John Muir College, the second undergraduate college at UCSD, is named after John Muir, the environmentalist, writer, founder of the Sierra Club. While we do not have an academic requirement that students study the environment, we do include environmental issues in the college, Our motto, "celebrating the independent spirit" is inspired by Muir's life, travels, and political activism to change the fabric of the nation.
Muir College is built on Mat kulaaxuuy in the unceded territory of the Kumeyaay Nation. We acknowledge the eighteen American Indian tribes of this territory - including the Kumeyaay, Payómkawichum, Cupeño and Cahuilla - as well as the many Indigenous communities from the Americas and the Pacific who call San Diego home, and whose relations exist beyond colonization. We acknowledge that the Kumeyaay lands stretch beyond the present-day US Mexico border, including Kumiai village communities in Baja California, Mexico. We commit to building good relationships with the Native peoples of these lands.
