Already ranked as a category 1 research university by the Carnegie Commission, UCSB is one of 61 elected members of the prestigious Association of American Universities. Recognized as a premier research institution, it ranks in the top two in research excellence and productivity among American public institutions. At UCSB, living and learning are deeply intertwined. Extraordinarily rich in people and programs, the campus remains small enough for students to enjoy an intensely personal educational experience. It has an enrollment of an average of 18,500 students16,000 of them undergraduatesand a still-expanding physical plant that includes new buildings for engineering, the humanities, social sciences, the sciences, and recreation.
Bicycles are the preferred mode of transportation.
Once a small independent teachers' college, UCSB is today an integral part of the nine-campus University of California system. The university has nearly 7,500 full-time faculty members and some 165,000 students, more than 90 percent of them Californians. Responsibility for governing the system is vested in a corporate board of 26 gubernatorially appointed and elected members known as The Regents of the University of California. The Regents share authority with the University president, the chancellor of each campus, and the Academic Senate, representing the faculty. The latter includes 34 Nobel laureates, more than 900 Guggenheim fellows, and numerous members of national and international academic honor societies.