Housing at the University of California, Berkeley, includes student housing facilities run by the office of Residential and Student Service Programs (RSSP). Housing is also offered by off-campus entities such as fraternities and sororities and the Berkeley Student Cooperative (BSC).
History
Historically, the University of California adhered to the traditions of the great German research universities, and as part of that, largely refrained from providing housing for students for over 80 years after its 1868 founding. By the fall of 1954, only 4.8% of UC Berkeley students were housed in university-operated residence halls, while the equivalent number at archrival Stanford University was 36.0%. Nearly all the student body and some of the faculty had to fend for themselves in seeking space in privately operated rooming houses in surrounding cities, many of which were in very poor condition.
When Clark Kerr became the first chancellor of UC Berkeley in 1952, he became aware of a tacit understanding under which the university had traditionally refrained from competing against privately operated housing and dining facilities, and that conservative members of the Board of Regents had traditionally regarded university-operated housing as tantamount to "socialism." To compete against Stanford, the Ivy League, and the Big Ten for the brightest American students, Kerr worked to shift UC Berkeley from the German model to the English model in which universities take responsibility for providing and operating student housing. In August 1956, he secured approval from the Board of Regents of a long-range development plan which included the construction of several high-rise residence halls.
University housing and dining facilities
Residence Halls
The high-rise buildings of Units 1 (1960), 2 (1960), and 3 (1964) were designed by John Carl Warnecke; each unit as first completed in the 1960s had four tall buildings surrounding a courtyard with common facilities, including a ground-level dining area above a mail room, recreation room, and office structure. Since their completion, new residential buildings have been added and the dining commons for Units 1 and 2 have been consolidated in the block separating the two complexes. Some of the newest residence hall buildings are at Units 1, 2, and 3.
Each nine-story building is named after alumni or faculty and were originally designed for single-sex occupancy and configured with a ground floor lobby and recreation room. Each room on the floor was a double or triple occupancy.
Units 1, 2, and 3 have since become co-ed although there are single-sex floors in many of the buildings. As a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, additional cross bracing was added to the exteriors of the older highrise Unit 1 and 2 buildings.
Selected residence halls host Theme Programs, where students with common identities and interests can live together; students who choose to live in Theme Program communities are required to enroll in theme-specific courses. Current theme programs and locations include:
Unit 1
The six main buildings of Unit 1 (completed in 1960) are located at 2650 Durant Avenue. These include the four original highrise buildings with eight residential floors each: Cheney, Deutsch, Freeborn, and Putnam; each floor has a mixture of double and triple rooms with a shared, communal bathroom, and each building has a total of approximately 230 beds. In addition, there are the newer Christian and Slottman Halls (completed in 2005), which house two-bedroom mini-suites with a shared bathroom for four people per suite. The unit's primary dining hall is Crossroads, which it shares with Unit 2. Underneath the central quad, there is an exercise room and a computer lab.
Unit 2
The main buildings of Unit 2 (completed in 1960) are located at 2650 Haste Street. It consists of the original four highrise buildings: Cunningham, Davidson, Ehrman, and Griffiths Halls, sharing the same general configuration as Unit 1 (eight residential floors with double and triple rooms and a total of approximately 230 beds each), as well as the newer Towle Hall with two-bedroom, four-person mini-suites, and the Wada Hall apartments, both completed in 2005. The unit's primary dining hall is Crossroads, which it shares with Unit 1. Like Unit 1, Unit 2 has an exercise room and computer lab underground.