UCLA has been awarded a five-year grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) as part of its Inclusive Excellence Initiative. The effort aims to help colleges and universities encourage participation and cultivate the talent of diverse students in the natural sciences.

Fundamental to refocusing the quality of the learning experience for undergraduates is to realize that no single program or policy is the solution; instead, this effort requires systemic solutions involving coordination of many educators and multiple educational services. This year stakeholders and implementers of curricular initiatives and co-curricular programs supporting undergraduate STEM education at UCLA will gather to inform one another of new and ongoing activities, share best practices and program assessment tools and results, examine the alignment between existing curricular and co-curricular program efforts, and identify points of synergy and potential collaboration opportunities.

This project launches a Regional Collaboratives (RC) in Southern California — a partnership among local 2-year and 4-year colleges and universities. In collaboration with the CIRTL network, the goals are to broaden the participation of STEM faculty who teach at 2-year colleges by increasing the interest and recruitment of graduate students and qualified professionals, and to expand and strengthen the preparation of current and future STEM faculty to teach the diverse student population at 2-year colleges.

The California Alliance is a partnership between the University of California Berkeley, California Institute of Technology, Stanford, and the University of California, Los Angeles which has been funded through a $2.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation. The Alliance seeks to ensure that underrepresented minority (URM) PhD graduate students and postdoctoral scholars from our institutions aspire to and populate the ranks of the postdoctoral population, the faculty at competitive research and teaching institutions, the federally funded national laboratories, and scientific think tanks. The California Alliance focuses on increasing diversity in Mathematics, Physical Sciences, Computer Science, Engineering (MPCSE) and related disciplines. Graduate students and postdoctoral scholars who participate in the program will have access to networking events, mentors, training materials, job announcements, and other initiatives that will increase their access to careers in higher education and research.