A true original

Before the city of Irvine was founded, before a single classroom had opened its doors and long before the name "UC Irvine" carried any weight in the academic world, a young neurobiologist took a gamble on a bold idea. That man was James McGaugh, who would become not only a founding faculty member of the University of California, Irvine, but one of the essential architects of the university.

In 1964, the UC system was expanding, and Edward Steinhaus - a quiet visionary from UC Berkeley who'd been lured south to the nascent Irvine campus - was determined to build something new: a school of biological sciences that would reject the traditional taxonomy-based structure of zoology, botany and bacteriology in favor of one based on levels of analysis. Psychobiology, organismic biology, molecular and cell biology, and population and environmental biology would form the foundation. "It was the first school of biological sciences to do that," McGaugh recalls. "And now throughout the country, that's the way it is."

At the time, he was freshly settled at the University of Oregon with a promising career and a newly built home. But then came a call from Steinhaus himself, founding dean of UC Irvine's School of Biological Sciences. "He spun his vision of the school for me. And it sounded like it was more than reasonable," McGaugh says. The allure? He was being invited to create and chair what would be the first academic department in the world devoted entirely to the scientific study of the brain. Initially called the Department of Psychobiology, it was later renamed the Department of Neurobiology & Behavior - a reflection of its evolving scope.

Taking the leap

Still, the decision meant giving up a tenured position at a respected university to move to a campus that didn't yet exist. What ultimately convinced McGaugh to take the leap was the name. "One of the main reasons I came was the name," he explains. "It was the University of California. And I'm a product of UC Berkeley, and I know it to be one of the world's finest universities. So why not come to one of the world's finest universities starting all over again?"

McGaugh arrived at a place that was less a campus than a cow pasture. The future UC Irvine was, at the time, little more than the Irvine Ranch, a sprawl of undeveloped land bordered by barbed wire. There were no roads, no trees, no city. His lab and office were in small buildings hastily erected at the corner of Jamboree Road and what is now Campus Drive. Says McGaugh: "Friends of mine would come, and they'd look and say, 'You came to this from the University of Oregon?'"

But he never looked back. The promise of building something meaningful was too compelling. "That first year was like summer camp," he says. "It was like being a kid in a candy store."

Life on campus could be surreal. In early fall, McGaugh and his colleagues would stand on the balcony of what is now Steinhaus Hall, looking southwest. From that vantage point, they could see actual cowboys - wide-brimmed hats, horses and all - herding cattle down from the hills. "They'd bring the cattle down and put them on trucks and take them away," McGaugh recalls. That part of the ranch, not far from where the Science Library now stands, was still very much alive in the early days.

Influential decisions

It wasn't just the School of Biological Sciences that McGaugh helped shape; it was the campus itself. One of only a few nonadministrative faculty on-site that first year, he collaborated on decisions that would influence UC Irvine for decades: whether the university would follow a quarter or semester system, whether to allow fraternities or sororities (they voted no), and even what to call the roads and dormitories. "We named every street," McGaugh says. "Circle View became Peltason. I voted for the quarter system because I'd been on both quarter and semester, and I like quarter better. … That's what we did the first year."

Perhaps the most consequential decision of his early career came during a pivotal moment of administrative wrangling. When the dean of social sciences tried to absorb the psychobiology department, which would have made its focus psychology over biology, Steinhaus threatened to resign. "He said, 'Here's my response. … If you move the department, then I'm going back to Berkeley,'" McGaugh recalls, noting that he would have left too. "It was Steinhaus who saved the department. He created it and saved it."

When Dean Steinhaus went on sabbatical, he asked McGaugh to serve as acting dean in his absence. What was expected to be a temporary assignment quickly turned into something more permanent when Steinhaus tragically died during his leave. McGaugh helped guide the school through a period of transition until Howard Schneiderman - an accomplished biologist who would later play a key role in the development of genetically modified foods - was appointed dean. McGaugh then went back to his department, where his heart had always been. "I didn't want … that position at that point in my career," he says, "so I was happy to return to the department."

But his leadership days were far from over. McGaugh would go on to serve as vice chancellor for academic affairs, then as executive vice chancellor for the entire campus. Even then, he remained closely connected to his roots in the School of Biological Sciences, returning multiple times to chair the department he helped create.

International recognition

Under McGaugh's governance, and thanks to the department's innovative focus, UC Irvine became a magnet for top students and researchers in neurobiology and behavior. "We were the only department of this kind in the world. … We attracted high-quality people from all over," he says. "Our international recognition grew very quickly."

In the early 1980s, McGaugh also founded the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning & Memory, a hub that became central to UC Irvine's continued influence in brain research. "I led it for about 20 years," he says. "We were able to hire great faculty who have since gone on to play prominent roles in the school."

McGaugh is not so much prideful as content: "I'm immensely satisfied that we created a novel school and department of lasting significance." He still marvels at the fact that UC Irvine, now a global research powerhouse, was once accessible only by helicopter. "There was no 405 or 5 [freeway]. I flew to LAX, got a helicopter and landed at a heliport on the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Jamboree because they didn't have roads."

Today, McGaugh's fingerprints are all over campus, from the names of streets to the structure of its academic programs. More than just a foundational faculty member, he was a builder of institutions and a steward of Steinhaus' vision.

In telling his story, Distinguished Professor Emeritus James McGaugh tells the story of UC Irvine. It's about high-stakes decisions made in temporary buildings, unexpected challenges and a shared belief in the potential of a new campus. From modest beginnings, the university - and what is now the Charlie Dunlop School of Biological Sciences - grew into something enduring and influential, thanks to the efforts of those who helped build it from the ground up.