Volume 25 · Number 1 · Fall 2007
Birthday Bash
The Quad and its harvest in 1928, looking north, toward where the Memorial Union now stands. West Hall is to the left, the old gym in the center and California Inn (the old dining hall) on the right.
Pins and banners on campus and around the region. Campus and community festivals. An equally impressive exhibit — in fact, the featured attraction at the California State Fair in 2008. And, for permanency, the Centennial Walk, an upgraded path through the Quad — the campus’s historic centerpiece where barley and alfalfa crops eventually gave way to shade trees and Picnic Day celebrations and countless students playing Frisbee between classes.
The walkway, the state fair exhibit, the festivals and many other events in 2008–09 will all pay tribute to UC Davis’ Centennial, marking the arrival of the university’s first students 100 years earlier.
The celebration will get under way at the state fair — a fitting beginning because the idea for UC Davis can be traced back to a conversation about butter grading at the 1899 state fair that led Peter J. Shields, then secretary of the California State Agricultural Society, to dream of founding an agriculture school.
In 2008 at Cal Expo, from mid-August through Labor Day, Sept. 1, the university will fill a 6,000-square-foot pavilion with all things UC Davis, showcasing its research accomplishments and the promise of things to come.
Fairgoers can expect to see some campus history, like the legendary Blackwelder harvester (the UC Davis engineering feat that arguably saved California’s processed tomato industry) alongside modern research projects such as alternative-fuel transportation.
“Thousands of children will come to the fair, and we can’t wait to see them get excited about our displays and maybe start thinking that they would like to come to UC Davis to see what they can invent,” says Mabel Salon of the centennial planning team.
Other science-in-action exhibits at the state fair are likely to include telemedicine — which allows UC Davis medical personnel to help treat patients at remote locations — and perhaps a mini-version of the experimental digester that is at work on campus today turning food waste into fuel.
Assistant Vice Chancellor Bob Segar says: “This will be something where you’ll walk out of there and say, ‘Wow, I didn’t know UC Davis did all that.’ ”
Segar and his centennial planning team colleagues — Salon, director of community relations with the Office of Government and Community Relations, and Laurie Lewis, design manager with University Communications — say the state fair exhibition will highlight UC Davis’ position on the leading edge of innovation in agriculture, health, energy, the environment, healthy food, information technology, quality of life and education.
“We aim to show the relevancy of our work to the citizenry,” Salon says.
Indeed, a lot of the citizenry will be passing through: an estimated 1 million fairgoers, with 80 percent of them expected to take in the featured exhibition.
The state fair is charging UC Davis $130,000 for the exhibit, and the university in turn is looking for sponsors to defray the cost. Also, departments and units, alumni and others are being recruited to work as volunteers in the pavilion.
The centennial celebration begins in earnest on campus with Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef’s Fall Convocation on Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2008, when he is expected to unveil the university’s centennial service projects.
Then, mark your calendars for the Fall Festival, Thursday through Sunday, Oct. 9–12, 2008.
It will begin with the Davis Chamber of Commerce Day on the Quad, when city businesses introduce themselves to the student body. This annual event becomes more significant in UC Davis’ centennial year because of the nascent chamber’s role in convincing the state to pick Davis as the site of the University Farm in 1906.
The Fall Festival also will bring the public debut of the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science at the campus’ south entry.
“You won’t recognize the entry to campus when you come in during the centennial year,” Segar says. Acres of vineyards will spread between Interstate 80 and the wine and food institute.
The unveiling of the Centennial Walk is set for Saturday, Oct. 11, 2008. The Quad will keep its north-south path, and the project will not add any other paths, Segar says. Instead, the 6-foot-wide walkway will be widened to 12 feet, and the chipped and cracked concrete will be replaced with upgraded materials.
Also, the raised circle of turf at the Quad’s center — an old feature that is nearly indistinguishable today — will be enhanced, probably with steps around the circle.
“Anybody who has an association with UC Davis really values the Quad,” Segar says, “and this is a chance to add quality to this well-loved place.”
Saturday’s events also include the Golden Society Brunch for alumni who graduated 50 years ago or earlier, and homecoming football in the new Aggie Stadium.
Finally, in recognition of the university’s ties with the city of Davis and the larger region, a Community Celebration is scheduled from noon to 6 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 12, 2008, at the east edge of campus where the university merges with downtown Davis.
At this event and all of the others, the university community will be celebrating the people who made UC Davis happen 100 years ago and the people who continue to make it happen: the students, from the Founding Farmers to the Aggies of today; faculty past and present; administrators; staff; donors and business partners; and campus neighbors.
“It has always been a two-way street,” Segar says. “People make the university, enabling us to carry out our mission of service to society.”
— Dave Jones
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