CAMPOS

Center for the Advancement of Multicultural Perspectives on Science (CAMPOS)

With funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2012, a team of committed faculty at UC Davis embarked on a visionary mission to expand the presence of women and underrepresented faculty in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) at UC Davis. This vision of institutional transformation was rooted in the premise that attracting unique perspectives from both gender and cultural diversity within our faculty would increase and improve the contributions from UC Davis to STEMM.

CAMPOS Mission

The mission of CAMPOS is to support the discovery of knowledge by building an inclusive environment that values diverse perspectives, creates opportunities for networking and mentorship, and focuses on faculty career success and retention. 

Our programs and actions are driven by a desire to foster a community of faculty that conducts research that expands our knowledge and discovers solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems. To achieve those ends we support career advancement that includes mentorship and networking; a work environment that integrates policies and practices that reflect an inclusive campus climate; and research to understand barriers and catalysts to gender and multicultural perspectives in STEMM. 

The NSF ADVANCE grant initially prioritized the hiring of UC Davis faculty whose exceptional contributions to STEMM research, teaching, and service addressed issues affecting Latinas in STEMM. Over time the vision grew to include all underrepresented voices to change the face of STEMM science. To achieve ADVANCE’s goals, UC Davis matched NSF funds with an investment of over $3 million to incentivize the hiring and development of faculty who individually and collectively are transforming STEMM education at UC Davis and contributing research and service to help solve society’s vexing problems.

Under the leadership of inaugural Faculty Director Mary Lou de Leon Siantz, Mariel Vazquez, and now Verónica Martínez-Cerdeño, the vision of forming a community of scholars who new and innovative perspectives to STEMM continues to be a reality through the Center for the Advancement of Multicultural Perspectives on Science (CAMPOS). To date, fifty exceptional ladder-rank faculty comprise the CAMPOS faculty scholars community. CAMPOS has created visibility for CAMPOS faculty scholars individually, collectively, locally, nationally, and internationally. CAMPOS hosts an induction ceremony each year to welcome, recognize its newest faculty scholars, and to disseminate their accomplishments. In addition, CAMPOS provides opportunities to its faculty scholars for mentorship, leadership skills development through the leadership institute, and programming to support regularly networking to share common experiences, and deliberate potential team science from interdisciplinary perspectives. CAMPOS has also created a broader community of scholars by inviting other STEMM faculty on campus to become affiliates and/or participate in many of the CAMPOS-sponsored activities, create new opportunities through team science, as well as partnerships that promote STEMM science with the surrounding communities to encourage the next generation of STEMM scientists.

Uprooting Bias in the Academy: Lessons from the Field. Written by U.C. Davis scholars and affiliates, this open access book analyzes barriers to inclusion in academia and details ways to create a more diverse, inclusive environment. It first describes what the barriers to inclusion are and how they function within the broader society, focusing on concept of implicit bias: what it is, how it develops, and the importance of training organizational members to recognize and challenge it. It then discusses the limitations of data collection that is guided by the conventional assumption that being diverse automatically means being inclusive. Lastly, it highlights the importance of creating a collaborative, interdisciplinary and institution-wide vision of an inclusive community.

Learn more and download for free.