ayed around a quadrangular courtyard on the 400 acre (1.6 km²) campus. The first undergraduate classes on the new campus were held in 1929 with 5,500 students. In 1933, after further lobbying by alumni, faculty, administration and community leaders, UCLA was permitted to award the master's degree, and in 1936, the doctorate, against continued resistance from UC Berkeley.[30]

islature to enable the school to become the second University of California campus, after UC Berkeley. They met resistance from UC Berkeley alumni, Northern California members of the state legislature, and Benjamin Ide Wheeler, President of the University of California from 1899 to 1919, who were all vigorously opposed to the idea of a southern campus. However, David Prescott Barrows, the new President of the University of California, did not share Wheeler's objections. On May 23, 1919, the Southern Californians' efforts were rewarded when Governor William D. Stephens signed Assembly Bill 626 into law, which merged the Los Angeles Normal School with the University of California as the Southern Branch of the University of California. The same legislation added its general undergraduate program, the College of Letters and Science.[28] The Southern Branch campus opened on September 15 of that year, offering two-year undergraduate programs to 250 Letters and Science students and 1,250 students in the Teachers College, under Moore's continued direction.


University of California, Southern Branch's Vermont Campus, 1922.
Under University of California President William Wallace Campbell, enrollment at the Southern Branch expanded so rapidly that by the mid-1920s the institution was outgrowing the 25 acre Vermont Avenue location. The Regents conducted a search for a new location and announced their selection of the so-called "Beverly Site"—just west of Beverly Hills—on March 21, 1925 edging out the panoramic hills of the still-empty Palos Verdes Peninsula. After the athletic teams entered the Pacific Coast conference in 1926, the Southern Branch student council adopted the nickname "Bruins," a name offered by the student council at UC Berkeley.[29] In 1927, the Regents renamed the Southern Branch the "University of California at Los Angeles" (the word "at" was officially replaced by a comma in 1958, in line with other UC campuses). In the same year, the state broke ground in Westwood on land sold for $1 million, less than one-third its value, by real estate developers Edwin and Harold Janss, for whom the Janss Steps are named.[27]
The original four buildings were the College Library, Royce Hall, the Physics-Biology Building, and the Chemistry Building (now Powell Library, Royce Hall, the Humanities Building, and Haines Hall, respectively), arrayed around a quadrangular courtyard on the 400 acre (1.6 km²) campus. The first undergraduate classes on the new campus were held in 1929 with 5,500 students. In 1933, after further lobbying by alumni, faculty, administration and community leaders, UCLA was permitted to award the master's degree, and in 1936, the doctorate, against continued resistance from UC Berkeley.[30]
A timeline of the history can be found on its website,[31] as well as a published book.[32]
Maturity as a university[edit]
UCLA was formally elevated to co-equal status with UC Berkeley in 1951, when Raymond B. Allen was named as its first chancellor. Previously, the school's chief executive had been the provost. The appointment of Franklin David Murphy to the position of Chancellor in 1960 helped to spark an era of tremendous growth of facilities and faculty honors. By the end of the decade, UCLA had achieved distinction in a wide range of subjects. This era also secured UCLA's position as a proper university in its own right and not simply a branch of the UC system. This change is exemplified by an incident involving Chancellor Murphy, which was described by him later on:
"I picked up the telephone and called in from somewhere, and the phone operator said, 'University of California.' And I said, 'Is this Berkeley?' She said, 'No.' I said, 'Well, who have I gotten to?' 'UCLA.' I said, 'Why didn't you say UCLA?' 'Oh,' she said, 'we're instructed to say University of California.' So the next morning I went to the office and wrote a memo; I said, 'Will you please instruct the operators, as of noon today, when they answer the phone to say, "UCLA."' And they said, 'You know they won't like it at Berkeley.' And I said, 'Well, let's just see. There are a few things maybe we ca