Cowell College

One of the defining experiences for students at UC Santa Cruz is our residential college system. Year-after-year, our alumni identify their residential college experience and student group involvement as central to their core identities and connection to campus. The people you will live with in these communities, the shared experiences, your growth academically and personally, are all fostered by the close-knit, home-away-from-home structure our residential colleges provide.

These ten communities, each with their own academic themes, architecture, activities, location, and support resources, provide a neighborhood for your lived campus experience. By design, our residential colleges are not connected to any specific major. This provides a wonderful opportunity to interact, live, and learn alongside fellow banana slugs from different backgrounds, countries, and experiences.

Cowell's theme is The Pursuit of Truth in the Company of Friends. The faculty, staff, and student leadership of Cowell College invite you to challenge yourself with new ideas, to think and reason with vigor, and to extend a hand of friendship to your companions in this endeavor. Cowell is also home to the Eloise Pickard Smith Gallery that focuses on art of the California central coast and exhibitions that focus on subjects pertinent to the College; the Page Smith Library, named after Cowell’s first Provost, that houses a small private collection of books; and a printing press that teaches students about book making.

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