This essay reviews the history of the University of California's Academic Senate, focusing especially on how the senate came to be what it is today, how it acquired its significant role in the shared governance of the university, and how its mode of operation adapted as the university increased in size and complexity. The essay is organized around specific university crises or eras, including the governance of academic affairs and grant of authority assigned to the senate in 1920 at the conclusion of Benjamin Wheeler's presidency; adjustments to the Great Depression (1930s); the loyalty oath controversy (1949-52); the effort to secure formal regental provision of academic tenure (1958); expansion of the university to serve rapidly increasing student numbers (1960s); reorganization of the senate's structure and mode of operation to adapt to the growth of the multicampus university (1963); year-round operations of the university (1960-68); the "free speech" movement (1964-65); dismissal of President Clark Kerr (1967); the Eldridge Cleaver case (1968-70); the fashioning of an officially recognized faculty code of conduct; and the ongoing influence of the senate in the university's structure and operation. A glossary of terms and a 1919 senate statement are appended. (DB)