The University of California consortium composed of University of California at Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Santa Barbara (UC-DIGSSS) is uniquely poised to increase the number of underrepresented minority students who enter the professoriate in the social and behavioral sciences. As the first initiative of its kind involving the social sciences, the broader impact of this program will be not only to increase the number of underrepresented minority students prepared or the professoriate at University of California campuses but also to influence similar initiatives for recruiting and retaining underrepresented minority students in the social sciences at other institutions. The intellectual merit of this proposal lies in the new models and strategies put forth in the proposal aimed at building a supportive environment conducive to increasing the number of underrepresented minorities entering the professoriate in social science disciplines.
By virtue of housing top ranking departments in the social sciences, showing a strong record of commitment to increasing underrepresented minorities in Ph.D. programs and ultimately the professoriate and leveraging the strengths of the three campuses in its counterpart, AGEP (Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate) in science, technology, engineering, and disciplines, UC-DIGSSS seeks a synergy that will promote strategies and practices that are innovative, cost-effective, and sustainable. To gain greater momentum in the recruitment of underrepresented minority students, UC-DIGSSS focuses on the following five strategies:
1. Form partnerships with minority serving institutions so as to increase the applicant pool, by developing longitudinal relationships with minority serving institutions across administration, faculty, and staff.
2. Build upon the extensive alumni network of University of California graduates at institutions across the country in order to identify potential underrepresented minority graduate students and to mentor students who are already on the pathway to the Ph.D.
3. Mentor underrepresented minority students with one-on-one research traineeships with faculty in the early stages (first three years) of the graduate program in order to help build research skills and to create strong bonds with faculty mentors early on.
4. Improve retention by focusing on community building and help students overcome academic hurdles through seminars and workshops throughout all stages of the graduate program, including written and oral qualifying exams, finding a dissertation topic, preparing the dissertation proposal, and applying for professional employment.
5. Support graduate research by encouraging academic skills building, participating in conferences, and conducting field research.
UC-DIGSSS expects concrete project outcomes to include an increase in the number of underrepresented minority students entering the Ph.D. programs in the social, behavioral and economic sciences by 50 percent or more (by 2007), a decrease in time to degree from seven to six or five years, an increased retention, increased visibility and dissemination of new methods for recruiting and retaining underrepresented minorities in the social sciences to other campuses, and a significant increase of underrepresented minorities in the social science professoriate.
