UC Davis Graduate Diversity Officers, Josephine Moreno and Steve Lee

Graduate Diversity Network Kick-Off on December 1st

Our Graduate Diversity Officers have been working hard to connect the extensive resources and activities happening on campus. Now, they present to you the Graduate Diversity Network (GDN). The kickoff event is coming up quick! On December 1, Dean Jeffery Gibeling (Vice Provost of Graduate Education and Dean of Graduate Studies), and Provost Ralph J. Hexter (Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor) will open the kickoff followed by Dr. David Acosta (Associate Vice Chancellor of Diversity and Inclusion of the UC Davis Health System) who will address, “Preparing the Next Generation of the Graduate Workforce: Using Holistic Review to Achieve Diversity, Innovation and Excellence.” Acosta’s topic is timely because this is the recruiting/admissions season, when students are applying for graduate programs and faculty are reviewing applications.  After these speakers, the event will include a resource fair and mixer, all held at the Student Community Center’s Multipurpose Room.

The kickoff event will allow campus community members to connect with others who are interested in promoting diversity and inclusion in graduate education and learn about relevant resources and activities at UC Davis. Everyone is invited! Administrators, faculty, staff, graduate students, professional students, postdoctoral scholars and undergraduate students. Here you will find the event information, and below, a more in-depth look at the vision of our diversity officers.

Steve Lee, Graduate Diversity Officer for the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) disciplines, had a vision when he began working at UC Davis a little over a year ago. He dreamed of something, which he says he’s been thinking about since he first came here, that would improve connecting and networking all the people and resources that promote diversity and inclusion at UC Davis. One year later, Lee and Josephine Moreno, Graduate Diversity Officer for the HASS (Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences and Education) disciplines, are launching their most ambitious project yet – the Graduate Diversity Network.

“Part of it was my own desire to get a better sense of all the different initiatives that relate to graduate diversity,” says Lee. What has culminated from these initial goals is something much bigger. While the project is still quite open-ended, the GDN strives to connect people, provide resources, offer provocative questions, share best practices, offer research and evidence-based approaches at increasing diversity, promote cross-campus collaborations and inspire others to join and work on diversity initiatives. “The goal is to bring together students, faculty, staff and administrators who are interested in graduate diversity, and promoting our connections to each other and available resources,” says Moreno.

The network is a big change in approach to diversity because it eliminates the sometimes distant and tedious nature of committees. Instead of forming another committee with meetings to attend, the network will primarily serve as a catalyst for more activities and initiatives that strengthen graduate education through diversity and inclusion on our campus. The network may meet a few times a year, but this will depend on people’s interest and planning. The GDN can also become a sort of inventory of resources, where Lee and Moreno can act as “communications brokers,” pointing to people, resources, activities, and funding opportunities. Both officers hope the GDN can identify different units and resources for diversity graduate students and offer them opportunities to network with one another and share useful information.

“Right now we have an online presence, a LinkedIn group, and listserv,” says Lee. “We have the website to post resources and updates on campus diversity initiatives. Josephine has also created a Who's Who of graduate diversity professionals, key graduate students and resources as well.” Moreno adds, “A lot of the work is about fielding information that comes our way, that folks ask us to send out. [Information] about diversity professionals and resources change all the time – nearly every week.”

The network is open to all disciplines, as well as professional schools and postdoctoral scholars. Because the diversity officers focus on advancing graduate education through diversity, much of their work comes from examining relationships between different academic and social communities and providing leadership to recruit and retain graduate students at UC Davis. For Lee and Moreno, reaching out means extending counsel, resources, and connections to not just graduate and professional students, but also postdoctoral scholars, undergraduates, faculty, and staff, bringing into consideration the different communities of race, ethnicity, gender, physical and mental disability, socioeconomic status, sexual identity and orientation, age, etc. “We have been able to make change – for recruitment, grants, and other new developments” says Moreno.

While undergraduates may not use all the resources provided with the GDN, the presence of the Network, Lee hopes, will encourage undergraduates to think about their next steps – whether they want to attend graduate school at UC Davis or elsewhere. “It will help them think about perspectives on diversity in terms of higher education and realizing graduate education is very different from undergraduate education,” says Lee.

The kickoff event is not only a chance to hear about hopes for diversity in graduate education, it is a chance to help shape what the GDN will look like, which is why the invitation is open and campus-wide.

Secondary Categories

General News