UCLA History

March 28, 1930

Westwood Campus Dedication

On March 28, 1930, an internationally prominent group of academics gathered to dedicate the Westwood campus of the University of California at Los Angeles. The significance of the day, marking another step on UCLA's path to independence from the UC campus at Berkeley, was not lost on area newspaper writers.

The story made the cover of the Los Angeles Times, but perhaps the most prophetic story came from the pen of student Charles Olton ’31. “Today a leading university of the world ... will be consecrated to its task of educating the youth of today and of tomorrow,” wrote Olton for the California Daily Bruin.

More than 5,000 people traveled to Westwood to witness the dedication ceremonies. Among the gathered scholars were UC regents, President William Wallace Campbell, Vice President and Comptroller Robert Gordon Sproul, Nobel Prize for Physics recipient Nathaniel Comfort, J. Arthur Thomson of Aberdeen University in Scotland and Dean Blyth Webster of St. Andrew's University in Scotland.

Top image: Among the delegates attending the dedication of UCLA's new campus: UC President William Wallace Campbell (center, holding book), Vice President and Comptroller Robert Gordon Sproul (on Campbell's right) and Regent Edward A. Dickson (second from far right).

Bottom image: The Westwood campus in 1930.

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