YEAR BY YEAR: Moments in Socal Higher Ed

1880: USC opens with 53 students and 10 teachers.

1911: Theodore Roosevelt (right) addresses Occidental College: “I am naturally particularly interested in every institution of this kind on the Pacific Coast . . . where you represent the last wave of the advance of our people.”

1912: First Los Angeles Junior College (later renamed Los Angeles City College) opens with 32 students at Los Angeles High School’s downtown campus on Fort Moore Hill. * USC’s athletic teams (originally called the “Methodists”) are nicknamed “Trojans” when Times sportswriter Owen R. Bird likens the track team to the legendary warriors.

1919: University of California’s “Southern Branch” (later renamed UCLA) is founded on Vermont Avenue with 250 students in letters and sciences.

1926: Ellen Browning Scripps (left) establishes Scripps College in Claremont for women interested in the liberal arts.

1934: History major Richard M. Nixon graduates from Whittier College.

1944: As students enlist for WWII, enrollment at LACC drops to 2,445 from a high of 6,603 in 1940. More than 100 faculty members let go for lack of students.

1947: University of Judaism is founded by the Los Angeles Bureau of Jewish Education and New York’s Jewish Theological Seminary.

1961: California State College system (later renamed the California State University system) is established by the Donahoe Higher Education Act of 1960.

1970: Hundreds of UC Santa Barbara students protesting the Vietnam War riot in nearby Isla Vista (left); a Bank of America branch burns down--one student dies and many are injured.

1996: Student demonstrations break out at Cal State Northridge when former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke is invited to debate anti-affirmative action Prop. 209 with civil rights activist Joe Hicks. * Six alumni from California Institute of the Arts receive Academy Award nominations, including actor Ed Harris and “Toy Story” director John Lasseter.