ABSTRACT
Educational administrator Clark Kerr's belief in the connection between social science theory and practical programs for economic development led him to think that University of California (UC) Irvine could be a new kind of land-grant institution. Kerr understood that California's economy and its landscape had changed profoundly in the postwar period. Industry based on the physical sciences and engineering overshadowed agriculture, and suburbanization overtook former ranches and groves. The 1950s witnessed dramatic changes in the UC that were related to massive demographic and economic shifts in the state. UC Irvine would attempt to redefine the land-grant tradition, especially by incorporating the social sciences. From the beginning of his chancellorship, Daniel Aldrich was thinking about specific programs that might characterize an updated land-grant university for economic development. The most dramatic proposals actually enacted at Irvine, however, involved social sciences rather than physical sciences.
