Kresge College
Kresge College Academic Center - Suite 2202
831-459-2071
https://kresge.ucsc.edu
Academic Emphasis
Kresge was the sixth college to be built on the UC Santa Cruz campus. The college was founded on principles of participatory democracy and experiential education, with a set of core values that remain integral to its academic and co-curricular activities and student organizations: creativity, sustainability, collaboration.
Kresge College is a living-learning community with a distinctive legacy of experimental and interdisciplinary education that emphasizes participatory learning, hands-on experience, and collaborative academic inquiry that transcends the walls of traditional classrooms. Kresge’s curriculum is designed to enable students to live and learn with intention and purpose, to attend to the natural world around them, and to work creatively to solve pressing social, political, and ecological problems and facilitate stewardship of a just and sustainable society. Kresge’s courses allow students to fulfill general education requirements while participating in practicums and small seminars taught by dedicated and imaginative faculty.
All entering first-year students enroll in KRSG 1: Academic Literacy and Ethos, a fall-quarter seminar that teaches foundational concepts for intellectual and personal development in an academic community.
The rest of Kresge’s curriculum consists of 2- and 3-credit practice-oriented courses, including small, experiential-learning seminars like Power of Filmmaking (KRSG 2), Natural History Practicum (KRSG 3), Creative Writing (KRSG 65), and Theater Arts for Public Speaking (KRSG 30), as well as courses that help students design their college experience to take full advantage of being at UCSC, like Learning With Intention and Purpose (KRSG 100). KRSG 51 and 52 are practicums for City on a Hill Press, the campus newspaper.
Kresge also offers a number of courses designed specifically for transfer students, including Successful Transfer to the Research University (KRSG 25) and STARRS Internship (KRSG 102), a practicum course that guides students through a project-oriented internship with Services for Transfer, Re-entry, and Resilient Scholars.
Finally, Kresge has begun a new experimental seminar series called Learn to Love Reading Again, anchored by three principles: we read for the sake of reading, not for a test; we engage in discussion with peers to deepen our insight; and we read on paper. Reading Marx (KRSG 10) is the first seminar in the series.
As part of Kresge’s commitment to participatory democracy, Kresge’s provost and Kresge Parliament work together to further develop this curriculum.
Orientation
All new frosh and transfer students who start in fall quarter are required to enroll in one of two online orientation courses. Frosh will enroll in KRSG 1A, Introduction to University Life and Learning. Transfer students will enroll in KRSG 1T, Introduction to Research Universities and the Liberal Arts. KRSG 1A and KRSG 1T integrate introductions to academic skills with the online Slug Orientation process and begin to prepare students for their studies at UC Santa Cruz.
KRSG 1A Introduction to University Life and Learning (1 credit)
Offered online in summer quarter
KRSG 1T Introduction to Research
Core Course
KRSG 1 Academic Literacy and Ethos
Offered in fall quarter
Offered to entering frosh, Kresge’s “Core” course, KRSG 1, Academic Literacy and Ethos, teaches foundational practices for intellectual and personal development in an academic community—analysis, critical thinking, metacognition, engagement with others across difference, and self-efficacy—through a thematic focus on the power of attention to transform the way we live and learn. The course is framed by three overarching questions: Why do I learn? How do I learn? And From whom can I learn? Through a variety of texts and assignments, students reflect on the purpose of their education at UCSC; how to approach learning intentionally, with curiosity and presence; and how to learn with and from others. Midway through the quarter, each student interviews an elder (a family member, teacher, or mentor) about a key learning experience in that person’s life and creates an oral history from that interview. Then, for the Capstone Creative Project, the student transforms that oral history into a creative genre—a short documentary, graphic novel, storybook, poem, etc.—to tell their elder’s story in a new way. Throughout, students continually reflect on the course’s three overarching questions. In addition to their regular seminar, students also attend evening plenaries a few times over the quarter, coming together in larger groups for events related to the themes of the course.
All students admitted as frosh are required to complete the Core Course. Students admitted as transfer students with sophomore standing or above (45 or more credits in transfer) are exempt from the Core Course requirement.
Visit Kresge Core Course for additional information.
College Advising
kresgeadvising@ucsc.edu
Phone: 831-459-2071
Kresge has a team of three academic advisors who work collaboratively with students to support them as they explore majors, navigate university policy, clarify academic goals, and develop strategies for success. Kresge’s advisors serve as advocates for students who are experiencing institutional barriers to their success, while also upholding university policy when necessary.
Kresge’s advising staff stays up-to-date on new research and best practices in the wider academic advising community. They celebrate and reflect the diversity of the Kresge student body and seek to model the goal of being lifelong learners.
College advisors work with students from the period of Summer Orientation and Welcome Week through graduation, although much of the interaction is concentrated in the student’s first year or two on campus, before they’ve declared a major. Students come to the College Office with all of their questions, and college advisors and front desk staff frequently facilitate connections with other campus resources as appropriate.
In addition to one-on-one in-person and virtual advising, Kresge’s advisors collaborate with the provost, Residence Life office, and campuswide academic and student support services to offer holistic programming. Past workshops have covered topics such as options for summer enrollment, how to choose a major, and finding family away from home.
Other Academic Programs
Kresge is a rich and multidimensional community, uniquely oriented toward creative communication, participatory democracy, and ecological ethics and sustainability.
Kresge is home to a number of co-curricular programs and activities that complement and enhance academic education by enabling learning outside a classroom setting. Kresge’s Media & Society series presents lectures and public conversations on the role of media and popular culture in contemporary society, and partners with City on a Hill Press to host events with print, digital, TV, and radio journalists. Writers House is a themed housing floor and accompanying speaker series that brings poets, novelists, journalists, and other writers to Kresge.
The Kresge Garden Co-Op provides a community space where students empower themselves to learn how to grow their own food from seed, dig beds, and create a functional compost system. City on a Hill Press, which covers issues affecting the student population and the Santa Cruz community, is produced by and for UCSC students. TWANAS Communities of Color and Native American Students Press is one of the oldest student-run magazines at UCSC and is dedicated to providing a media outlet for students of color to write about issues affecting students of color. And Kresge Parliament offers opportunities for student government, community service, and activism in a setting that emphasizes participatory democracy.