Porter College
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Benjamin F. Porter College, known colloquially as Porter College, is a
residential college A residential college is a division of a university that places academic activity in a community setting of students and faculty, usually at a residence and with shared meals, the college having a degree of autonomy and a federated relationship ...
at the
University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California, United States. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of C ...
. It is located on the lower west side of the university, south of
Kresge College Kresge College is one of the residential colleges that make up the University of California, Santa Cruz. Founded in 1971 and named after Sebastian Kresge, Kresge college is located on the western edge of the UCSC campus. Kresge is the sixth of t ...
and north of
Rachel Carson College Rachel Carson College is a residential college at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Named in honor of conservationist Rachel Carson, it is on the west side of campus, north of Oakes College and southeast of Porter College. The current pro ...
. The college was founded in 1969 as College Five and formally dedicated on November 21, 1981. On that day the college was given the motto ''Ars Longa, Vita Brevis'' (Art endures, Life is short), and a series of college symbols, including a faculty mace and a college bell, were inaugurated. The faculty of the college has had a distinguished leadership. The provosts of the college have included the writer James B. Hall, the painter and psychologist Pavel Machotka, filmmaker Eli Hollander and composer
David Cope David Howell Cope (May 17, 1941 – May 4, 2025) was an American author, composer, scientist, and Dickerson Professor of Music at UC Santa Cruz. His primary area of research involved artificial intelligence and music; he wrote programs and algo ...
. In early years, the college community was famous for Friday-afternoon sherry hours and afternoon croquet matches on the
quad QUaD, an acronym for QUEST at DASI, was a ground-based cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization experiment at the South Pole. QUEST (Q and U Extragalactic Sub-mm Telescope) was the original name attributed to the bolometer detector instrume ...
, suggesting that "l'esprit de Santa Cruz" was not far from that of
Oxbridge Oxbridge is a portmanteau of the University of Oxford, Universities of Oxford and University of Cambridge, Cambridge, the two oldest, wealthiest, and most prestigious universities in the United Kingdom. The term is used to refer to them collect ...
.


Description

Situated on a meadow overlooking the
Monterey Bay Monterey Bay is a bay of the Pacific Ocean located on the coast of the U.S. state of California, south of the San Francisco Bay Area. San Francisco itself is further north along the coast, by about 75 miles (120 km), accessible via California S ...
, Porter's original focus was on the visual and performing arts with a unique college major in aesthetic studies (including areas like criticism, creative writing, film, photography and crafts which were not covered by the more traditional boards of study). Porter has long been a center for fine and performing arts. The college complex includes three active galleries, the History of Art and Visual Culture department, and various spaces in the complex have frequently been used for musical, theatrical, and dance performances. It also features a koi pond and cherry tree garden. Although designed as a traditional dormitory with a centralized dining hall, Porter soon gained a reputation befitting their artistic background by staging outrageously
bohemian Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to: *Anything of or relating to Bohemia Culture and arts * Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, originally practised by 19th–20th century European and American artists and writers. * Bohemian style, a ...
parties, including
Halloween Halloween, or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve), is a celebration geography of Halloween, observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christianity, Western Christian f ...
, "Step on My Face", "The End" (initially understood as "The End of the World," but also in response to the changing of the name of the college from College Five to Porter, later revised to "The End of the School Year," or "The Edge of the World," and now "Porterpalooza"), and, for a time, a parodistic Prom ("for all those who missed their High School Proms"). "Queer Fashion Show," formerly "Alternative Fashion Show" is a current annual program featuring student made fashion and a variety show. Porter is now also the home to several apartment buildings that are available to second year students and upper classmen. Currently, Freshmen and new Transfer students are not allowed to apply to live in the Porter Apartments. While personnel surveillance is strong in the dormitory and adjoining quad area, rarely do CSOs or RAs patrol the Porter Meadow. Consequently, the Porter meadow is the primary spot for students smoking, drinking, or making noise in moderate to large groups.


Traditions

In the same vein, many students from this college take part in the
First Rain First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...
yearly tradition, which is celebrated when the first rain of the Fall quarter falls. Students run naked through all colleges, much to the amusement of other students, to return to Porter College for warm showers. This tradition may have developed from a naked "walkabout" where roughly 50 Porterians and students from Kresge and (then) College 8 walked the colleges naked in October 1989 in part to relieve the stress of the
1989 Loma Prieta earthquake On October 17, 1989, at 5:04 p.m. Pacific Time Zone, PST, the Loma Prieta earthquake occurred at the Central Coast (California), Central Coast of California. The shock was centered in The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park in Santa Cruz Cou ...
. The quake cancelled classes for days and UCSC students were left with little to do for distraction. Though Porter College's reputation is associated with outrageous parties, bohemian lifestyles, and uninhibited artistic expression, presently the atmosphere at the college is much more subdued than in the past. Today, there are fewer Art majors at UCSC and thus fewer affiliated with Porter than in its earlier days. UCSC has also forced this break from reputation through stricter regulation and disciplinary action involving event planning, noise, lewdness, and drug policies. Like all colleges of UC Santa Cruz, these regulations are enforced by Coordinators for Residential Education (CREs), Residential Advisors (RAs), and Campus Security Officers (CSO). CREs live in the dormitory buildings and are responsible for discipline following campus policy violations as well as offering assistance and guidance to Porter students. RAs, college students living in the dorms, and CSOs, trained and hired personnel, patrol Porter College offering assistance in emergencies or writing referrals for policy violation.


Transfer Community

Porter College is also home to the Transfer Community. Using sections of both the large A and B buildings, the Transfer Community theme is home to nearly all transfer students who live on campus, regardless of college affiliation. Like most residential halls, the standard room option is a triple room with age-appropriate roommates. The addition of the Transfer Community has also greatly changed the culture and traditional arts-focus of Porter College as most of the transfer students are affiliated with other colleges.


Landmarks

Just to the south of Porter is a signature campus art piece, a large red abstract sculpture which has been endlessly portrayed on UCSC's promotional literature. It is known on campus as "The Squiggle," "The Flying
IUD An intrauterine device (IUD), also known as an intrauterine contraceptive device (IUCD or ICD) or coil, is a small, often T-shaped birth control device that is inserted into the uterus to prevent pregnancy. IUDs are a form of long-acting rever ...
" and "The Porter Wave" in official literature, but is officially "Untitled." Students often gather at this sculpture to play guitar, to watch the sunset, or to even drum on the sculpture itself. On Sundays students gather to participate in a mass Live-Action Role Playing, or LARPING. Nearby the college is Empire Cave (and others in Cave Gulch, across Empire Grade from the campus) and Porter Meadow, which are popular local attractions. Empire Cave is notable for being the endemic stomping grounds of the Empire Cave Pseudoscorpion, the population of these arachnids being so small and isolated as to be primarily threatened by intrepid explorers, foolhardy party-goers, and
psychedelic Psychedelics are a subclass of hallucinogenic drugs whose primary effect is to trigger non-ordinary mental states (known as psychedelic experiences or "trips") and a perceived "expansion of consciousness". Also referred to as classic halluci ...
nomads Nomads are communities without fixed habitation who regularly move to and from areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, Nomadic pastoralism, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and Merchant, trader nomads. In the twentieth century, ...
looking for a " trip." The Porter Dining Hall is one of five dining halls on campus and is known to host events throughout the year. Fridays during the hot months of the year, Porter hosts its "Patio Party", inviting students across campus to enjoy BBQ, "mocktails" and music.


Dining

The closest
dining hall A cafeteria, called canteen outside the U.S., is a type of food service location in which there is little or no waiting staff table service, whether in a restaurant or within an institution such as a large office building or school; a schoo ...
is the Kresge/Porter dining hall in Porter College, with the Porter Market (previously known as the Hungry Slug, and before that a worker's collective called Sluggo's Pizza) adjacent to the dining hall. The servery offers chef-customized traditional style entrees, signature salads, and pizzas. The dining hall is well known for having a variety of vegetarian and vegan options and also has a wonderful outside deck with a view of the adjacent Porter meadow and the Monterey Bay ocean view.


References


External links


Porter College home pageUC Santa Cruz home page

Photographs and architectural drawings of Porter College from the UC Santa Cruz Library's Digital Collections
{{University of California, Santa Cruz University of California, Santa Cruz colleges