LA JOLLA (CNS) - UC San Diego was listed first in the world when it comes to universities founded between 1945 and 1966 according to the Times Higher Education list of best 100 "Golden Age" universities, UCSD officials announced Thursday.
The list, which was released Wednesday, recognizes universities established after WWII in the so-called "Golden Age of Education."
Times Higher Education is a London-based publication. The Golden Age in global higher education was characterized by rapid university expansion and increasing investment in research.
"We are honored to receive this distinction," UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep Khosla said. "Being unbound by tradition has given our campus the liberty to innovate."
UC San Diego was an experiment, Khosla said.
"Our model from day one was focused on issues, rather than disciplines," he said. "This nontraditional approach allows our students, faculty and researchers to make contributions that benefit society in myriad ways."
Times Higher Education cites UC San Diego's innovative approach to education for netting the number one spot on its list.
While the scholarly study of psychology dates back to ancient Greece, UC San Diego was the first institution to establish cognitive science as a discipline with the launch of the world's first university department in the subject in 1986.
The university's college system was also groundbreaking, since each of its six colleges has a different theme, such as the environment or internationalization, but all subject majors are available at every college.
In a separate and unrelated ranking, San Diego State University came in 79th in the nation on the list of the 100 best public universities as determined by the publication "Business First."
