Welcome to Oakes!
This photo was taken before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Founded in 1972, Oakes College is a multicultural community committed to equality and freedom from oppression and to providing the highest quality education to students from diverse backgrounds. Poised at the edge of UCSC’s natural preserve, Oakes is also at the leading edge of scholarship, community-building, and integrated co-curricular experiences. Oakes students are engaged in the arts, humanities, sciences, and engineering, and are represented in all of the majors at UCSC.
Our core course, Communicating Diversity for a Just Society, seeks to help students appreciate the fundamental role of higher education in identifying and solving some of the critical problems facing our nation and the world. Through the course readings, discussions, and lectures, students will explore the connections between educational quality, diverse ways of thinking, and social justice. In the core course and throughout the Oakes community, students are encouraged to explore issues of race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, socioeconomic class, and politics.
A support system of academic and administrative staff, student life staff, and student neighborhood assistants aid students in achieving skills essential to success both in college and in life. At Oakes our students have the opportunity to live in a diverse community where the values of individual responsibility and personal integrity are essential to our community standards in and out of the classroom.
At Oakes difference is not a barrier, but an invitation to grow.
