As students arrive on campus this weekend for the start of the academic year, they might be missing home-cooked meals, but they will be pleasantly surprised to find the new Segundo Dining Room at UC Davis a far cry from the mess halls their parents may have experienced.

In fact, eating at the new dining room serving the Segundo community of about 1,600 students is more like visiting the food court at a mall. Eight different platforms throughout the 825-seat facility serve as mini-restaurants and offer traditional bistro items, sauté specialties, pizza, Mongolian barbecue, a salad bar, vegan choices and, of course, dessert.

"I see people thrilled when they walk in here," says Karen Keon, a graduating senior working on campus this summer. "The layout is great and provides better locations to eat. You get to see your food prepared, and the experience is more like a restaurant."

The new facility is expected to serve up to 20,000 meals a week in the fall.

Away from the dinner table, here is a round-up of the campus as the new academic year kicks off.

Student numbers

A total of about 29,650 students are expected to enroll for fall quarter, 415 less than last fall, with classes starting Sept. 29.

Approximately 4,400 new freshmen are expected to register by the start of classes, about 135 or 3 percent more than last fall. About 1,760 new transfer students are expected to enroll, 88 (about 5 percent) fewer than last fall's 1,848. An estimated 1,010 of the new transfer students participated in UC Davis' Transfer Admission Agreement program at 82 community colleges throughout the state.

Graduate and professional students, including interns and residents, are expected to total about 6,950, an increase of 56 compared with last fall.

The campus expects to accommodate at least 20 students displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

Fees and financial aid

Undergraduate students who are California residents will pay fees of $8,129 this school year -- up from $7,557 last year -- and resident academic graduate students will pay $8,960, up from $8,407 last year.

About two-thirds of the undergraduate student body is expected to be receiving some form of financial aid. By the end of August, aid totaling $129 million -- in grants, Federal Work-Study, scholarships and loans -- had been awarded to about 13,000 undergraduates for 2005-06.

The Financial Aid Office has a Web-based tool (see http://faoman.ucdavis.edu/) that helps students stay informed about their loan indebtedness. The tool provides them with estimates of their current loan balances, allows them to make future estimates and calculates estimated loan payments.

New programs

Students can now major in science and technology studies, a new program offered by the Division of Social Sciences. In the Division of Biological Sciences the new minor in computational biology will accept its first students this fall quarter.

The UC Board of Regents recently approved reconstitution of the division as the College of Biological Sciences, beginning a formal process of transferring courses to the new college. The change brings a number of administrative changes and gives college faculty more control over the biology curriculum. It also makes UC Davis one of the few universities in the nation to organize basic biology research and teaching into a single college.

At the graduate level, several new programs will enroll their first students in 2005-06, including: doctorate in animal biology, Master of Science in neuroscience, and Master of Advanced Study in clinical research.

The UC Davis School of Education is opening a joint doctoral program in educational leadership with California State University, Sacramento, and CSU-Sonoma.

The Graduate School of Management brings its Working MBA program to the San Francisco Bay Area. The program will offer weekend classes at the San Ramon Valley Conference Center, 35 miles east of San Francisco.

The book selection for the fourth annual Campus Community Book Project is "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini. Told from the perspective of an American immigrant recalling his childhood in Afghanistan, this novel offers a glimpse into life in Afghanistan before and after the Taliban took over the country. The book will be the focus for events involving the campus and Davis community throughout the year. For more information, go to http://occr.ucdavis.edu/ccbp/.

Housing

Student Housing will accommodate about 4,320 undergraduates in the residence halls this year, including an estimated 3,950 incoming freshmen. Two halls, Castilian North and South, will house about 320 transfer, continuing and international students. In addition, housing is being offered to 45 students affiliated with the University Extension program.

In addition to the undergraduates in residence halls, almost 1,820 other students will live in Student Housing facilities, privately owned projects and family housing at UC Davis.

New facilities include the new Segundo dining commons, which opened this summer, and new residence halls in the Tercero area that will open for 400 residents. The Tercero dining commons expansion project is in the final stages of completion and is expected to open in mid-November.

Other construction

A number of other major projects are under construction as the campus continues a major building program to meet current and future needs.

• The Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science on Old Davis Road. It will provide instructional and research space for the departments of Viticulture and Enology and of Food Science and Technology. The building is expected to open in summer 2007.
• New multi-use sports stadium near the corner of La Rue Road and Hutchison Drive. The stadium, which is expected to be open for the start of the 2006-07 football season, will be expandable to accommodate up to 30,000 spectators for sporting events, commencement ceremonies and other major events.
• The Mathematical Sciences Building, between Academic Surge building and the Crocker Nuclear Laboratory, is nearing completion. The building will provide new space for the departments of Mathematics and of Statistics, and for the Computational Science and Engineering Center.
• The Veterinary Medicine IIIA building, a teaching and research facility, and a new classroom building, the Veterinary Medicine Instructional Facility are both under construction adjacent to the School of Veterinary Medicine.