About
Kresge was the sixth college established at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Founded in 1971, it was designed with concepts of collaboration and participatory democracy at the core of its identity.
At Kresge College, we welcome students from all backgrounds to our home in the redwoods, and we strive to give them a small-college learning experience that prioritizes personal and intellectual growth, practical experience, and a sense of community. Our curriculum enables students to live and learn with intention and purpose, to attend to the natural world around them, and to work creatively to solve pressing social, political, and ecological problems.
Kresge Statement of Community Ethics
Kresge College, acknowledging that difference is integral to its community of students, staff and faculty, upholds the ideals of cultural, ethnic, sexual, political and religious diversity. Kresge realizes that freedom to decide and to express one’s opinion and beliefs is of the utmost importance. However, attitudes of disrespect or intolerance of the beliefs, ideas, lifestyles or personhood of another are not conducive to the academic and social environment Kresge strives to create. Freedom of expression does not mean freedom to violate others’ rights or cause harm to any individual or group of individuals. Acts of oppression, such as, but not limited to racism, sexism, and homophobia, violate mutual respect and undermine community trust. We, the Kresge community, along with the University, will not accept or tolerate such acts and will, with due process, hold accountable those whose actions are not in accordance with our expressed ideals. In choosing to be affiliated with Kresge, we affirm these ideals and make a personal commitment to practice them in our daily lives.
— Kresge College Students, 1988
Faculty and Campus Partners
Kresge’s faculty includes poets, writers, biologists, filmmakers, journalists, anthropologists, political philosophers, historians, ethnomusicologists, dramaturges, and education specialists. Kresge also has many UCSC Senate Faculty affiliates and works closely with a number of key campus partners, including the UCSC Campus Natural Reserve, the Institute of the Arts and Sciences, the Creative/Critical Writing Concentration in Literature, and the newly established Center for Reimagining Leadership. And the college has a rich tradition of supporting Transfer students through our collaborations with STARRS (Services for Transfer, Re-entry, and Resilient Scholars).
College Programming and Student Organizations
Kresge’s strong sense of community permeates student life, and there are many ways of getting involved in our community. Kresge Parliament offers opportunities for student government, community service, and activism in a setting that emphasizes participatory democracy. The Kresge Garden Co-Op provides a community space where students empower themselves to learn how to grow their own food from seed, dig beds, and create a functional compost system. City on a Hill Press, which covers issues affecting the student population and the Santa Cruz community, is produced by and for UCSC students. TWANAS Communities of Color and Native American Students Press is one of the oldest student-run magazines at UCSC and is dedicated to providing a media outlet for students of color to write about issues affecting students of color. And for three decades, Kresge Presents Pride has been the proud host of UCSC’s LGBTQIA+ Pride celebration every May.
The Kresge Programs Office is your home base for extracurricular involvement and hosts social activities throughout the year, including de-stress events (often with therapy dogs), arts & crafts opportunities, movie nights, game nights, casino nights, and an array of workshops. Writers House is a themed housing floor and accompanying speaker series that brings poets, novelists, journalists, and other writers to Kresge. Kresge’s Media & Society series presents lectures and public conversations on the role of media and popular culture in contemporary society, and now partners with City on a Hill Press to host events with print, digital, TV, and radio journalists.