An Improbable Venture Book Production Materials, 1960-1994 (RSS 60)

An Improbable Venture: A History of the University of California, San Diego was proposed by UC San Diego associate chancellor Robert C. (Roy) Ritchie in 1988 as a project for the university's thirtieth anniversary. The committee he chaired decided on an unofficial, objective history of UC San Diego to be written by someone unaffiliated with the university. Nancy Scott Anderson, a San Diego journalist and author of The Generals: Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee (Alfred A. Knopf, 1988) was commissioned to write the history in December 1988. Anderson interviewed founding faculty and administrators, and consulted the UC San Diego Archives. Associate chancellors Donald F. Tuzin and Tracy B. Strong succeeded Ritchie in overseeing the project.

The book was originally titled That Improbable Country: A History of the University of California, San Diego for a line from Alastair Reid's 1964 poem "Curiosity," a copy of which was included in the early drafts. In a 1993 commencement speech, chancellor Richard C. Atkinson referred to the founding of UC San Diego as "an improbable venture," and by July 1993 the title had been changed to An Improbable Venture: A History of the University of California, San Diego. The book was published by The UCSD Press in 1993.