In Photos Rausser College of Natural Resources at 50

July 2024 officially marks 50 years since the College of Natural Resources was founded at UC Berkeley.

While we trace our roots back to the formation of the College of Agriculture in 1868, the College of Natural Resources was formed in 1974 when the leaders of the UC Berkeley School of Forestry and Conservation and College of Agriculture agreed to merge.

In honor of this milestone, we combed our archives for photos that offer a look back at the College through the decades.

Want to share a photo from your time as a student? Enter our 50th anniversary photo contest for your chance to win prizes and have your work featured by Rausser College.

Left: The 1975 course catalog for the College of Natural Resources. Top Right: Conservation of Natural Resource program graduates with program co-founder Arnold Schultz in 1977. Bottom: Lauran Hawker (left), Paul Gersper, and Nancy Horner '77. Photos from Rausser College archives (catalog) and Courtesy of Lauran Hawker.
Students enrolled in the College's Coordinated Program in Dietetics photos in 1976 (left) and 1977. Photos from Rausser College archives.
Lisa Pagan, ’92 CRS, proudly shows off the College t-shirt she won during welcome week in 1991. Photo by Patricia Remencuis.
Left: Soil expert Ron Amundson, a professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management (ESPM), circa 1995. Right: Graduate student Chris Campbell, PhD '00 ESPM, using probes to measure in situ water content in the soil outside Hilgard Hall circa 1998. Photos by Jane Scherr (Amundson) and Peg Skopinski (Campbell).
Clockwise from top left: A student in Professor Don Kaplan's freshman seminar takes a closer look at a printout from the Human Genome Project circa 2001. Jan Washburn (at microscope), PhD '84 Entomology, and Professor Loy Volkman analyze viral pathogenesis in a pest insect circa 1997. Steve Ruzin, director of the Biological Imaging Facility, during Cal Day circa 1992. Photos by Peg Skopinski (Volkman), David Smith (Ruzin) and from the Rausser College Archives (Kaplan).
Left: Professor Carolyn Merchant discusses her work on "partnership ethics" at a 1998 alumni event that honored her and Professor Emeritus Arnold Schultz. Right: Conservation and Resource Studies students listen to Environmentalist David Brower, founder of the Earth Island Institute, at a noontime event in 1992. Photo by Peg Skopinski (Merchant and Schultz) and from Rausser College Archives.
Left: Adjunct professor Athanasios "Sakis" Theologis was a pioneering plant physiologist who isolated the gene that controls ripening in tomatoes and helped lead the global effort to sequence the chromosome for Arabidopsis thaliana. Right: Postdoctoral scientist Yuechen Wan (left) and Cooperative Extension professor Peggy Lemaux harvest kernels from genetically engineered barley plants at the Plant Gene Expression Center in Albany, CA, circa 1994. Photos by Jack Dykinga.
Left: Professors Vincent Resh (second from left) and Brent Mishler (far right) pause with two undergrads during a class field trip to the rainforest in Moorea, French Polynesia during the Biology and Geomorphology of Tropical Islands circa 2001. Right: Professor John Battles and then-undergrad Rishiraj Das at Blodgett Forest in the late ’90s. Photos by Peg Skorpinski (Battles) and College Archives (Resh).
Clockwise from left: Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology (NST) professor Len Bjeldanes (in black), endocrinology graduate student Carolyn Cover, Professor Gary Firestone, and graduate student Grace H.F. Chang discuss the DNA sequence of a gene regulated by 13C in 1998. Graduate Student Instructor Yi Lam, PhD '01 Nutrition, examines foci formation in cell cultures that the same year. Professor Fernando Viteri (wearing glasses) confirms then-doctoral student Mitch Knutson's analysis of ethane and pentane levels in a breath sample circa 2001. Photos by Peg Skorpinski (Bjeldanes and Viteri) and from College Archives (Lam).
From left: Professor Allen Goldstein (at computer) and graduate student Mark Lamanna developed a gas chromatograph to measure hydrocarbon concentrations in the air a few meters above the tops of trees circa 1997. Researchers in the Center for the Assessment and Monitoring of Forest and Environmental Resources use geospatial technologies to monitor environmental change circa 1998. Photos by Peg Skopinski (Goldstein) and from College Archives (CAMFER).
Forestry lecturer Caroll B. Williams (pictured in 1995) was the first Black American to earn a PhD in forestry and entomology, and the first Black forester with a doctorate to work for the U.S. Forest Service. Photo by Kathy Sloane.
From Left: Professor Lewis Feldman during the Botany portion of a Biology 1B lecture circa 2001. Professor Whendee Silver speaks with students during class that same year. Photos by from College Archives.
From left: Professor Barbara Allen-Diaz prepares to measure water quality in runoff on Contra Costa County grassland circa 1997. Professor Norman Pace aboard the research vessel Alvin that same year. Photos by James Bartoleme (Allen-Diaz) and David Lane (Pace).
Clockwise from left: Professor Alain de Janvry (blue shirt) discusses the reliability of water delivery with officials from the World Bank and the Punjab Irrigation and Power Department circa 1998. Cooperative Extension specialist Joanne Ikeda (wearing necklace) developed a nutrition program for Vietnamese women with help from assistant Loan Pham, left, and postgraduate researcher Kim Nguyen in 1996. Professor Miguel Altieri identifies insects found in the Gill Tract during the "Urban Agriculture Field Day" in 1997. Photos by Jane Scherr (Ikeda and Altieri) and College Archives (de Janvry).
Cooperative Extension professor Vernard Lewis and students from McClymonds High School in West Oakland view the “City Bugs” website in the school's Interactive University Lab in 1998. Photo by Peg Skopinski.

Read more stories commemorating the 50th anniversary of UC Berkeley's College of Natural Resources on our website or share your memories by entering our photo contest!