Motivation for this Strategic Initiative:
Growth of our graduate programs, as well as increases in the fraction of our students with research funding, are a key prerequisite for UC Merced to achieve Carnegie R1 (“Very high research activity”) status. This strategic initiative focuses on many of the elements required to build R1-quality graduate programs, ranging from effective student recruitment to timely graduation and placement into good jobs or post-doctoral positions. At present, there are challenges to success in building our graduate programs including the small size of our current graduate programs and research groups, the large fraction of junior faculty with less experience mentoring students, and the relative lack of GSR student funding, especially for students in their first year. Note that although the focus of the strategic initiative is on graduate students, several items including mentoring training for faculty are relevant to post-doctoral scholars.
Summary of Task Force Report (see appendix for full report)
The task force organized its proposed action items around four stages in graduate education: 1) recruitment, 2) onboarding into the program, 3) progress in their graduate studies, and 4) degree completion and transition to jobs or post-doctoral positions. For each stage, multiple goals and associated action items are proposed. For the recruitment stage, the task force’s near-term goals/actions are to increase the size of the applicant pool by focusing on “near-peer” UCs and academically strong CSU campuses and to provide graduate group chairs with resources to offer financial incentives to the top applicants. For the second, “onboarding” stage, the task force’s first-year action items include working with Graduate Division to expand the Summer Bridge program while reducing the amount of material introduced during GROW week. Another first-year action item is to provide graduate students with additional mentors, beyond their research advisor or committee, and to pursue ways to provide non-TA first-year funding for graduate students.
To support the progress and success of students after their first year, the task force recommends creating an SNS Student Research Success Center that will coordinate with other campus centers to provide training for core research skills like writing, public speaking, and data analysis. This center will provide information on help in mentoring, career preparation, and problem or conflict resolution. The task force also prioritized creating a “Student Scholars” program within this center for students with strong research records to help staff the center and provide student mentoring. Finally, the task force identified several other high-priority action items including developing workshops and training materials to improve faculty/student mentoring, identifying “student ambassadors” to help students facing problems, and finally improving amenities for graduate students, ranging from support to start clubs to more equitable and affordable parking. For the final stage of degree completion and transition, the task force’s highest priority is to improve on-time graduation rates through offering more dissertation fellowships.
Proposed Action Items (see Task Force Report for more details and metrics)
2021-2022
- Increase recruitment from near-peer UC’s, CSU’s as well as exploring targeted international recruiting.
- Outeach to LSAMP and SACNAS chapters with strong faculty representation at SACNAS.
- Provide grad chairs with the ability to offer financial incentives to students their faculty most want to recruit.
- Provide additional mentors for students beyond their research advisor or committee, especially in Year 1.
- Improve funding opportunities for first-year students so that fewer are supported as TAs.
- Establish an SNS Student Research Success Center, to eventually be staffed by “Student Scholars”, funded by GSR/Fellowships.
- Organize fellowship planning and writing workshops within the SNS Research Success Center.
- Within the SNS Research Success Center, create a database of document and presentation templates, examples, and prompts so that students have a place to get such resources whenever they need it.
- Organize faculty-as-mentors/managers and students-as-mentees professional training workshops.
- Collect best mentoring practices so that both faculty and students have access to resources.
- Appoint and train two student ambassadors to mentor students if they feel stuck with their research or advisor.
- Encourage the founding of graduate student clubs for each grad group that have both social and development activities.
- Provide better TA training activities during GROW week, along with regular check-ins during the first semester of TAing.
- Work with Graduate Division to expand Summer Bridge and reduce the amount of information presented during GROW week.
- Provide additional final-semester dissertation fellowships.
2022-2023
- Find opportunities to talk about graduate research at UC Merced in upper-division courses taken by juniors and first-semester seniors.
- Implement first-year check-ins for all grad students.
- Encourage graduate groups to create more standardized coursework/curriculum in the first year.
- Award small fellowships to tangible research outputs, e.g., first-author publications, books, patents, computer codes, external grants, and external fellowships.
- Create common workspaces (within each building or in the SNS Student Research Success Center) and optimize student office space so that it is quiet enough to get writing and research done.
- Train students on appropriate facilities such as instrumentation or computation with staff support.
- Regularly offer science writing classes.
- Explore creating an SNS student writing time an accountability group, modeled after NFCDD (within SNS Research Success Center).
- Enable students to have a forum for voicing concerns to their committee independent from their advisor.
- Work with TAPS to discuss the importance of adding affordable parking options (e.g., cheaper parking after 3 pm).
· Supplement/expand on the Graduate Division Dissertation Bootcamp.
- Institutionalize workshops/panels/clubs for helping graduate students with post-doctoral/job applications and related skills.
- Promote student participation in summer internships at non-academic institutions.
2023 and after
- Consider ways to lower barriers to recruiting students, such as subsidizing moving costs for all graduate students, making on-campus housing available to graduate students, or providing more help in finding off-campus housing.
- Explore the feasibility of graduate groups sponsoring graduate student memberships in professional organizations and societies.
