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The University of California, Irvine (UCI, UC Irvine, or Irvine), is a public research university located in Irvine, California, and one of the 10 general campuses in the University of California (UC) system. UCI has over 30,000 students, 1,100 faculty members and 9,000 staff. Times Higher Education (London, UK) in 2014 ranked UC Irvine 1st among all US universities and 7th among the top 100 global universities under 50 years old.
UC Irvine is considered a Public Ivy and offers 80 undergraduate degrees and 98 graduate and professional degrees. The university is designated as having very high research activity in the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, and in fiscal year 2013 had $348 million in research and development expenditures according to the National Science Foundation. UC Irvine became a member of the Association of American Universities in 1996, and is the youngest university to hold membership. The university also administers the UC Irvine Medical Center, a large teaching hospital, and its affiliated health sciences system in the city of Orange; the University of California, Irvine, Arboretum; and a portion of the University of California Natural Reserve System.
UCI was one of three new UC campuses established in the 1960s to accommodate growing enrollments across the UC system. A site in Orange County was identified in 1959, and in the following year the Irvine Company sold the University of California 1,000 acres (400 ha) of land for one dollar to establish the new campus. President Lyndon B. Johnson dedicated the campus in 1964. Fifty years later President Barack Obama spoke at UCI's 2014 commencement ceremony, held at Angel Stadium.
The UC Irvine Anteaters compete in 18 men's and women's sports in the NCAA Division I as members of the Big West Conference and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation. The Anteaters have won 28 national championships in nine different team sports, 64 Anteaters have won individual national championships, and 53 Anteaters have competed in the Olympics.