About Eleanor Roosevelt College
Eleanor Roosevelt College (ERC) is one of the seven undergraduate colleges at the University of California, San Diego. Founded in 1988, ERC currently has 5,000 undergraduate students enrolled in all majors at UCSD. As with the other colleges at UC San Diego, ERC is led by its own provost and has deans of student affairs, residence life, academic advising, and a director of a general education writing program, the Making of the Modern World.
The college system at UC San Diego combines the intimacy of a small institution with the intellectual breadth and resources of a large research university. Founded in 1988 as UC San Diego’s Fifth College, Eleanor Roosevelt College was named in 1994 for the former first lady, delegate to the United Nations, chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights, and member of the Peace Corps Advisory Council.
- General Education: The Making of the Modern World program, pioneered in 1988, still defines the college academic experience for the class entering twenty years later.
- International Engagement: Over one-third of ERC students study abroad.
- Student Involvement: Student organizations and activities such as student Council, Programming at ERC, Rock ‘N Roosevelt, the Spring Semi-Formal) are a continuing part of ERC student life.
ERC’s mission is to:
- Serve students interested in pursuing academic excellence, establishing the groundwork for success in their chosen careers or graduate study, and becoming lifelong learners and effective citizens.
- Foster the idea of an education in the liberal arts and sciences that develops intellectual capacities and expands general knowledge by exposing students to a variety of disciplines.
- Offer an academic foundation that is suitable for all majors, whether in the natural or applied sciences, the social sciences, or the humanities and the arts, and that prepares students for opportunities to study and conduct research with UC San Diego faculty and scholars.
- Feature dimensions of international understanding and cultural diversity in the general education curriculum and in co-curricular programming.
- Provide a community where students are valued and respected, where they are challenged and helped to succeed, and where they can develop a strong sense of belonging and confidence about their roles in society.
Eleanor Roosevelt College’s Land Acknowledgement
Eleanor Roosevelt College’s mission is to deepen human connections by exploring the evolution of our global world. We recognize that the College’s mission can only be sustained in a context of transparency, reconciliation and honesty. This statement therefore acknowledge that the college and University are historically connected to the oppression of the indigenous people in what is now California and Mexico. We recognizes that the University is located on the ancestral land of the Kumeyaay Nation, the indigenous people of this region, who lived and continue to live here long before their land was colonized and appropriated.
