great-grandfather, born in Belfast in 1827, straight through to a

recent court ruling in which Smith and her mother, Athalie Clarke, were awarded $150 million for their Irvine Co. stock interest.

Smiles played on the lips of some of the listeners as Smith recounted the battles she has fought “with the aid of very astute legal counsel.” Smith depicted herself as an unyielding David challenging a series of corporate and governmental Goliaths, resulting in litigation that “has been ongoing for 31 of the past 33 years.”

Finishing with a big smile of her own, Smith promised that the final settlement with Bren “will not mark the end of our interest in Orange County and the University of California at Irvine.”

Onstage

Also honored were founders Jean Aldrich, widow of founding Chancellor Daniel G. Aldrich Jr.; and Edmund G. Brown Sr., Clark Kerr and Edward Carter, who at the time of UCI’s founding were, respectively, governor of California, UC president and chairman of the board of regents.

Receiving medals--UCI’s version of an honorary degree--were Roger Johnson, CEO of Western Digital Corp.; Murray Krieger, a faculty member since 1966; Mary Roosevelt, a UCI Foundation board member and active sponsor of many campus programs; Thomas Yuen, a UCI graduate and co-founder of Irvine-based AST Research Inc.; and Elizabeth and Thomas Tierney, who endowed UCI’s first chair in peace studies and have been active in other campus programs.

Before and After

At a reception preceding the ceremony, students and university staff mingled with the family and friends of honorees and other local supporters. The dress code at the alcohol-free cocktail party ranged from jeans and sneakers to black tie, with Joan Irvine Smith’s tailored black suit as a stylish middle ground.

After the last round of applause, 220 guests adjourned to the Student Center’s dining room for a dinner of duck consume, salad with Brie, filet of snapper and strawberries and cream in meringue.

Quote

When we came here, we had something like this in mind,” said Sherwood Roland, who arrived on campus in 1964 as the first chairman of the chemistry department. Roland--an internationally recognized researcher who with Mario Molina was the co-discoverer of stratospheric ozone depletion by chlorofluorocarbons--took a moment during the cocktail party to reflect on UC Irvine’s growth.

“If any of us could have had the vision to look ahead 25 years, (this) would be right at the top level of what we had hoped would happen. This is a major university, and it is now beginning to be recognized as such.”