Occidental College (informally Oxy) is a privateliberal arts college in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1887 as a coeducational college by clergy and members of the Presbyterian Church, it became non-sectarian in 1910. It is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges on the West Coast of the United States.
Occidental's current 120-acre (49 ha) campus is located in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, and was designed by architect Myron Hunt. Due to its proximity to Hollywood and its architecture, the campus is frequently used as a filming location for film and television productions. Occidental is a founding member of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference and its 20 varsity sports teams compete in NCAA Division III. The college's curriculum emphasizes diversity, global literacy, and civic engagement.
Occidental College was founded on April 20, 1887, by a group of Presbyterian clergy, missionaries, and laymen, including James George Bell, Lyman Stewart, and Thomas Bard. The cornerstone of the school's first building was laid in September 1887 in the Boyle Heights now East Los Angeles neighborhood of Los Angeles.[4] The college's first term began a year later with 27 male and 13 female students, and tuition of $50 a year.[5]
In 1896, the Boyle Heights building was destroyed by fire. The college temporarily relocated to the old St. Vincent's College campus on Hill Street before a new site was selected in Highland Park in 1898.[4] Eventually, the college erected three main buildings: the Academy Building, the Stimson Library, and the Hall of Arts and Letters (the Hall still stands today, converted to apartments).[6] The Highland Park site was also bisected by the tracks of the Santa Fe Railroad,[6] and was the site of two presidential visits, first by William Howard Taft in 1909 and subsequently by Theodore Roosevelt in 1911.[6]
In 1909, the Pomona College Board of Trustees suggested a merger between Pomona and Occidental, but the proposal came to nothing.[7] The following year, the college severed formal ties with the Presbyterian Church and became a non-sectarian, non-denominational institution.[4][8] The small size of the 15-acre (6.1 ha) campus and the disruption caused by frequent freight trains pushed the college's trustees to find a new location.[6]
1900s
Highland Park campus, 1904President William Howard Taft at Occidental in October 1911
In 1912, the school began construction of a new campus located in Los Angeles' Eagle Rock neighborhood. The Eagle Rock campus was designed by noted California architect Myron Hunt, also known as the planner of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) campus and as designer of the Huntington Library and Art Gallery and the Rose Bowl. That same year, Occidental President John Willis Baer announced the trustees' decision to convert Occidental College into an all-men's institution. The plans were met with widespread backlash from students and faculty who protested the change. The community outcry garnered national headlines and the board later dropped the proposal.[9][10][11]
Two weeks after Booker T. Washington came to visit Occidental, on March 27, 1914, Swan, Fowler, and Johnson Halls were dedicated at its new Eagle Rock campus. Patterson Field, today one of the oldest collegiate sports stadiums in Los Angeles, was opened in 1916.[12] In April 1917, shortly after the United States entered World War I, the college formed a Students Army Training Corps to aid the war effort.[5]
Occidental College in the 1920s
Under Occidental President Remsen Bird, the school opened a series of new Hunt-designed buildings, including Clapp Library (1924), Hillside Theatre and a women's dormitory (Orr Hall) in 1925, Alumni Gymnasium (1926), the Freeman Student Union (1928) and a music and speech building (1929).[13] The Delta of California chapter of Phi Beta Kappa was established at Occidental in 1926, at a time when the only other chapters in California were at Stanford, UC Berkeley, and Pomona.[5]
English novelist Aldous Huxley, who had spoken at Occidental's convocation ceremony in the then-new Thorne Hall in 1938, lampooned President Remsen Bird as Dr. Herbert Mulge of Tarzana College in his 1939 novel, After Many a Summer Dies the Swan. Huxley was never again invited back to campus.[14]
During World War II, many students left Occidental to fight in the war. In July 1943, the U.S. Navy established a Navy V-12[15] officer training program on campus that produced hundreds of graduates before it was disbanded in 1945 at the end of the war. Occidental President Remsen Bird worked behind the scenes to help Oxy students of Japanese descent continue their education despite mandatory evacuation orders; his letters are included in the Japanese American Relocation Collection in Clapp Library.[16]
After having its first Rhodes Scholar, Clarence Spaulding, named in 1908, Oxy seniors John Paden and Aaron Segal were awarded Rhodes Scholarships in 1958, the only time Occidental has produced two Rhodes Scholars in a single year.[17] Paden and Segal were among the ten Occidental students who participated in Crossroads Africa that year, a forerunner to the Peace Corps that later became a national program.[18]
In 1969, 42 students were suspended for peacefully protesting military recruiting on campus. One year later, faculty voted to suspend classes in the wake of the Kent State shootings and America's invasion of Cambodia. Subsequently, Oxy students wrote 7,000 letters to Washington D.C., protesting U.S. involvement in the war in Southeast Asia.[19] Occidental launched one of the country's first Upward Bound programs in 1966, aimed at increasing the number of low-income, underrepresented high school students who become the first in their family to go to college.[20]
Also in 1969, the school opened its first two co-ed dormitories, and two more followed a year later. In 1988, John Brooks Slaughter, formerly Chancellor of the University of Maryland,[21] became Occidental's first black president.[22] Building on faculty and student advocacy and a series of grants the college had received previously to increase the diversity of the Occidental student body, Slaughter led the process of creating a new mission statement that is still used today.[23] Also, Slaughter led the college's community outreach expansion with the creation of the Center for Volunteerism and Community Service, the predecessor for the current Center for Community Based Learning.[24]
Herrick Interfaith Center, built 1964, with Water Forms II in the foreground.
In November 1990, the college rededicated the campus' main chapel as the Herrick Memorial Chapel and Interfaith Center. The school also took down the crosses in the chapel in an attempt to "broaden Occidental's appeal among non-Christian students."[25]
The college received national scrutiny in 2014 when the U.S. Department of Educationnamed Occidental College as one of 55 higher education institutions under investigation "for possible violations of federal law over the handling of sexual violence and harassment."[28] In response to student and faculty outcry the college adopted a new interim sexual misconduct policy, hired a former assistant district attorney as a full-time, independent Title IX coordinator, and added a new 24-hour, 7-days-a-week telephone hotline. The school also created a permanent Sexual Misconduct Advisory Board made up of students, faculty, and staff.[29][30][31] Two years later, the investigation was concluded with the Office of Civil Rights finding that "the preponderance of the evidence does not support a conclusion that the College violated Title IX, except with respect to the issue of promptness in several cases during the 2012-13 school years."[32]
President Barack Obama attended Occidental for two years prior to transferring to Columbia University. In 2015, "birthers" falsely claimed that Obama's Occidental College transcript revealed he received financial aid as a foreign student from Indonesia after the resurgence of a fake news story from 2009.[33]
In July 2020, Harry J. Elam, Jr., formerly vice provost for undergraduate education and Drama professor at Stanford University, became Occidental's 16th president.[34] In August 2023, it was announced that he will retire in 2024 for health-related reasons.[35]
Campus
Thorne Hall
Architect Myron Hunt created the original campus master plan for Occidental's Eagle Rock campus in 1911. He structured the campus in a Mediterranean style, with covered walkways and tile roofs. The campus landscape was designed and developed by Beatrix Farrand in the late 1930s. All of the 19 buildings designed by Hunt remain in use today.[36][37]
The campus is noted for its outdoor Remsen Bird Amphitheater, also called the Remsen Bird Hillside Theatre, where between 1960 and 1996, a season of summer plays were performed, including Shakespeare plays and musicals.[38] However, financial cutbacks caused the theater department to end its summer festival programs.[38] Since 1996 the Occidental Children's Theater has instead performed there each summer.[39][40][38]
Occidental College was ranked as the sixth "Most Beautiful" campus by Newsweek in 2012.[41] The campus is home to a 1-megawatt ground-mounted solar array, which is the largest hillside array on an American college campus and the largest of its kind in Los Angeles.[42][43] The 4,886-panel installation was completed in Spring 2013 and inaugurated on the school's 126-year anniversary.[42]
Academics
There are 40 majors offered on campus (and nine minor-only programs, including Public Health, Linguistics, and Classical Studies)[44] and a 9:1 student–faculty ratio. The average class size is 18 students and most students take four classes per semester.[45] the most popular majors, based on 2021 graduates, were:[46]
Since 1908, Occidental has graduated ten Rhodes Scholars.[51] In U.S. News & World Report's 2023 rankings of American liberal arts colleges, Occidental is tied for 35th overall, 26th in "Top Performers in Social Mobility," 68th for "Best Value," and tied at 112th for "Economics."[52] The 2017 edition of the Fiske Guide to Colleges gave Occidental four-star ratings (out of five) in academics and quality of life. Princeton Review's The Best 381 Colleges 2017 Edition gave Occidental ratings of 91 (out of 100) in academics and quality of life and 95 in financial aid. In Forbes' 2019 ranking of America's Top Colleges, Occidental ranks 102nd out of 650 liberal arts colleges, universities and service academies.[53]Kiplinger's "Best College Values 2019" rankings places Occidental 58th among 149 liberal arts colleges.[54]
U.S. News deemed Occidental's admissions "more selective," with the class of 2020 acceptance rate being 37.3%.[60] Of those admitted submitting such data, 52% were in the top 10% of their high school class. The SAT 25th - 75th percentile scores were 1810–2120.[61] Of those admitted to the class of 2020, 50% identified as persons of color, and 13% of those admitted were international students.[62]
In 2023, it was announced by President Harry Elam that Occidental eliminated legacy preferences to the children of alumni in admissions.[63]
Core program
Divided in three parts, the Core Program was designed by the faculty of Occidental to unify and enhance the liberal arts education offered by the school. The Core Program requires students to achieve the following:
complete two first-year seminars (FYS), including a fall course to develop writing skills and a spring course to develop research skills;
complete a set of culture courses, including: a "US Diversity" course exploring minoritized perspectives of race, religion, ethnicity, class, gender, and/or sexuality; a course on one specific geographical, national, or cultural region of the world outside the U.S; and a "Global Connections" course on the literary, artistic, religious, philological, economic, ecological, ideological, political, social, intellectual, scientific, etc. interactions of at least two nations/regions;
complete a course that focuses on a historical period prior to the 1800s
complete a course focused on the theory or practice of fine arts
foreign language proficiency through 102-level
complete three math and science courses; one has to be a lab science
pass a senior-year comprehensive examination within the student's chosen major.[64]
First-year seminars (eight course credits in total) are the centerpiece of the Core Program. Students are given a variety of class choices to fulfill the seminar requirement and to satisfy the first-year writing requirement. The classes are designed to expose students to the rigor of college academics and to the four principles of the college mission—Excellence, Equity, Community, and Service.
The final portion of the Core Program requires students to pass a senior comprehensive examination in their chosen field. Comprehensive projects most often take the form of a senior thesis, but in some departments they are an examination, research presentation, creative project (such as a film, theatrical production, composition, etc.), or community-based project.
Exchange and cooperative joint degree programs
California Institute of Technology and Columbia University
Students at Occidental can take courses at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in nearby Pasadena free of charge. In addition, a 3-2 engineering program allows qualified students the opportunity to study at Occidental for three years, completing their undergraduate experience with an additional two years either at Caltech or Columbia University. At the end of the five years, the student receives two degrees, a Bachelor of Arts in the Combined Plan from Occidental and a Bachelor of Science in the selected field of engineering from the engineering school.
Art Center College of Design
Art majors at Occidental College can take courses at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, one of the country's top-ranked art schools. The program is not open to first-year students, but as with the Caltech exchange program, students receive full course credit. No additional tuition payments are required.
Columbia University School of Law
With a competitive GPA and LSAT scores, Columbia Law School admits students upon completion of their junior year at Occidental into its Accelerated Interdisciplinary Program in Legal Education. Admittance to the program enables students to earn a bachelor's degree from Occidental and a Juris Doctor (law) degree from Columbia in six years.
Keck Graduate Institute
Students who are interested in biotechnology and who become a biochemistry major maintaining a 3.2 GPA in the necessary courses will be guaranteed admission to the Keck master's in bioscience program. The Keck Graduate Institute is part of the Claremont Colleges consortium.
Student life
Samuelson is more commonly known as "the cooler" where students and faculty may go enjoy a meal or a quick snack.
At the beginning of every school year, freshmen participate in convocation, a formal ceremony welcoming new students to the college in which the faculty wear their full academic regalia and students don robes.[65] Founders Day is celebrated annually at the school on April 20, the day in 1887 when Occidental's incorporation papers were officially signed by the California Secretary of State.[66]
There are also themed-living communities which consist of the Multicultural Hall in Pauley (open to all years), all-women housing (Berkus House, named after alumnus Dave Berkus), Food Justice house, and several communities that support and uplift the experiences of students of color and LGBTQIA students.[67]
Media
The campus newspaper is The Occidental, an independent, student-run publication. It has been published continuously since 1893.[68]
KOXY is a student-run campus radio station, in operation in the 1960s and 1970s, and again since 2000.[69] It originally operated on the frequency 104.7 in and around campus from 1968 to 2009, but switched to only being available by webstream in 2009. KOXY sponsors several on-campus events.
In 2010, Occidental College launched a TV station called CatAList, launched by then-students Daniel Watson and Raffy Cortina;[70] Cortina was also the first Occidental student to be awarded with a Student Academy Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his short Bottled Up.[71] The station produces 20–30 minutes of student-run content weekly on a variety of topics.
Greek life
Occidental College's Greek Council consists of roughly eight members, bot sororites and fraternities.
Occidental is one of the five schools that founded the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) in 1915 and is currently a member of the SCIAC and NCAA Division III. Occidental features 21 varsity sports teams and a program of club sports and intramural competition. Approximately 25 percent of the student body participates in a varsity sports program.[72]
Occidental athletics date back to 1894, when the college helped organize the first intercollegiate athletic competition in Southern California.[74] Since then, Oxy has produced more than a dozen Olympians, world-record holders, and national champions, including 1935 national girls' tennis champion Pat Henry Yeomans '38, two-time diving gold medalist Sammy Lee '43, and pole vault silver medalist Bob Gutowski '57.
Occidental has long-standing football rivalries with Pomona College and Whittier College; the Tigers have played both the Sagehens and the Poets over 100 times. In 1982, the Occidental College football team had the rare opportunity for national prominence when, due to the 1982 National Football League strike, their game with San Diego was broadcast on national television. In 2017, Occidental cancelled the remainder of its football season due to lack of healthy players, as few as 30 in some cases. The team forfeited two games and was outscored in the other three 170–19. The Tigers played nine games in 2019, finishing with a 1–8 record. It was the final season for the Tigers football team. The school dropped football in 2020.[75]
In 2011, Occidental College lost a basketball game to Caltech with a score of 46 to 45 giving the Caltech Beavers their first conference win in 26 years and putting an end to their 310-game losing streak.[76]
In 2019, the Occidental Men's Basketball Team reached the SCIAC championship game, ultimately losing to Pomona Pitzer in the Tournament Championship game.[77]
^"Mission". Occidental College. Retrieved 30 March 2015.
^Wallace, Amy (Spring 1996). "Occidental College's Noble Experiment in Diversity". The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. The JBHE Foundation. 11 (11): 114–117. doi:10.2307/2963331. JSTOR2963331.
^McGuire, Diane Kostial; Fern, Lois (1 January 1982). Beatrix Jones Farrand (1872–1959) – Fifty Years of American Landscape Architecture. Dumbarton Oaks.
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