Portal:California/Selected article/13

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A view of the entire campus from Box Springs Mountain

The University of California, Riverside, commonly known as UCR or UC Riverside, is a public research university and one of 10 campuses of the University of California system. The main campus sits on 1,200 acres (486 ha) in a suburban district of Riverside, California, with a branch campus of 20 acres (8 ha) in Palm Desert. Founded in 1907 as the UC Citrus Experiment Station, Riverside pioneered research in biological pest control and the use of growth regulators responsible for extending the citrus growing season in California from four to nine months. Some of the world's most important research collections on citrus diversity and entomology, as well as photography, are located at Riverside.

UCR's undergraduate College of Letters and Science opened in 1954. The Regents of the University of California declared UCR a general campus of the system in 1959, and graduate students were admitted in 1961. The campus is projected to grow to an enrollment of 21,000 students by 2015. To accommodate this growth, more than $730 million has been invested in new construction projects since 1999. Plans are underway to open a medical school—California's first new one in 40 years—by 2012.