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Steps in the AGEP Process

Program Description for the University of California Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP)

In October of 2004, the University of California Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (UC AGEP) began its second phase as an alliance of all ten campuses in the University of California System. In Phase I, a nine-campus Alliance focused on increasing new underrepresented graduate student (URM) enrollment in its science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs. UC AGEP II builds upon the increased URM enrollment achieved during Phase I by systematically expanding recruitment efforts and by addressing key issues in graduate student retention and professional development. It is a comprehensive program of improvements on the pathway to the professoriate that starts in the undergraduate years and continues through to postdoctoral positions, while also providing information on the academic, teaching and research challenges facing an assistant professor. The program design extends to multiple campuses a balance of outreach, recruitment and retention efforts that individual campuses found successful in Phase I. In addition, Phase II includes inventive initiatives to increase the yield of admitted students and provide more and better opportunities for postdoctoral study. As an individual campus succeeds with a model program, the ideas are communicated readily and can be adopted by other campuses in the system.

UC AGEP II will create a structured series of program initiatives that span the pathway to the professoriate from developing a pool of qualified undergraduates through to assisting with placements into postdoctoral researcher positions. Specifically, UC AGEP II will implement a six-step program designed to:

  1. Increase the number of URM STEM students aware of and prepared for graduate study through dissemination of information about UC AGEP activities, and summer enrichment opportunities for undergraduates.
  2. Increase the number of URM students who apply to UC campuses and who are considered for admission to the University through pre-application events, partnerships with minorityserving institutions (MSIs) such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), partnerships with California State Universities and summer programs for Masters students.
  3. Increase both the number of URM students who are admitted, and the number who choose to accept offers through:
    1. targeting interactions and assistance to admission committees;
    2. increasing opportunities for campus visits;
    3. increasing communication with admitted students;
    4. providing summer enrichment opportunities for newly admitted students.
  4. Impact the early academic experience of URM graduate students and improve their retention by creating community networks, improving faculty mentoring, and enhancing students’ skills for coping with academic hurdles such as the qualifying exam.
  5. Support continuing URM graduate students via programs that improve their professional and academic skills, and prepare them for postdoctoral positions and the academic job market.
  6. Create new models for increasing URM access to and participation in postdoctoral scholar positions, thereby ensuring their competitiveness for academic positions.

While not every activity will be implemented at each campus, each campus will have funding for its most pressing problems and promising programs. Together, through UC AGEP II, the campuses will produce a comprehensive series of models that will advance current thinking and practice on diversifying the professoriate. Learn more asbout the program by accessing the information on each campus.

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