In the 1960s, a small team of innovators gathered on a stunning sweep of land overlooking the California coast. They envisioned a new and different kind of university—one that could reinvent public higher education in the United States. Through this oral history of the University of California, Santa Cruz, we hear first-person accounts of the campus’s evolution, from the origins of an audacious dream through the sea changes of five decades. More than two hundred narrators and a trove of archival images contribute to this dynamic, nuanced account. Today, UC Santa Cruz is a leading research university with experimental roots. This is the story of what was learned, what was lost, and what has grown along the way.

The photos, oral history clips, videos, posters, and other archival objects featured in this digital exhibit supplement the printed book Seeds of Something Different: An Oral History of the University of California, Santa Cruz, edited and published by the UCSC Library's Regional History Project. This site also serves as a gateway to the rich archival collections available to the interested researcher at the Library's Special Collections & Archives and beyond. The site includes a link through which those who want to contribute stories, photos, and other archival material documenting UCSC's history may submit those materials for curation.