Arts & Culture
$350,000 UC grant will expand support for doctoral students at UC Santa Cruz
A new $350,000 University of California grant will help UC Santa Cruz build a more welcoming and supportive environment for doctoral students, as part of the campus’s national leadership as a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI).
A graduate student and their mentor. Photo courtesy of The Humanities Institute
A new $350,000 University of California grant will help UC Santa Cruz build a more welcoming and supportive environment for doctoral students, as part of the campus’s national leadership as a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI).
Professor of Literature and Associate Dean of Humanities Rodrigo Lazo received the five-year grant through the University of California Office of the President’s Hispanic-Serving Institution Doctoral Diversity Initiative.
The award reflects UC Santa Cruz’s ongoing commitment to creating a campus where students from all backgrounds can thrive. As one of the nation’s leading Hispanic-Serving Institutions, UC Santa Cruz has made expanding opportunity, strengthening belonging, and supporting student success central to its mission.
“We plan to create a Graduate Success Initiative that will help doctoral students from their first year through graduation and into faculty careers,” said Lazo, the principal investigator of the new grant. The initiative will help graduate students with the mentoring, community, and practical resources they need to succeed.
The program will be open to all doctoral students, consistent with state and federal law, as well as the University of California’s nondiscrimination policies.
“The goal of the grant is to help Ph.D. students move into careers as college and university professors,” Lazo said. “It is under the HSI rubric, but it is open to all doctoral students.”
By helping more students complete doctoral degrees and prepare for academic careers, the initiative aims to broaden participation in the professoriate while improving the graduate experience for all students.
The project is in part a response to broader inequities in higher education. Although Latiné residents make up roughly 40 percent of California’s population, they account for only about 14 percent of doctoral students across the UC system and just 8 percent of tenured and tenure-track UC faculty.
Rather than creating entirely new programs, the Graduate Success Initiative brings together existing campus resources into a coordinated support network. Partners include the Graduate Division, the Division of Student Affairs and Success, the Council of DEI Associate Deans, the Writing Center, and The Humanities Institute.
“This is a collective effort that will bring together a lot of partners on campus,” Lazo said.
The initiative includes four interconnected programs. Career Pathways seminars will introduce students to the often-unwritten expectations of academic careers, including publishing, the faculty job market, and tenure. A Holistic Support Network will connect newer doctoral students with advanced graduate student mentors.
Writing Labs, coordinated through the Writing Center, led by the Humanities division, will provide twice-monthly writing sessions and quarterly retreats to help students make steady progress on dissertations and grant proposals. A five-day Bridge Program will welcome incoming doctoral students before their first quarter, helping them build interdisciplinary connections and a sense of community from the start.
Together, the four programs are expected to serve more than 1,500 graduate students over the life of the grant. The first offerings, including the Writing Labs, are expected to launch during winter quarter, with additional programs rolling out over the following years.
Humanities Dean Jasmine Alinder said the Writing Center will provide much-needed support to doctoral students:
“Writing is central to the work of every scholar,” Alinder said. “The Humanities Writing Center has always believed that writers do their best work when they have access to guidance, community, and sustained support. These Writing Labs will provide doctoral students with the time, structure, and encouragement they need to advance their research and share their ideas. By investing in writing support, we are investing in students’ success and in the future of scholarship itself.”
Alinder praised Lazo’s leadership of the initiative.
“Rodrigo has brought together an ambitious and deeply collaborative vision for supporting doctoral students as they navigate the path from graduate school to academic careers,” Alinder said.
For Lazo, the overall initiative is ultimately about more than helping students complete degrees.
“This is about ensuring every doctoral student feels welcomed, supported, and connected to a community where they can succeed,” he said.
Lazo recently also led a mentoring session at the UC Humanities Research Institute’s Underrepresented Scholars meeting at UC Irvine, extending his work to strengthen pathways into graduate education and academic careers across the UC system.
Lazo said one of his immediate priorities is ensuring faculty and staff across campus know the new resources are available and instilling a strong sense of belonging among graduate students.
The Graduate Success Initiative could provide a model for other UC campuses seeking to improve doctoral completion, strengthen students’ sense of belonging, and create a more diverse professoriate, Lazo said.