University of California, Merced
PAE-8: Support Programs for Underrepresented Groups

The Office of Student Life supports student groups on campus focused on academic, cultural and peer support for affinity groups. Examples include: Black Student Union, Hermanas and Hermanos Unidos, Hmong Student Association, Muslim Student Association, and People First, Disabilities Later. UC Merced also supports the Fiat Lux Scholars Program, funded through a FIPSE grant. From its website: "The program is designed to serve undergraduate students who meet at least one of the following requirements: 1) low-income, as determined by federal guidelines (Pell Grant recipients are typically eligible), 2) first-generation college student (parent or guardian does not have a 4-year degree), and 3) a member of an ethnic/racial community historically underrepresented in higher education."

This year, UCM’s Center on Research on Teaching Excellence (CRTE) has initiated a faculty certificate program, thematically focused on mentoring teaching assistants. This program has engaged postdoctoral scholars, lecturers, and professors from a range of disciplines. Workshop topics address group work, grading, active learning, and other challenging forms for instruction. Five faculty and postdoctoral scholars will have completed this program by the end of the year, with resulting projects published on our website. CRTE offers a colloquium each semester to facilitate broad discussions about teaching and learning topics, with guest speakers from a range of campuses. Most recently, Chris Golde (Associate Vice Provost for Graduate Education at Stanford University) visited campus for a panel discussion about the future of graduate education. In partnership with the Merritt Writing Program, CRTE has offered three semesters of a non-credit course in peer review to graduate students. Serving primarily non-native speakers of English, this program has supported the research, publishing, and writing needs of natural science and engineering students. A majority of student participants are international students. Our courses now include faculty and postdoctoral scholars; however, the primary emphasis is on supporting graduate student writers.

There have been no programs identified within the past year to support staff related groups.