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HSI Taskforce Report | Goal 2

GOAL 2 | ENSURE THAT RISING SCHOLARS HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN, SUCEED, GRADUATE AND THRIVE

2.a. Empower Rising Scholars by knowing who they are, valuing what they bring and responding to what they need by providing holistic, coordinated and embedded services and opportunities into every space they inhabit.

2.a.i. Implement the recommendations from taskforces on affordable housing, food security and mental health with a focus on coordination and promotion services for Chicanx/Latinx students. Establish mechanisms for ongoing assessments that also include mental and physical health and financial wellness. Provide culturally relevant programming and information on cooking, financial wellness, health/healthcare and wellness that incorporate family and community where possible.

2.a.ii. Invest in high-touch, high-impact, holistic advising that retains Rising Scholars at UC Davis and in STEM disciplines. Ensure that student coaching encompasses the personal, cultural and socio-economic as well as academic. Utilize technology to facilitate preventative outreach and mentoring. Make stronger connections between academic and career advisors.

2.a.iii. Invest in improving students’ writing skills (possibly through a dedicated writing center) and in tutoring approaches that harness students’ multilingualism to improve writing skills.

2.a.iv. Sponsor learning communities and cohort models that enable networks of support to develop, especially in STEM.

2.a.v. Create culturally responsive programs, educational opportunities, spaces and support mechanisms to help Rising Scholars cope with racial and ethnic conflicts and other climate challenges on campus.

2.a.vi. Create a hiring incentive program for staff who demonstrate a commitment to serving the needs of Chicanx/Latinx communities and who bring cultural humility to their role as counselors and mental or health care providers and who demonstrate a commitment to Rising Scholars.

2.a.vii. Invest in adequate and permanent staff in Student Affairs, at El Centro and within the other student centers as backbone organizations that lead and coordinate student services for their populations.

2.a.viii. Incentivize participation in and offer trainings around cultural humility and multilingual literacy (especially English/Spanish) among all staff and faculty.

2.a.ix. Embed the UC Davis campus with art, murals, museums, architecture, landscapes, cultural programming and food in ways that visibly celebrate and embrace our identity as a HSI.

2.a.x. Implement a survey instrument to measure, monitor and improve sense of belong for Rising Scholars.

2.b. Establish institutional incentives to empower faculty and staff with the skills and ability they need to effectively teach, mentor, innovate, lead and build positive campus climates and learning environments.

2.b.i. As the campus advances its activities around assessment, consider how the program review process can incentivize departments and individual faculty to integrate interdisciplinary, culturally responsive and student-centered curriculum into their teaching as a best practice for closing equity gaps and preparing students to work in a multicultural society.

2.b.ii. Leverage diversity statements in both hiring and merit and promotion to incentivize faculty to engage in professional development, mentoring students, team science, research and innovation around pedagogy, course renovation, undergraduate teaching and other activities that serve Rising Scholars and reflect our HSI values. Adapt a similar model for staff.

2.b.iii. Assess content, programming and access to education on cultural and educational equity, cultural humility and teaching excellence and be both principled and innovative in considering how all communities, regardless of position title or student level, can be engaged.

2.b.iv. Sustain Rising Scholars in the pipeline to the professoriate, support the conditions for teaching innovation and promote public scholarship and research by building a framework (inside or outside of the current budget model) that places a value on high-touch, high-impact outcomes for Rising Scholars.

Prep-Medico
Prep-Medico

2.b.v. Incentivize equity-minded practices for educational excellence by providing additional resources for (a) common goods courses, or lower division courses that deliver critical content and skills for a high proportion of students in majors outside the official department, college, or school delivering the course and (b) student success courses, or high-enrollment courses that are needed for students to graduate on time and where there are critical achievement gaps for Rising Scholars compared to all students.

2.b.vi. Strengthen the ethnic studies departments at UC Davis by recognizing and valuing their unique contributions to educational equity and enabling them to thrive in teaching, research and service with added faculty, staff and other resources.

2.b.vii. Provide capacity for institutional-level coordination and leadership for the HSI initiative through all levels of senior leadership that includes mechanisms to implement this vision; assess progress toward our HSI goals; facilitate oversight and advisory committees; develop skills and campus knowledge; coordinate key partners; marshal and manage institution-level resources (including highly technical aspects of grant application and tracking), engage our extended community; and serve as internal institutional ambassadors.

GOAL 1 | PREPARE AND ATTRACT A BROAD PROFILE OF RISING SCHOLARS TO UC DAVIS

GOAL 3 | FULFILL OUR HISPANIC SERVICING MISSION BY ELEVATING STUDENTS TO INDUSTRIES WITH CRITICAL WORKFORCE NEEDS AND BY PREPARING AND EDUCATING ALL STUDENTS TO SERVE A MULTICULTURAL SOCIETY

GOAL 4 | HARNESS THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA COLLECTIVE STRENGTHS AS A SYSTEM TO TRANSFORM PUBLIC HIGHER EDUCATION