University of California Irvine

University of California Irvine became a member of the Association of American Universities in 1996 and is the youngest university to hold membership. It is considered to be one of the "Public Ivies," meaning that it is among those publicly funded universities thought to provide a quality of education comparable to that of the Ivy League. The university also administers the UC Irvine Medical Center, a large teaching hospital in Orange, and its affiliated health sciences system; the University of California, Irvine, Arboretum; and a portion of the University of California Natural Reserve System. UC Irvine set up the first Earth System Science Department in the United States. UCI was one of three new UC campuses established in the 1960s to accommodate growing enrollments across the UC system. A site in Orange County was identified in 1959, and in the following year the Irvine Company sold the University of California 1,000 acres (400 ha) of land for one dollar to establish the new campus. President Lyndon B. Johnson dedicated the campus in 1964, a fact which was commemorated with the delivery of a commencement speech by President Barack Obama exactly fifty years later. A total of seven Nobel Prize laureates have been affiliated with UCI. The university is also associated with a total of seven Pulitzer Prize winners, including three faculty members and four alumni. The UC Irvine Anteaters compete in the NCAA Division I as members of the Big West Conference. The Anteaters have won 28 national championships in nine different team sports, 64 Anteaters have won individual national championships, and 53 Anteaters have competed in the Olympics.