Strategic Plan for the Life and Environmental science Bylaw 55 Unit for 2013-2020

Principal Author: Marilyn Fogel, Michael Dawson and LES faculty members

Current FTE Faculty (2013): 11 not including Moran (starts 7/14) & Sexton (starts 1/14)

FTE Faculty (2015): 15

Projected 2020 FTE Faculty: 20

Current Graduate Students: 25 within ES and QSB graduate groups

Projected 2020 FTE Graduate Students: 60 (Both PhD and Masters)

Executive Summary: The Life and Environmental Science unit has high potential to promote the interdisciplinary, stated goals of UC Merced of research and teaching. For the 2020 plan, we propose to form the cornerstone of a new School of the Environment with our faculty that currently participate in and are leaders of the Environmental Systems and Quantitative Systems Biology graduate groups. Inherent in this plan is the co-location of our faculty with interested faculty from environmental engineering, management, and ORUs (e.g., UC Natural Reserve scientists and Environmental Analytical Laboratory (EAL)) in a new school and buildings located adjacent to an Experimental Environmental Research Center. We also consider an alternative, innovative strategy to create a School of the Anthropocene, which would be designed to engage colleagues in studies broadly relating to the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.

Our challenge: Human activities are altering climate from local to global scales, causing extinction and redistributing species, and changing our own habitable environments with possibly cascading effects.  Realizing the humanitarian promise of the grand ideas in the environmental sciences, however, remains a challenge. For example, curing cancer is often associated with biomedical sciences, yet natural or anthropogenic chemicals in the environment cause many cancers.  Similarly, some of the greatest acute threats to human health are emerging infectious diseases of animal origin that may be transmitted to humans (i.e., zoonoses). Climate change affects zoonoses through increased range or abundance of animal reservoirs or insect vectors, and prolonged transmission cycles, resulting in increased incidence of diseases such as hantavirus, Lyme disease, and West Nile virus. Food security may be expected to change due to climate effects on agriculture, an issue of paramount interest to the Central Valley. Water resources will change, due to climate effects on precipitation and snowpack in the Sierra Nevada. Our goal, by building on our strong, established foundation in life and environmental sciences, targets the major issues of our time and of the coming decades and centuries.

Who are we? Our relatively small faculty group has these primary characteristics: we study the natural world and how it functions; our work is quantitative and uses state-of-the-art analytical instrumentation; and we are interdisciplinary, both as individual faculty and as a group, with respect to both University collaborators and outside scientists. The current focus of our faculty is on understanding fundamental physical, chemical, and biological processes in the earth system, their interactions, and how California and other ecosystems around the world have responded/are responding to historic and current changes in climate and the environment. We have basically two groups of scientists in our unit: a strong environmental genomics/genetics group (Beman, Blois, Dawson, Forman, Frank, Moran, Sexton) and an active biogeosciences group (Berhe, Fogel, Ghezzehei, Hart, O’Day, Traina). Faculty members of both groups interact on a daily basis, taking advantage of each other’s strengths, laboratories, and perspectives.

Where do we fit in? Our group is highly collaborative and interdisciplinary.  We collaborate within LES, with faculty members in other Bylaw 55 units within the School of Natural Science (SNS), and with faculty in other University units. For example, most of the LES faculty participate in and are leaders of the Quantitative Systems Biology (QSB) graduate group; many are leaders in the cross-school Environmental Systems (ES) graduate group.  Many faculty participate in both QSB and ES graduate groups. In addition to the graduate relationships with ES and QSB, most of our faculty are part of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute (SNRI), a cross-campus institute designed to further UC Merced’s impact in California and beyond. Because we actively conduct field research, we also have strong ties to surrounding researchers and potential collaborators in academia, government, and the private sector (e.g., Yosemite National Park, local agricultural industry).  Although the size of the LES faculty is relatively small compared to other competitive departments in the UC system, we have leveraged our impact by aligning with larger, interdisciplinary groups on UC Merced’s campus.

Where do we want to go? Despite constraints on the growth of the physical campus between now and 2020, our strategic plan goes beyond maintaining our interdisciplinary, cross-campus mode by both strengthening it and by taking our group and UC Merced to the next level. This includes starting a School of the Environment (SOEnv). A school of this breadth would include faculty from LES, the environmental engineers (SOE), environmental policy, economics, resource management, and public/environmental health faculty, along with SNRI, the two natural reserves (Yosemite and Vernal Pools Grasslands), the EAL, and the proposed National Parks Institute, all of which would benefit from a new cluster of buildings that supports current research and catalyzes new areas. The ES graduate group would be administered through this new School. Most mature research universities have taken this approach: University of Washington recently combined disparate departments, schools, and labs into a ‘College of the Environment’, for example, while UC Berkeley’s College of Natural Resources is the oldest college in the UC system and has been sustained for nearly 150 years.  Both physical integration and administrative unification through this new School would create a hub for research and solutions to environmental problems in the Central Valley, including air quality, pollution, water and soil sustainability, emerging diseases and contaminants, and managing impacts of climate change.

A landmark, bold move for LES and appropriate for UC Merced could take this plan a step further, that is to establish a School of the Anthropocene that leverages the interdisciplinary goals of UC Merced and innovates within the UC System, nationally, and internationally to meet our three interlocking missions: to teach, do research, and provide public service[1]. For the 2020 plan, this vision includes cornerstones from undergraduate and graduate biological and Earth Sciences—both broadly conceived and egalitarian with disciplines that traditionally may not be implied by these descriptors—and addresses the human endeavor in the coming century. This idea is as much an invitation to, as it is a proposal from, colleagues to enhance existing and imagine new linkages at UC Merced to address major challenges to human prosperity governed reciprocally by the health of and interactions among diverse facets of our planet.  Inherent in this plan is the co-location of faculty, students, and partners across a network of facilities on campus and in surrounding areas, including natural resources, built environment, and human capital. 

What do we need for 2020? A new School of the Environment (Anthropocene) (SOEnv/A) would require its own physical resources, which could be built as the campus develops from 2014 to 2020. Ideally, faculty and students in the new SOEnv/A would be co-located within a new building or cluster of buildings, optimizing joint use of already-shared instruments.  This would allow us to carry out proposals already on the table and leverage extramural funding. For example, a proposal has been presented to campus leadership and planners to build an Integrated Environmental Research facility, which would include greenhouses. Such a facility is integral to carrying out the type of research required to support faculty in the plant and soil sciences, a majority of the current LES group and fields of study which are at the heart of any environmental studies program.  This facility, while expensive, need not be housed in a formal campus building, but could form the start of the proposed campus build out to the east of Lake Rd. LES faculty members would administer the operation of this facility, while attracting faculty from environmental engineering and other potential collaborators, such as regional Yosemite National Park scientists, who lack greenhouse access yet critically need experimental space to study threatened, or endangered, organisms. We also envision a shared environmental genomics facility that would provide efficient and scalable space for our research, as well as for visiting researchers from Yosemite and elsewhere.  Many of us use similar molecular and next-gen DNA sequencing approaches that are simply applied to different study systems, organisms, and genes.  We are unaware of dedicated facilities of this kind elsewhere in the UC system, but such a facility provides an opportunity to co-locate research infrastructure, laboratory work, and personnel to maximize efficiency and ideation.

What are our space needs? We require high-performance analytical laboratory space (i.e., one pass air, fume hoods, access to services, emergency backup power) for housing the stable isotope biogeochemistry laboratory, the soil physics and chemistry laboratories, and the EAL (40%). UC Merced has the opportunity to build on its ancient DNA capabilities, which require specifically designed laboratory space. Environmental genomics faculty requires a combination of wet and dry lab space including clean rooms for sensitive analyses (30%). Space for sample preparation of soils, plants, rocks, and other materials is needed to separate this activity from contaminating our analytical and genomics laboratories (10%). Last, LES faculty will include ecological and climate modelers, and faculty who mix experimental and computational studies, who need dry laboratory space for computing and engagement (20%). Shared office space and collaborative working space for graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and research staff is a critical need. An environmental research facility, including greenhouses, is required to complement these space needs.

How do we get there? In the phase prior to the completion of new campus research laboratories in 2020, the current LES group should be co-located sensibly in either SE1 or SE2. Given that almost 50% of our current faculty are housed in the off-campus Castle research labs, yet our primary scholarship within the ES graduate group is highly interdisciplinary, it makes good sense to immediately co-locate the LES faculty in SE2 with the environmental engineering faculty, rather than infill the spaces vacated by SOE faculty in biological engineering. Co-location would accomplish two goals: maintenance of the coherence of LES faculty and assurance of LES’s continued role at UC Merced as one of the most interdisciplinary units on campus. As the 2020 plan unrolls, LES faculty would be in a leadership position to plan the new School and form the cornerstone of the academic program (see also the ES Graduate Plan for further ideas.)

What are we doing now? This current academic year, we have two faculty searches taking place, which we’ve coordinated with the Environmental Engineering faculty search as a cluster hire in Global Change Science. It is a goal of the ES graduate group and the LES unit to increase our intellectual footprint in this field in the 2020 timeframe. Much of our current research incorporates Global Change and Sustainability Science and has left us well-positioned in this developing field—for example, LES faculty have already received several large grants from the National Science Foundation’s Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability (SEES) portfolio. To continue to carry out this vision, we will need to continue to add faculty who have the ability, interest, and time to work across the broad field of environmental science. Our newest hires will be scientists with primarily computational space requirements, because wet lab space is limited.  As cutting edge field and lab expertise is a cornerstone of environmental and global change science and education, this strategy can only work for a few years, making it difficult to recruit the best candidates. Therefore we must be aggressive in building high-end experimental laboratory space to attract the most desirable candidates to grow our program.

What is our “solution” to moving forward? To address this shortage of high performance laboratory space in the next 2-3 years, the LES faculty along with their colleagues in the ES graduate group could “do more with less” if we were given the opportunity to co-locate our research laboratories, economize and strategize on space, while continuing to attract and hire new laboratory-based faculty.

What will our student body look like in 2020? The LES bylaw unit administers two majors at UC Merced, both of which currently enroll about 40-45 students in each: 1) Earth Systems Science (ESS) and 2) the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) emphasis track within Biological Sciences. The LES faculty also shares the responsibility for providing requisite classes for all BIO majors (approx. 1300 students). The LES faculty also deliver a large fraction of courses that fulfill the general education science requirement for SSHA students. We also have an Earth Systems and Sustainability minor with about 20-25 current students. In the next 2 academic years, the LES faculty is committed to increasing enrollment in our two majors to at least 1% of UC Merced undergraduates: about 60-80 students each in ESS and EEB. We have developed a roadmap for attracting more students, revamping requirements for the major, and promoting our broad program. In order to carry out this plan, we will be recruiting students who are currently Undeclared SNS students and undeclared Biology students. By expanding our undergraduate programs from these pools, we will help relieve the some of the burden on the MCB bylaw unit that administers most of the 1300 Biology majors. The LES faculty believe that increasing our majors, and decreasing theirs, will result in a more competitive, higher quality student body.

How do we stack up with other UC campuses? Each UC campus has major players in the field of environmental sciences; the smaller, newer campuses, like Santa Cruz and Riverside, have full-blown science departments (and buildings) for disciplines like chemistry, physics, math, and biology. At the current rate of campus development (including the 2020 plan), we can only compete with them if we propose something different such as the interdisciplinary School of the Environment/Anthropocene. Our vision is to support our current faculty, provide them with the best resources and laboratories that UC Merced can; co-locate us with faculty from other departments, schools, and institutes already on campus; allow us to hire and grow, in our small unit as well as within the larger interdisciplinary grad groups, and to build momentum that will allow this group to coalesce into a new School as the 2020 plan rolls out.

UC Merced will likely never compete with big UC campuses (e.g. Berkeley has over 45 ecologists on their faculty) in terms of breadth and depth, but it could complement them and support, attract, and retain a faculty highly interdisciplinary in nature and committed to the future.  Our faculty and grad students are substantially contributing to understanding the problems and proposing solutions to the environmental issues facing the state of California. We propose to do more with less and truly distinguish UC Merced by being innovative, timely, and speaking broadly to developers, the general public, politicians, and scholars with an new, interdisciplinary School, recognizing the inseparable link between human impacts on the world and the world’s provisions for humans.

Motivation: Management encompasses the science and art of how businesses and organizations accomplish goals using available resources efficiently, effectively, and sustainably. Now is the time to create innovative management programs based on quantitative research in organizations, innovation, science, and technology, with a focus on sustainable processes and practices at all levels. For instance, the rise of global service-based business models have transformed the way the world works, enabled by new information and communications technologies, specialization of businesses and professions, global regulations, and increased use of external services. National priorities aim toward economic improvement, driven by scientific understanding and systematic innovation.[1] But the US is lagging behind. It is time to focus deep scientific and engineering attention on service innovation in services, technology, and sustainability, among other areas.[2] UC Merced is uniquely positioned to create such new and novel management programs at the graduate and undergraduate levels, and to lead in research and practice in areas of management relevant to the Central Valley, California, the US, and beyond.

Opportunity: Modern businesses require employees with diverse and deep skill-sets. Many of these skill-sets are founded on cross-functional knowledge, including business analytics (computer science, mathematics, geography, economics, cognitive science, and management), decision-analysis (cognitive science, management), logistics (science, mathematics, geography, engineering, and management), resource management (environmental science, engineering, and management), and services (engineering, cognitive science, and management). UC Merced has substantial depth in these areas, including environment and natural resources, applied math and computation, technology and engineering, and cognitive and information sciences. In particular, all existing campus ORUs, (CITRIS, SNRI, HSRI, ERI), the new cross-UC California Center for Service Science, the Blum Center at UC Merced, proposed Center for Theory and Computation, proposed Center for Human Adaptive Systems and Environments, proposed Center for the Environment and Sustainability, proposed Hard Rock Reserves Institute, proposed new focus areas of Cognitive and Information Sciences in data science and human-technology interaction, proposed new programs in Applied Philosophy, and proposed School of Management and Economics are all aligned with our vision. Moreover, the campus has experience delivering innovative and interdisciplinary entrepreneurship and management programs. By weaving these diverse specialties together, we can create research-based management programs that will educate the business leaders of tomorrow, focusing on value-creation, innovation, and sustainability.  We can achieve this by building on our strengths and focusing on real-world problems relevant to the university, region, and state.[3]

Research Priorities: The San Joaquin Valley is directly faced with many of the grand challenges seen in our society in general: air quality, clean water, access to clean energy, access to good healthcare, and socio-economic disparities fueled by the lack of jobs. It is increasingly clear that the solutions to these challenges are found at the intersection of traditional academic fields. As such, the research priorities should be set at these intersections to collectively bring about solutions to the challenges of our area and the State. Examples include how technology can be used to manage solutions to these challenges, as illustrated in these sample research questions: How can data analytics enable better management of natural resources?  How can management of technology promote better access to healthcare?  How can entrepreneurial activities promote job growth locally?  How can better understanding of services yield better management of public services and public resources?

Proposal: We propose to create a program in Management of Innovation, Sustainability, and Technology (MIST). By 2020, a core group of 15-20 ladder-rank faculty will work with faculty from across the campus to deliver the research and educational missions collaboratively and cooperatively, possibly as part of a new School of Management and Economics. For MIST, we will build from existing faculty and campus strengths, which include services, logistics, analytics, cognition, health, the environment, and technology, in four broad strategic areas of research and education:

• Analytics, including Spatial Analytics, Health Services, and Smart Infrastructure
• Networks for Value Creation, including Network Security, and Logistics and Supply Chains
• Technology Management, including Services, Innovation, and Leadership
• Resource Management, including Protected Lands, Renewable Energy, and Sustainable Land Use

Our approach is built around five goals:

1. Establish a graduate group to develop educational, research, and outreach programs.  This group will develop programs in management of innovation, sustainability, and technology with a core group of faculty drawn from multiple schools. The School of Engineering will serve as the initial home for this new graduate group.
2. Develop a modular one-year professional Master of Science program that provides a unique educational experience that can be delivered in several formats (e.g., intensive residency sessions, online sessions, on-campus classes, and others). This key educational program, a one-year Masters of Science in Management (MSM) with tracks in innovation, sustainability, and technology, can generate revenue to help support a corresponding undergraduate program and a research-driven Ph.D. program. Offering a one-year graduate degree in management makes sense given recent data showing that applications to full-time, two-year M.B.A. programs are down over the past four years while interest in specialized one-year master's programs is up over the same period.[4] We expect this kind of program will create graduates with far more marketable skills than a four-year degree alone. An integral part of the MSM program is the development of proficiency-oriented online instruction modules that can be used to ensure knowledge of pre-requisite materials, and can also be used to fulfill courses in the program for students who may not have regular access to the campus.  MIST will aim to secure grant funding, and create relationships with other UC campuses and possibly external partners to develop online instructional capabilities at UC Merced.
3. Develop a modular and innovative undergraduate program in management with emphases in innovation, sustainability, and technology.  This program will align directly with the MSM program.  It will incorporate core management classes, such as accounting, finance, and marketing, leveraging existing courses from the Management and Business Economics program as appropriate.  Undergraduate minor programs in core areas of innovation, sustainability, and technology would be effective additions for majors in relevant areas of science and engineering.  Online education aligned with the MSM program will developed at the undergraduate level, along with unique cross-campus programs to take better advantage resources across the system (one ILTI proposal is already underway for an online, hybrid service-project-management class delivered jointly by UC Merced and UC San Diego).
4. Develop a modular Ph.D. that delivers a distinctive educational experience, and integrates in a flexible manner with existing graduate programs on campus, and take ownership of the campus' effort towards offering an undergraduate minor in Leadership, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship.
5. Develop partnerships, outreach, and development programs to sustain MIST’s research activities. For example, Programs in Parks and Protected Lands, including the internationally renowned National Parks Institute and the California State Parks Institute (which will be funded by outside sources starting January, 2014), will be effectively housed in MIST, with connections to SNRI and Environmental Systems. Similarly, Entrepreneurship and Leadership Programs currently run through administrative offices on campus will be led appropriately through the educational and academic mission of MIST, and expanded to include executive and part-time programs. In addition, MIST will work with UC Merced’s new California Center for Service Science to develop both cross-campus and UC-wide educational programs in service, particularly related to innovation and technology.

Overall, our goal is create a separate and distinct group that will be built up in a cross-disciplinary and cross-functional manner, yet which is aligned with related campus initiatives around environmental systems, computation and analytics, business economics, cognitive science, and more.

Timeline: In the short term, we will create a graduate group through the School of Engineering with membership open to UC Merced faculty, students, and staff with an interest in areas related to MIST.

By January 1, 2014, we willdevelop a specific strategic plan for achieving the goals of MIST, including developing educational programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and running a high-profile speaker series that brings business and thought leaders to campus to increase UC Merced’s visibility in areas related to MIST to engage world-class scientists and practitioners with students and faculty. 

By July 1, 2014, we will propose a cross-school graduate group for MIST. As described, the graduate programs will focus initially on the MSM and a Ph.D. program.  We will also establish an external advisory board of internationally recognized academics and national and local business leaders to help guide planning.   We expect the first cohort of MSM and PhD students to be admitted Fall 2015.

By July 1 2015, we will propose a cross-school undergraduate program in management that emphasizes innovation, sustainability, and technology, with BS degrees offered in these three tracks. We will necessarily depend on existing courses drawn from across campus in areas such as accounting and finance, environmental systems, and technology innovation. Minor programs in the three tracks will also be created.  In addition, we will aim to create an executive education program following the same general line.  Supported by outside agencies and organizations, we aim to hold the first MIST-sponsored National Parks Institute executive program in Spring of 2015.  We expect the first cohort of other programs to be admitted to in Fall 2016.

Hiring: In 2013-14, one strategic search in Natural Resource Management of Parks and Protected Areas, is being led by management and environmental systems faculty and the School of Engineering. In 2014-15, we propose to search for two ladder-rank faculty who work in management analytics, including supply chain, healthcare, business intelligence, decision analytics, services, and sustainability.

In 2015-16, we propose to search for three ladder-rank faculty, focusing hiring on analytics through alignment with UC Merced’s strategic priorities, and in collaboration with graduate groups and research institutes across the sciences, engineering and social sciences. Synergies can be found in applied mathematics (asset pricing, operations, network theory), environmental science and engineering (sensor networks, network theory), computer science (optimization, theory), cognitive science (decision making), and economics (markets, econometrics). To grow to steady-state by 2020, we propose to search for two-to-three ladder-rank faculty each year for the following four years in these same broad areas.

Students: At steady-state in 2020, we expect the masters programs to have about 100 enrolled, the executive program to have 60 enrolled, the PhD program to have 10 enrolled, and the undergraduate program to have 50 enrolled. Thus, MIST will support UC Merced’s 2020 Project goals of increasing substantially the proportion of graduate-student enrollment over time.

Lecturers and Staff: To support the proposed masters and undergraduate programs, MIST will rely on faculty from across the campus, including for instance Economics, Environment Systems, Applied Math, Cognitive and Information Sciences, and more. However, it is possible additional lecturers dedicated to MIST will be required as well. In addition, several staff will be required over to support day-to-day operations of the educational programs, including for instance, advisors and a program coordinator.

Diversity: UC Merced is among the most diverse of the UC campuses. MIST will continue to support diversity by establishing a diverse student body and a diverse faculty. For instance, by aligning the initial MSM degree with the existing undergraduate population, we will naturally encourage student diversity. In addition, MIST will continue to encourage and monitor recruitment of women and underrepresented faculty at all levels, benchmarking efforts on diversity against the campus and relevant fields.

Metrics: MIST can be evaluated along educational and research metrics. For education, key metrics include number of applications, students enrolled, and post-graduation placement. It may be possible to compare the success of students in the fifth-year MSM program with the success comparable UC Merced students who graduate with a 4-year BS (e.g., in terms of starting salary). For research, key metrics include quality of publications and extramural grant funding. It may be possible to measure the cross-disciplinary or interdisciplinary research impact by measuring the number of collaborations across traditional disciplines and considering the quality of work published outside traditional management fields.

Example Curriculum: A modular one-year Master of Science in Management can provide a unique educational experience that can ultimately be delivered in several formats (e.g., intensive residency sessions, online sessions, on-campus classes, and others), and with specialized tracks in innovation, sustainability, and technology. The curriculum incorporates a number of basic management courses (the Fundamentals, taken in two Summer sessions: leadership, communication, accounting, and finance), with core courses that combine innovation in technology with practical management concepts (the Core, taken in Fall: economics, decision making, innovation, and entrepreneurship) and focused courses that delve deeper into sustainability and strategy (the Specialization, taken in Spring: operations management, services and sustainability, and global strategy), finally integrating all areas together in a semester-long project course (the Integration, taken in Spring: capstone). 

Space Needs: With the projected growth of MIST and management programs in SSHA, open space to house faculty in the Management Suite in SSM will be filled within 2 years. At steady-state in 2020, MIST will need space for approximately 15 faculty, 5 lecturers, and 4 staff members. In addition, 3-4 modern classrooms with video-conferencing capability, and 10-15 smaller project rooms will be required to meet the educational needs of the undergraduate and masters students; and shared office and laboratory space will be required to house PhD students. Thus, we estimate that by 2020, MIST will require approximately 7,000 asf for academic and administrative offices, 10,000 asf for instructional and student services, and 5,000 for student and lab workspace, totaling 23,000 asf (or 33,000 gross square feet).

School of Management and Economics. The MIST group will collaborate with colleagues in Economics in the short-term and the long-term to align efforts toward eventual creation of a new School of Management and Economics. Over the next few years, we will collaborate to plan and deliver the refocused undergraduate Management program, as well as new masters-level programs. By 2020, we expect to bring MIST, Economics, and related programs together into a new, separate school.

Participants and Supporters: Roger Bales, Paul Brown, Yihsu Chen, Martha Conklin, Rick Dale, Robin DeLugan, Dan Hirleman, Rob Innes, Chris Kello, Teenie Matlock, Roummel Marcia, Juan Meza, Stergios Roussos, Kurt Schnier, Peter Vanderschraaf, Josh Viers, Tony Westerling, Alex Whalley

Business Plan: A sketch of our business plan through 2020 is shown in the attached table, including current and proposed faculty investments (“MIST-Financials”).  Through use of professional degree fees and executive education fees, we expect MIST to operate as a set of self-supporting programs over time.

We have been hiring sociologists with the explicit goal of fostering a synergistic intellectual environment at UC Merced, with a program that emphasizes issues central to the university's mission and connects well with other programs on campus.  The Sociology program focuses on the study of social inequality, including race, class, gender and sexuality, political participation and social movements, education, health and immigration. We have emphasized hiring faculty who are a good fit for the university's mission to bring needed expertise to the Central Valley on topics such as immigration, education and health. In addition, we have been hiring in a way that enables us to form interdisciplinary connections with other programs on campus, such as political science, the humanities, psychology, public health, and the natural sciences.  

The Sociology program is focusing on a unique combination of areas compared to other sociology programs in the UC system and nationally. While some sociology programs such as UCSB, for example, study race, immigration and political participation, they do not also focus on education and health. The Sociology program at Notre Dame University emphasizes education and political participation, but they do not also include a focus on social inequality (race and gender) and health. Ohio State's Sociology Department includes a strong emphasis on political participation and health, but they do not also study immigration and race. Thus, our program emphasizes a unique combination of areas which will help us attain national distinction while providing graduate students with one of a kind training. The areas we emphasize are synergistic, so that a graduate student interested in immigrant experiences within the educational system, for example, can train with experts in immigration, race and education, in a way that they would be unable to do at any other university in the country.  We have been hiring sociologists with the explicit goal of fostering a cohesive intellectual environment in order to provide excellent graduate training that addresses issues at the cutting edge of sociology, and that are relevant to California and the Central Valley.

Sociology, perhaps more than any other discipline, is inherently interdisciplinary. Sociologists study topics that overlap with virtually every other discipline in the social sciences and humanities, including politics, education, and health, among others. We also collaborate with natural science on topics such as the study of scientific disciplines, STEM field education, health, environment, and medicine, and the interaction between biology and the social world. Current Sociology faculty are involved in a range of interdisciplinary collaborations. Van Dyke and Dodson are collaborating with Stephen Nicholson in political science on ballot initiatives and hate crimes. Valdez is working with public health and biology faculty on issues of economic inequality and obesity. Beattie is collaborating with math faculty and graduate students on a study of minorities in STEM fields. Almeida has also worked with a graduate student in Environmental Systems on GIS mapping techniques. Golash-Boza is leading a speaking series with UCM Humanities Faculty to bring internationally renowned race and ethnicity scholars to campus. These cross-disciplinary collaborations have the potential to generate new insights into important social issues, while also providing opportunities for graduate students to receive interdisciplinary research training.

Sociology is also participating in interdisciplinary graduate coursework. Most of the sociology graduate students are taking a course in introductory graduate level quantitative methods in Political Science (POLI 210). Several students from the World Cultures graduate groups are enrolled in our current sociology graduate seminars, including Sociological Theory and a Seminar on Race and Ethnicity. We are in discussions with the Public Health faculty about the possibility of making Sociology Statistics courses (Soc 210, 211) a requirement for the Public Health graduate students. We also anticipate graduate students from several other disciplines enrolling in our graduate statistics and research methods courses because of Sociology’s leading roles in these fields within the social sciences generally. Thus, the graduate program in Sociology is providing training for graduate students in a range of disciplines across the university.

UC Merced was placed in the Central Valley specifically because of the social challenges facing its residents, social challenges which are the direct focus of sociological research. We would argue that more than any other program at UC Merced, we are developing the capacity to study and train students on issues that are important to the Central Valley.  We are hiring scholars who study race, ethnicity and social class:  disparities along these lines are fundamental to the nature of life in the Central Valley.  We are hiring sociologists who study education: low educational attainment and racial disparities in attainment are critical problems in the Central Valley.  Our research and graduate training address issues of political participation: minorities in the US typically have disproportionately low rates of political participation, in spite of the fact that political action would help address many of the challenges faced by their communities.  We are hiring sociologists who study health disparities: the region has high rates of obesity, diabetes, and other health problems.  The areas of strength and the combination of areas we are developing are unique for the UC system and nationally, and will help us draw graduate students and attain national and even international standing.

Situating Sociology within UC Merced

Sociology fits centrally in the fifth strategic research theme identified in UC Merced’s current Strategic Academic Vision - the Dynamics of Social and Economic Progress. We also contribute to the research themes: Human Health; Community, Culture, Identity; and Environmental Sustainability.

Some of the university's strengths might be better captured by a research theme of Central Valley/the World. The campus has multiple disciplines building strength in the study of issues important to the Central Valley, including those we describe above. The World Cultures faculty and Sociology study social inequality, including race/ethnicity and gender. Economics, Psychology, and Sociology faculty are building strength in education, an interest also shared by faculty in Natural Science. Psychology, Economics, Public Health and Sociology are developing expertise in health disparities. The population of the Central Valley, with more than 6 million residents, is larger than that of 10 US states. The challenges it faces in terms of health, education, poverty and immigration, are all issues affecting California, and the nation. By emphasizing our expertise in these issues, we can demonstrate that our research programs are important and worthy of support, with implications for the region, the state and beyond.

Interdisciplinary research on inequality, health, education, immigration and politics would be strengthened by the formation of additional research centers on campus.  The Health Science Research Institute and Humanities Center have already begun fostering interdisciplinary connections on campus. Sociology faculty have initiated research projects with faculty in Public Health and World Cultures through the HSRI, and have co-sponsored a speaker series with the Humanities Center.  The addition of several more research centers on campus would similarly facilitate interdisciplinary collaborations on other topics.  The Sociology faculty are in discussion with faculty in Psychology and Economics about the possibility of starting an Education Research Center. The UC does not have any research centers with this focus, and the Central Valley would benefit from its presence. A Center for the Study of Comparative Inequalities would connect the Humanities and Sociology faculty while addressing a topic that cuts across many other interest areas on campus, such as Public Health.  Finally, faculty from across SSHA, the Natural Sciences and Engineering have already begun planning a Center for Quantitative and Survey Research. This Center will foster cross-disciplinary collaborations by bringing together faculty who share different quantitative research skills.  These Centers would not necessarily require significant resources, beyond a shared meeting space and possibly funds to bring in speakers and seed research projects, and the pay off would be visible through research collaborations and grant dollars.

Metrics for Assessing Graduate Program Standing

We are building a strong and unique sociology program at UC Merced.  Our seven current faculty members have already established a foundation of research excellence, and our goal is to continue building to become a nationally ranked sociology program within 15 years.  We have every confidence that we can achieve this goal.  Among the faculty we have on campus thus far, all have published articles in top sociology journals; 5 of our 7 faculty have been elected to national office within the discipline; 4 have received national awards for their work, and two have received Fulbright Awards.  Several of our faculty have published books with leading academic presses. These are all markers of excellence. In the future, the success of our graduate students will also be an important indicator of the strength of our program, and will be evident by graduate students presenting their research at conferences, publishing their work, and by their post-graduation job placement. 

Program Demand

On the UC Merced campus, undergraduate sociology courses fill to near capacity every semester and more quickly than those of almost any other discipline. In the 2012-13 academic year, sociology undergraduate enrollments were the 2nd highest in SSHA, and the 4th highest in the university (not counting math or writing). The number of sociology majors has grown steadily since the program's inception 3 years ago. We currently have 190 majors and more than 130 minors. In spite of our high enrollments, we are one of the smaller programs on campus in terms of faculty numbers. Thus, we have the same number of faculty as some other programs (or fewer), yet teach 4 times the number of undergraduates. Our current faculty numbers are not sufficient for the student demand.

Graduate training in Sociology remains popular throughout the UC System, and thus, we anticipate steady growth for our graduate program. Larger schools such as UCLA have over 120 graduate students in residence while smaller campuses such as UC Riverside maintain Sociology graduate enrollments of 50 students. Other UC Sociology programs typically admit only 10% of their applicants, and thus, there is unmet demand for graduate training in sociology in California.  In fall of 2013, in the first year of our specialized graduate program in Sociology in Social Sciences, five out of the seven students that were admitted to our program accepted our offers, while we denied entry to three other applicants. We anticipate sustained growth in a strong applicant pool in the coming years (projected in the metrics worksheet) as we advertise our program more aggressively on a national and international scale, and as our growing number of faculty continue to receive national recognition for their research.

UC Merced was placed in California’s Central Valley because its population is underserved by higher educational opportunities and because of the social and economic challenges facing the region. The Sociology Program will provide members of underrepresented groups access to first class undergraduate and graduate training. The research strengths of the sociology faculty are directly relevant, and therefore compelling, to a diverse set of students. Our undergraduate program currently has 190 majors, 70% of whom are Latino. We have the highest percentage of majors that are Latino of any program on campus other than Spanish. Among our current group of graduate students, 5 out of 6 are from underrepresented minority groups. We anticipate training a diverse group of students for both academic and non-academic careers.

Growth Plan

Since the first sociologist joined UCM in 2006, we have added 1-2 faculty members per year. Sociology currently has one search underway for a faculty member who can teach Graduate Statistics, and is also currently pursuing a senior hire in Sociological Theory, with an emphasis in race and ethnicity. Assuming we are able to hire one individual to arrive in the fall of 2014, this will bring our total number of faculty to 8, and if we get both we will have 9 faculty. Strategic plans within the School of Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts have been consistently recommending at least one line for Sociology each year. Thus, by 2020 we anticipate having 15-17 faculty.

We plan to continue to grow our strengths in gender, health, immigration, race, and education – as these are areas that are both important to the Central Valley and that build on current strengths of UC Merced.  We anticipate continuing to offer graduate seminars in areas that appeal to graduate students across campus, and collaborating with faculty in other departments on research grants and seminar series. With fifteen faculty, we will be able to offer graduate courses in advanced statistics, sociological theory, gender, race, education, social movements, research methods, qualitative research, and immigration, and we anticipate that these courses will appeal to Sociology graduate students as well as students in public health, psychology, political science, history, anthropology, and literature.

We plan on accepting small cohorts of 5-6 students per year reaching between 25-30 graduate students by the fall of 2020. The ratio of faculty to graduate students will be approximately 1:2. By the fall of 2020 we anticipate (based on current commitments and the SSHA Annual Strategic Plan) having 15-17 Sociology tenure-track faculty.  Over the long term we anticipate reaching a graduate student population of around 40 with 20-25 faculty members, which will maintain a 1:2 faculty to student ratio for our graduate program. The metrics worksheet outlines the projected growth of our Sociology graduate program.

Space needs

Sociologists require one office per faculty member. Graduate students need (shared) office space as well. Thus, in addition to 15-17 faculty offices, we will require shared office space for approximately 30 students by 2020.  These could be faculty style offices shared by 2 students, or larger spaces with cubicles or work stations, shared by 8-12 students.  Sociologists typically do not require experimental laboratory facilities, however, some do require computer lab space. Sociology currently has one shared secure data lab, and a graduate student computing lab. We expect these labs, along with offices allocated to new faculty and graduate students, to accommodate the size of the Sociology program for several years. However, over the long term we expect to need additional space for research, teaching assistants, and graduate student workspace, in addition to offices for new faculty. Ideally, the program would have a small kitchen or break room, and a small conference room for meetings.

Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

UC Merced has made interdisciplinary scholarship a cornerstone of its identity.   In proposing an area of focus on Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, we are bringing together a group of faculty from a range of arts, humanities, and social science fields and reaching out to NS and ENG to share a common interest in the ways gender and sexuality shape various aspects of our world.  Over the past forty years, scholars across the academy – first under the rubric of women’s studies, then women’s and gender studies, and most recently through Women’s, Gender and Sexuality studies --  have been studying the social and cultural constructions and implications of gender and sexuality.  This work has always been fundamentally interdisciplinary, as scholars quickly discovered that the disciplinary frameworks of the academy, created to understand the world of late 19^th century Europe, often rendered the experience of women, and even the existence of gender, invisible; the disciplines assumed that gender was natural, the same across time and place.  Yet as scholars studied women’s lives, it became clear that ideas of gender – the nature and proper behavior of men and women – have varied enormously.   By the 1990s, it was clear that not only was gender a socially constructed set of relationships, but sexuality, rather than being fixed and natural, was equally socially constructed.  The interdisciplinary study of gender and sexuality has flourished across the academy.   

The central questions of the field are deceptively simple: What has it/does it mean to be male or female in society?  How is that expressed in language, thought, culture, politics, and social organization?   How do ideas of gender act as either metaphors for or avenues for systems of power?   How is sexual identity and behavior defined and policed?  How has it been expressed?  These questions all provoke new ones; they shape how we read literature, look at art, understand dance, family, education, language, psychology, economics.  Studies of gender and sexuality are germane to each of the areas delineated in the 2009 Strategic Academic Vision.  Ideas of gender shape attitudes to nature, and thus contribute to environmental issues; the social organization of gender leads to an unequal distribution of resources, and thus also contributes to health disparities.  Ideas about gender shape the way we speak, and the way we are heard, thus creating a central question for cognitive sciences. Questions of gender and sexuality run through any consideration of “Culture, Community, and Identity”, and issues of gender are also central to understanding dynamics of social and economic progress. In current discussions in the field, one of the burning questions is related to what scholars call intersectionality – the ways in which gender and sexuality are inflected by other markers of identity, including race, class, ethnicity, and religion.  

The interdisciplinary focus of UC Merced makes a program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality a logical fit.  There is significant research related to gender in all of the areas outlined by the Strategic Academic vision. There is a growing group of faculty interested in issues of gender and sexuality.  We therefore propose that part of the 2020 plan should be to build on our existing strengths by developing a formal program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.   This program would begin with an undergraduate minor, and ultimately a major.  While we do not believe that we can build a Ph.D. program in Women’s Studies by 2020, we propose that we develop a graduate emphasis that both MA and Ph.D. students can complete in the course of their doctoral program.  This emphasis (the approach taken at Berkeley, Davis, and Irvine) would provide an introduction to the major theoretical approaches in women’s studies.  Such a certificate will help build both the intellectual skills and the employability of our graduates, while also stimulating faculty research.

Both the undergraduate program and the graduate emphasis will provide research opportunities that have significant intellectual and personal attractions.  A multifaceted area studies program in this vein offers diverse and important research opportunities for faculty and students; additionally, there are important reasons for students to take such courses, and faculty to teach them. A 2012 article by Hilary Watchler explains the benefits of a major such as this one, pointing out the direct relevance of the program to recent political issues (such as women's health and birth control), contemporary health and wage disparities, and ultimately, everything -- the issues discussed in a program such as the one we propose address questions of biology, culture, sociology, economics, politics and policies—all of which impact our lives every day.  Furthermore, a program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality studies provides an intellectual framework for GLBT students to understand their own experience.

Resources

Currently, faculty at UC Merced with interests in areas of Women’s Gender, and Sexuality Studies teach in undergraduate programs in Anthropology, Cognitive Science, English, History, GASP, and Sociology.  As in many places, a program in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies would depend primarily on courses already taught in existing programs.  To build the faculty in the field, we propose a two pronged strategy.  First, we propose the addition of two or three faculty hired with a primary responsibility in women’s studies.  They could be housed in any one of the SSHA Acacemic Units, and would teach introductory courses in the field, as well as core graduate seminars and capstone courses for the major.  In addition, we propose the allocation of 3-5 lines in one year to make a cohort hire in existing programs whose teaching would also serve Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies: there could be a competition, so the lines could both meet the needs of the contributing disciplines and the program.

Central to our vision of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies is that it does not become another silo, but instead is woven into the fabric of existing programs.  In this way, building a successful program in Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies will simultaneously strengthen other areas of focus on campus.

In terms of space needs, the proposed program will require nothing more than faculty offices.  Minor additions to the library holdings and electronic offerings may be requested so that new faculty have access to the materials they need for their research and teaching.  Staff support can be provided through the means accorded to other SSHA programs; currently through staffing centralized in the Dean's Office, potentially with a dedicated staff member in the future.

Contribution to UC Merced’s Success in 2020

Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies is taught at almost every college and university in the country.   Research in the field has reshaped all the disciplines of the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences over the past forty years.  In one sense, the development of such a program is just one more step in our becoming a university with a full range of academic programs.  Even more, however, the development of the program, and the faculty network it will support, will encourage additional research, and stimulate new research through interdisciplinary dialogue.  

Burgeoning in the heady sixties and seventies, women’s studies began as part of political action.  The single subject focus shifted when third wave feminist study changed the complexion and approach of early models, adding sexuality studies, gender studies, and masculinity studies, creating a multi faceted, exciting, intellectually engaged approach to understanding identity formations within the context of political action. This emphasis on interaction with the world fits well with UCM’s focus on community service and the Blum Center, which is about equity oriented solutions.  Using the service learning model, WGSS plans to include undergraduate field experience that will ideally be applicable and appealing to students in most, if not all, UCM majors.It also fits well with the campus’s commitment to undergraduate research.   We also see it working in and with a range of other existing or proposed interdisciplinary programs on campus: Race & Ethnicity Studies, Working Class Studies, Public Health, and Environmental Studies.

Comparable Programs

Every other UC Campus offers study in areas related to Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.  

The certificate approach has been used at (for instance) University of Michigan, the University of Maryland, University of Wisconsin, and Duke University.

Significantly, most UC campuses encourage students to pair one of the above degrees with another, and many offer a program that combines more than one of the above. Thus, combining these three areas follows a “best practices” approach in this field by providing a diverse and highly interdisciplinary field that focuses on the complex interaction of gender with other identity markers such as race, ethnicity, sexuality, nation, and religion.  Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies will build on, strengthen, and enrich existing campus initiatives related to engaged scholarship and social justice, and in doing so will serve the intellectual breadth and diversity of the campus.  

The following faculty support this proposal.  Some teach current courses appropriate for an undergraduate minor and/or major, and some will, or hope to soon; some offer graduate level courses that would serve a graduate program in this area:

Susan Amussen, History

Ireenie Beattie, Sociology

Tanya Golash-Boza, Sociology

Gregg Camfield, English

Jan Goggans, English

Mariaelena Gonzalez, Psychology and Public Health

Rowena Gray, Economics

Laura Hamilton, Sociology

Nigel Hatton, English

Carolyn Jennings, Cognitive Science

David Kaminsky GASP

Valerie Leppert, ENG

Virginia Adan-Lifante, Spanish

Teenie Matlock, Cognitive Science

Sholeh Quinn, History

Linda Anne Rebhun, Anthropology

David Torres-Rouff

Anna Song, Psychology

Jessica Trounstine, Political Science

Nella Van Dyke, Sociology

Anne Zanzucchi, MWP

Strategic Vision

UC Merced’s Strategic Vision (2009) emphasizes the principles of a student-centered research university, founded on a long history of University of California educational aspirations. Influential to this vision is the Boyer Commission’s Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America's Research Universities (1998), whichrecommends making research-based learning standard, removing barriers to interdisciplinary education, linking communication skills and coursework, focusing on freshman year as foundational, and educating graduate students as apprentice teachers.  Shown below, these five recommendations shape our program’s strategic vision.

• With research-based learning as a guiding standard, the MWP will intensify field-specific course offerings and interdisciplinary connections to develop a Writing Major and a Masters in Fine Arts Program (a terminal degree offered in collaboration with English Literature and World Cultures).
• With linking communication skills and coursework as a campus priority, the MWP will continue to coordinate significant aspects of general education -- as part of institutional and accreditation expectations to define the meaning of the undergraduate degree and attend to competencies.
• To augment interdisciplinary scholarship, the MWP will build cross-disciplinary connections,  i) by developing integrative general education programming,  and ii) through implementing writing-in-the-disciplines curricula for institutional priority areas such as the Blum Center, Sierra Nevada Institute, and Community Engaged Scholarship program.
• With writing competence as foundational to success in our university’s degree programs and overall administration, the MWP will strengthen institutional partnerships to develop a Writing and Reading Center that provides professional, supplemental writing instruction for undergraduates, graduate students, and post-doctoral scholars, among other constituents.
• In preparing graduate students as future faculty, the MWP will support institutional growth at the graduate level, in particular by offering pedagogical training and teaching opportunities to graduate students. We are piloting and will continue to grow graduate-level writing courses across the disciplines (currently cross-listed in Chemistry, Physics, Applied Math, and QSB).

MWP Intellectual Drivers and Research Questions         

The Merritt Writing Program (MWP) is distinctively focused on teaching within the guiding context of a research university that is student-centered. Our unit includes three Senate lecturers and 65 Unit 18 lecturers, supported by only two staff members. Our program is large and represents what should be conceptualized as essentially four programs: general education, freshman composition, writing in specific disciplines, and a writing minor/major (with a proposal for the major in process). To sustain this breadth of professional responsibility, the degree backgrounds of MWP faculty are intentionally diverse, with MFA and Ph.D. degrees in creative writing, linguistics, anthropology, business, speech, rhetoric and composition, literature, foreign languages, and history to name a few.

Our attention to the scholarship of teaching and learning is evidenced in rigorous teaching portfolios for academic review, campus and UC system-wide presentations, membership on national committees, and multimedia scholarship. Our professional focus is primarily on teaching, with associated applied research and traditional publications. We publish in research areas that include creative writing, general education, instructional technology, pedagogy, rhetoric / composition, assessment, English-language learning, and writing program administration. We have been awarded several competitive Department of Education grants as well, including Title V and FIPSE grants, which funded about 20 graduate research appointments, several writing-support initiatives, and UCM’s summer bridge program that also features complementary curricular support in writing and math, with co-curricular support in learning communities and peer mentoring.

Research questions that animate our field and could strengthen our institutional mission include: When we ask students to write, what are we measuring? What are some ways to factor digital technology into a legacy of print-based teaching and learning? How does cultural expression factor into scholarly discourse and academic success? At this moment in our campus history, we see potential in connecting the undergraduate with the graduate educational experiences, especially as the strengths in undergraduate education at our campus could inform future faculty initiatives. With our campus demographics and institutional research initiatives, these composition and pedagogy research foci could distinguish our campus in undergraduate education and associated scholarship. 

The MWP is an interdisciplinary unit in theory, practice and function, with a writing minor program specific to our field[1]. Writing programs often have an institutional identity, in part because our field serves entry-level and general education requirements. The Merritt Writing Program is no exception with about 90% of our curriculum meeting general education or institutional requirements, and with the other 10% specific to specialized, elective courses in rhetoric and composition. To develop our disciplinary field further at UCM, we seek to grow a major in writing, writing and reading center, and masters in fine arts and rhetoric. Our initiatives in undergraduate and graduate education are aligned in such a way to provide opportunity to specialize in writing at various levels.

To achieve these objectives and support our campus’ next enrollment phase, the Merritt Writing Program needs two resources: (a) three LPSOE Senate lines and (b) two entry-level staff positions:

(a)    Our needed Senate lines are consistent with our 2011 Program Review resource recommendation and World Cultures FTE requests from AY 2013 (in total 3 lines for LPSOE appointments). These Senate lines have been formally endorsed internally and externally by our bylaw unit as critical to both sustaining the MWP and pursuing important institutional initiatives. Our existing and future responsibilities require self-governance and disciplinary insight from composition fields.

(b)   Further, we have requested baseline staff support with two entry-level staff positions. Our staffing and operational budget has not changed since 2005, despite growth from 12 to 65 lecturers and new associated personnel and budgetary responsibilities. This staffing need has been a priority budget request since 2007; this gap in staffing needs to be addressed.

Space would be five offices for these new appointments. The proposed Writing and Reading Center could be located in a multipurpose space, ideally in partnership with other units. For example, to support research writing and information literacy outcomes, we have proposed (AY2013 budget) cross-training instructional assistants with our colleagues in the Kolligian Library. The following sections summarize our existing needs and recommended initiatives to clarify these established resource needs.

A Major in Writing

With a focus on research-based learning, it is critical for us (and our campus) to develop a major undergraduate program in writing. The MWP would best serve our institution with opportunities to grow as a discipline, beyond being a support unit to other disciplines. An undergraduate major provides us with the infrastructure to provide undergraduates with specialization in a significant field, while strengthening and aligning our curriculum within our own discipline. This emphasis is consistent with national trends, as there are 68 writing major programs nationally (circa 2011) that have developed in the past two decades with clear distinctions from literature programs, emphasizing language study, rhetorical analysis, media studies, and creative/professional writing. Aspirational peers for writing major programs include the University of Minnesota, Northwestern University, and Syracuse University. With this national growth of undergraduate programs, UC Merced could be distinctive as the first Hispanic Serving Institution to offer an undergraduate program in writing. We are also the first writing program established at a research university that is designed entirely on evidence of research in our field, complemented by the broader interdisciplinary scholarship of teaching and learning. In the MWP’s 2011 periodic review, the external review team specifically noted our “highly sophisticated matrix, blending theoretical, curricular, and pedagogical innovation” that establishes a “potentially transformative national model for educating a highly diverse undergraduate population.”   We aspire to do just that.  

Unique in its curriculum nationally, the Writing Minor is currently the fourth most popular minor degree institution-wide, demonstrating an interest and need to develop this field from an enrollment standpoint. As a natural extension of this minor, the Writing Major will prepare students to be flexible as they develop abilities to research, synthesize and innovate. Emphasizing writing as a process and interdisciplinary inquiry, writing major courses will offer challenging curricula in sequences of study in creative writing, professional writing, and style study. Although specialization is part of the major, students will pursue more than one sequence, granting flexibility in process and content and maximizing employment potential or seeking a graduate degree.

Courses of study start with survey courses covering genres of writing, proceed through a foundational, process-based course (Intersections) for all writing majors, and then branch into specialized routes through thematic and genre-based seminars. Electives that round out the major include classes in writing theory, writing pedagogy, grammar and style, traditional Writing in the Disciplines courses (such as Writing for Engineering and Writing for Psychology), written discourse, and journal editing.  The major will also give students opportunities for internships in tutoring and media (electronic and print) production. Students will finish their course of study with a senior-year capstone project produced over two semesters and guided by writing faculty.

Our current LPSOE request in Composition and Rhetoric is designed to support the growth of our minor program, major program initiative, and proposed MFA project.

Writing and Reading Center

In close collaboration with UC Merced’s Office of Undergraduate Education, the Kolligian Library, Student Affairs, and with undergraduate as well as graduate program units, the Writing and Reading Center (WRC) will become a central location for professional tutors, graduate-teaching assistants, and MWP faculty to share and implement best practices for the teaching of academic writing with ancillary support for critical reading. 

Professional tutors with English language training who have earned at least a baccalaureate will staff the WRC. We will hire, train, and place Professional Tutors (PTs) in courses where they will provide supplemental writing and reading instruction that establishes or extends a writing-intensive course curriculum. Their training will occur as an on-site apprenticeship under the supervision of an experienced writing teacher. As a related function, we anticipate providing supplemental instruction to undergraduates as part of our curriculum that is keyed to specific lower-division and upper-division required writing courses. Consistent with that proposal but for broader objectives, the WRC will complement existing peer tutoring services offered by the Bright Center. However, unlike that peer tutoring service, the support offered by WRC professional tutors will be embedded in the curriculum of a course – an efficiency that significantly improves student outcomes. We submitted a similar funding request for a Writing and Reading Center (AY2013) to hire professional editors and consultants for upper-division undergraduates who are completing a senior thesis and graduate students who are preparing a thesis. The Writing and Reading Center will have a primary role in serving graduate students, in particular international students whose first language is not English. Special focus will be given to supporting grant proposals and research reports to address the needs of new faculty, international graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows. With approximately 30% of graduate students being international, these language support needs are critical and ubiquitous.     

Our request for a Second Languages LPSOE would serve as the WRC Coordinator to supervise PT staff and prepare annual reports documenting WRC services, costs, and specific outcomes[2]. The latter would include evidence of student performance as a result of professional tutoring; evidence of increased use of writing in discipline-area courses, with comparative data showing any gains in student academic achievement; and evidence of undergraduate research supported by the WRC. 

Graduate Degree (MFA) and Graduate Writing/Pedagogy Support  

Not only are we in the position to offer a writing major and launch a writing center, we are engaging in preliminary planning to develop a graduate program to support advanced composition specialization.  To that end, we anticipate collaborating with the English Literature program, Arts program and the Sierra Nevada Institute to establish our Masters of Fine Arts program in Creative Writing and Rhetoric (CW&R).[3] The dual emphasis of this CW&R degree will allow students, through a complementary set of required courses, to obtain an advanced degree in creative writing while also acquiring expertise in the theory and practice of language pedagogy. The latter training will significantly enhance career opportunities for those completing the MFA in CW&R. These opportunities include publication roles as editors, journalists, freelance or technical writers; careers in international business, government and foreign relations, public-health industries, and multicultural media.  CW&R recipients will also be well prepared for further study in law school or in doctoral programs that emphasize language study (e.g., English, foreign languages, or linguistics). Of particular significance for the degree we are proposing, prospective teachers of writing will receive strong training that prepares them for academic positions as teachers of writing.

Further, the MWP will continue to play a significant role in supporting graduate education across disciplines. To support graduate students effectively, we must collaborate with other disciplines to share our expertise, support writing-intensive curriculum, and mentor graduate students (both as scholars, with writing, and as instructors, with future faculty aspirations). We have recently piloted a World Cultures pedagogy course, which will be required in the new Interdisciplinary Humanities graduate program. Also, we have partnered with Chemistry, Applied Mathematics, Physics, and Quantitative Systems Biology to offer our campus’ first academic writing course for incoming graduate students beginning this spring (270 series). Although this course will be taught by faculty (in the MWP) with a degree in composition studies, we collaborate closely with the sciences to develop innovative curricula that support graduate-level writing. Our intention to build an undergraduate major program and a graduate MFA works in tandem with graduate education support, in that we could provide bridge or co-enrollment courses with our upper-division undergraduate offerings. For example, WRI 105: Grammar and Style could be co-enrolled by both undergraduates and graduate students or offered separately as a graduate course (WRI 205, etc.). We are not just expert teachers for undergraduates; we have a commitment to educating future faculty. Our current LPSOE request focused on digital media and rhetoric is designed to support the MFA initiative as well as interdisciplinary graduate pedagogy support.          

Sustaining Existing Responsibilities and Initiatives

Consistent with freshman year being foundational, we are committed to institutionally required courses and general education.  Currently, we provide 3/8 of first-year curriculum and play a significant role in undergraduate persistence and retention through frequent feedback on writing, research opportunities, and faculty contact. Our pedagogy and curriculum design provide students with integrative learning opportunities, which was highlighted in our program review report (2011). Integrative learning is a sophisticated and central undergraduate skill, in that students are able to make connections between curricular and co-curricular activities, synthesizing and transferring skills throughout courses. Our pedagogy is carefully designed for such transfer, so that students are academically successful in writing, general education, co-curricular activities, and their majors. Since transfer is such a difficult skill to foster, and writing instruction is feedback-based and very labor-intensive, a commitment to seminar style coursework at the freshman level is a critical institutional investment. Further, our curriculum is distinctively interdisciplinary, in that we teach both traditional research writing as well as quantitative literacy. Our emphasis on integrative learning is consistent with national calls from our discipline and general education associations, including the American Association of Colleges and Universities, the Reinvention Center, and the College Communication and Composition.

Similarly, many of our collaborations come from our program playing a key role in supporting general education, which constitutes one-third of an undergraduate’s academic course plan. A director from the MWP has been involved on all GE committees (ad hoc, standing, and program review) since the beginning of undergraduate enrollment in 2005. Our associate director fully supervises, assesses and staffs Core 1, a required integrative general education course. We face an ongoing challenge, however. Accreditation reports and GE committee recommendations have noted that our responsibility for general education is too localized in the MWP and not sustainable. We agree, and in various contexts we have advocated for involving graduate students in teaching Core 1 as a foundational experience for future faculty training in an increasingly interdisciplinary academic world. Further, Core 1 engages undergraduates (and graduate students as potential instructors) with institutional learning outcomes. Core 1 is writing-intensive and cross-disciplinary; the only course in higher education to integrate disciplinary knowledge, encourage students and faculty to make connections across fields, and to actively promote qualitative as well as quantitative reasoning. Following the trajectory of more established UC campuses, all other UC writing programs offer pedagogy courses and educate graduate students as future faculty to teach in writing-intensive and general education courses. UCM has an opportunity with Core 1, required first-year courses such as WRI 1 and WRI 10, and upper-division MWP writing-in-the-disciplines courses in psychology and biological fields to educate instructors. Further, we could play a central role in strengthening writing curriculum and evaluation in courses outside of our department through ongoing partnerships with Senate faculty. These efforts would strengthen writing competencies in degree programs, consistent with communication being a shared institutional mission.

As related but separate request related to institutional needs, then, we would recommend and endorse the proposed LPSOE for General Education to provide Senate leadership to manage and sustain GE programming (see General Education Strategic Vision). We are not suggesting that this Senate line be housed in the MWP; rather that a broader discussion about a home for multidisciplinary undergraduate education appointments be part of institutional planning.

The attached MWP impact metrics spreadsheet is specific to our proposed initiatives and campus growth; please note that these metrics were also bundled with our bylaw’s strategic planning (Humanities and World Cultures).

Initiative Description (4 pages)

UC Merced operates under the sensitive condition of regional and state decision-makers (e.g., Regents, the state legislature, industry and civic leaders) critically questioning the value and direction of the sole UC campus in the San Joaquin Valley (SJV). All involved understand the challenges of locating UC Merced in one of the most disadvantaged regions in the USA at a time of unprecedented national financial crisis that disproportionately effects SJV including our predominantly lower SES student population. All involved understand that UC Merced cannot succeed in its academic mission without true and effective partnerships with regional and external stakeholders to address the impact of poverty. Leaders within and outside of our campus continue to face the daunting challenge of growing a Tier 1 research institution toward national ranking given the conditions of severe overall scarcity including in extramural research funding. Engaged Transformation of Poverty (ETP) in the SJV builds on the new UC Blum Center initiative attending to global poverty through the unparalleled power of UC research and research training. It will demonstrate the impact of UC Merced research expertise to address pressing regional and by extension global problems. To address the 2020 strategic plan’s goal for achieving national ranking of our campus, it would be remiss to reach this goal absent evidence that our research is contributing to the alleviation of the region’s poverty.

In September 2013, UCOP accepted UC Merced’s proposal to establish a new Blum Center in the SJV with the theme of Global California: Transformation of Poverty into Prosperity. The Blum Center is a multi-campus initiative stimulated by UC Regent Richard Blum to channel the talent and power of UC to measurably impact poverty in developing economies worldwide. The Blum Center at UC Merced joins peer centers at UCSD, UCLA, UCB, and UCD to leverage substantial extramural and intramural resources for research and training related to improving the impact of higher education on local-to-global economic, environmental and social inequities. The UC Merced Blum Center builds on the infrastructure and relationships that UC Merced’s Resource Center for Community Engaged Scholarship (ReCCES) has established throughout the region. ReCCES has evolved since 2006 with funding from the Chancellor’s office, external grants, and the General Fund.  ReCCES provides training and assistance to faculty, students and community partners interested in community engaged research.  Both Blum Center and ReCCES will support the continuum of work, from the independent faculty member proposing research on social, engineering, or even biomedical aspects of poverty to multi-site, interdisciplinary research collaboratives with direct ties to industry, civic, and legislative priorities.

The mission of ETP will be as follows.  First, there will be direct support of faculty research focused on the causes and consequences of regional poverty as well as interventions aimed at its transformation. Second, direct support of graduate student research will include training on interdisciplinary approaches to poverty transformation.  Third, to prepare and encourage undergraduates in the pursuit of graduate studies and career development, an undergraduate minor will be developed that couples engaged scholarship and service learning.  The campus research that will be supported will integrate the voice and priorities of community stakeholders to shape and implement its direction.  This will allow UC Merced to leverage existing research strengths in sustainability, public health, community empowerment and regional development to establish the best practices required to tackle extant and newly emerging problems.  We see ETP as a unique opportunity to both directly reduce local, regional, and global poverty and at the same time expand UC Merced’s capacity to be a world leader in this emerging interdisciplinary field of inquiry.  We hope that leadership will embrace poverty alleviation as a crosscutting campus-wide strategic theme. 

ETP strengthens UC Merced’s original commitment to be an engine for economic and human development in the region. UC Merced will be an even stronger problem solver in regional poverty and a role model for national and global poverty elimination. Several campus entities have evolved with new ones emerging (see list of affiliated strategic academic initiatives) which give an opportunity now to connect the dots, build capacity, and assist our academic research, teaching and service to be more effective in the region. Rather than propose a new theme, we underscore the importance of universities evidencing their impact.  Across the nation, research universities are urgently trying to understand how to prove their value through community engagement.  NIH, NSF, and the Department of Education are among the federal stakeholders that are calling for community-engaged institutions of higher education.  For example, NSF reports and requests for proposals throughout 2013 have explicitly called for community participation in decisions about what to study and have made funding contingent on community engagement. A 2005 UCOP sponsored report highlighted the opportunity for UC to become a leader in this. In order for ETP to take UC Merced to national ranking it is imperative that new faculty lines are established within each school and existing faculty are supported to be part of the solution. The role of Blum Center and ReCCES is to provide training and resources that make it easier for this to happen.

ETP is currently coordinated by faculty in Anthropology, Economics, Engineering, and in Public Health. ETP’s growth and influence will require diverse collaborators from across all three schools including the oft times unrecognized contributions from the humanities and arts, and efforts more commonly called public scholarship. There are a number of evolving local and regional ETP opportunities. Smart Valley Places, a competitive federally funded initiative is focused on developing a 20-year plan for economic development in disadvantaged communities. It has generated over $5 million since 2012. The Merced County Economic Development Initiative launched in June 2013 through Hospital Community Benefit Programs is convening investors and grant makers to develop a long-term plan for economic and workforce advances in Merced City and County. This initiative explicitly sees UC Merced’s presence and promise as key ingredients for making Merced County the driver of SJV’s economic success. Investments in research and development are anticipated to exceed $20 million in the first five years. ETP can coordinate UC Merced’s role in these and other initiatives to ensure future planning aligns with our university’s current and future aspirations. This initiative has

Participation in local and regional initiatives will illustrate how UC Merced helps transform poverty to prosperity joining the success of other nationally ranked universities.  Promising and inspiring peer initiatives are rare. However, some role models include The Milwaukee Idea and Oregon’s “Regional Solutions”; University of Michigan (Poverty Center) and Stanford University (Center on Poverty and Inequality). These illustrations are important because they ensure the integration or research with action for a measurable impact on poverty. 

EPT’s current status and future growth will draw on the Blum Center network across the UC system, extramural support through philanthropic and governmental funds. Our campus investment in EPT is centered around developing a team of academic and non-academic support staff, establishing on and off campus facilities for research and research training, and providing strategic operational and stimulus funds for faculty and community collaboration. Requests for personnel include:

Academic and community research liaisons for each school [Master’s level (doctoral level preferred)] to coordinate school and faculty priorities with research opportunities.  Though we are not asking for faculty lines, EPT’s success will depend on the hiring of additional relevant faculty. These liaisons will be important cheerleaders for all the things that require advancement: faculty development and promotion, recruiting new faculty, graduate student development.

Here are some activities that this initiative is undertaking and will grow through 2020:

• Training and ETP professional development for faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates

Faculty: workshops on community engaged research methods; facilitate grant opportunities; networking on campus and off campus with community stakeholders;

Connect with research groups and advisors outside of UC Merced (e.g., UC Center for Collaborative Research for an Equitable California; Community University Research & Action for Justice); Conferences for showcasing faculty community engaged research; co-host UC Merced Research Week events on and off campus.

Graduate students: workshops on community engaged research methods; facilitating grant opportunities including seed grants; summer stipends; networking on campus and off-campus; support of master’s and doctoral theses.

Undergraduate students: internships and field experiences; facilitate service learning.

• Develop the infrastructure and capacity of community organizations as effective partners in

ETP.

Workshops on community-engaged methods; facilitate grant opportunities; networking with campus stakeholders; connect with research groups and advisors outside of UC Merced (e.g., UC Center for Collaborative Research for an Equitable California; Community University Research & Action for Justice); conferences showcasing ETP research and solutions; cohost UC Merced Research Week events off campus.

• Represent and advance UC Merced’s mission in regional, state, national and international efforts related to poverty transformation.

Ensuring the UC Merced is a member of various initiatives; connecting our faculty research and graduate and undergraduate training to these initiatives.

•  Develop and implement independent campus projects that build the campus infrastructure for ETP and capacity and raise national attention for UC Merced

• Develop a proposal for a new minor, tentatively “Community Development”

• Continue developing the Research, Innovations and Solutions for Equity (RISE) program.  RISE identifies community organizations and industry partners to articulate research projects and priorities within their area of work. 

Link our faculty, graduate and undergraduate students to these community driven research priorities; develop funding, training, and other infrastructure needs to support ongoing ETP between UC Merced and community partners.

Resources need for ETP through 2020 include the following:

Personnel:

Community research liaison (1 FTE for each of three schools. 1) This position is a master’s level (doctoral preferred) with training and capacity to articulate and work with and advocate for faculty research and needs at each school related to ETP; 2) This person would promote and generate enthusiasm for ETP within each school with anticipation of generating new faculty lines aligned with ETP. 3) Serve as relationship builder and broker between each school and their appropriate community partners.  By 2020 we anticipate that each school would have two community research liaisons.

Administrative support staff (1 FTE) for community liaisons.

Communications staff (1 FTE) responsible for developing public announcements, managing relationship databases, managing websites and social media.  Because working with disadvantaged communities and issues of poverty require extra sensitivity to community relations, this staff member must have experience working with underrepresented communities.

Graduate Student Researcher (2 per school)

Undergraduate work-study students (4 per school)

Community Station Coordinators: (8 FTE) One community station per county (8); managing the activities, volunteers and events related to ETP at community stations (described below). Someone hired from the community and provided training in how to be an ETP representative for their community.  As ETP grows we expect this staff to double by 2020.

Facilities

On campus space appropriate to this level of initiative e.g., 3,000 sq. ft. with private offices and conference space and appropriate computing and conferencing technology.

Off campus facilities: Community stations that are within existing trusted organizations also allowing for private offices and conference facilities and appropriate computing and conferencing technology; one community station per county.

Other Necessary Resources

Funding for events including at least one conference per year; workshops; space costs; food and equipment for community events; community participant stipends; travel reimbursement for UC and community members; stipends to support grant writing and pilot and feasibility studies; appropriate transportation (e.g., vans for student research teams).

Between now and 2020 we anticipate that ETP’s presence and activities will attract at least three new faculty lines per school to support ETP research.  Undergraduate enrollment in the minor affiliated with ETP is expected to reach 1500 by 2020; by 2020 graduate students affiliated with ETP is expected to reach 200.

See supporting document pdf

A.  Introduction:  The MCB Unit in the School of Natural Sciences is currently comprised of faculty whose research is focused in four main interdisciplinary areas:  1) Biochemistry, Physiology and Molecular Biology, 2) Cell and Developmental Biology, 3) Microbiology and Immunology and 4) Neurobiology.  We currently serve the majority of undergraduate and graduate students in the School of Natural Sciences:  an estimated 1084 undergraduate students in the Biological Sciences (BIO) major in these emphasis tracks:  Human Biology, Developmental Biology, Microbiology/Immunology, and Molecular and Cell Biology; and 45 masters and doctoral students in the Quantitative and Systems (QSB) Graduate Group, and we have proposed a new Molecular and Cell Biology Graduate Group (under review).  We anticipate that the BIO major will continue to be popular, but we require additional faculty and graduate students to achieve our research goals for 2020.  Here, we present our Strategic Academic Vision for the MCB Unit, in which we strategize for our growth to 29 research track faculty and 3 L(P)SOE faculty members.  To improve the quality of the BIO major, we propose to cap the number of BIO majors at its current number, which will improve student: faculty ratios and allow for the development of more teaching laboratory courses and undergraduate research opportunities.  The addition of 2 new L(P)SOE faculty members will help to facilitate this UG program.  At the same time, we propose to aggressively increase graduate student recruitment, as we grow our research faculty across the core MCB disciplines at a rate of about 2 per year until 2020.  In addition to the human resources, MCB research requires addition physical spaces for new teaching labs, new faculty research labs and offices, core facilities, and collaboration spaces. 

B. Our Vision: 

The 2009 Strategic Academic Vision included “Human Health” as a major research theme, with 3 objectives:  1) to establish the Health Sciences Research Institute (HSRI), which now exists, 2) establish a School of Medicine, and 3) evaluate the potential for a School of Public Health.  Basic research in the biological sciences has been a primary driver for these initiatives at UC Merced.  As we progress forward to 2020, we envision that the Molecular and Cell Biology (MCB) Unit’s research foci will continue to feed into the development of these objectives, through its research strengths in the core disciplines of biochemistry, cell biology, microbiology and immunology, molecular biology, neurobiology, and physiology.  

There are several “grand challenge” research questions in MCB, such as:

• What are the biochemical mechanisms that control cellular metabolism and is dysregulation of  these mechanisms the cause of obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes?
• How can we identify and manipulate the genes that control stem cell differentiation to regenerate diseased tissues and organs?
• How do microbes communicate with each other to form communities, and during fungal infections can we use this knowledge to prevent biofilm contamination in medical devices?
• What are the molecular and cellular mechanisms that control immune cell recognition and response to viral, bacterial and fungal pathogens, and do these mechanisms also initiate autoimmune disease?
• Can we predict the evolution of antibiotic and antiviral resistance and use this knowledge to design novel vaccines and chemical inhibitors to prevent and treat infection?
• What are the molecular and cellular processes that are affected in brain cells to cause mental disorders such as autism, addiction, and dementia?

These grand challenge questions are likely to be best answered using an interdisciplinary approach, contextualized in these broader questions:  What are the evolutionary and systems-level causes of diseases like cancer, cell fate decision pathways, and other questions in the organization and dynamics of cells, molecular networks and cellular networks?

The composition of the current MCB faculty provides unique and key opportunities for intellectual contributions by combining their personal expertise in the core disciplines and applying them to these grand challenge questions.   All MCB faculty research to date has made significant impacts in their respective core disciplines (as demonstrated through our publications and research grants, which are key indicators of the development of a successful institutional program).  In addition, we already have examples of interdisciplinary collaborations within the MCB Unit, as well as between the MCB Units and other research groups (such as QSB, COGS).

These collaborations are fostered by the enthusiasm of our MCB faculty to build from a solid successful foundation in core disciplines, and then to combine their disciplinary strengths to create novel approaches to challenging scientific questions that seem impossible to tackle.  By supporting the growth of an interdisciplinary, quantitative and systems-oriented MCB Unit, our program will have a unique opportunity to benefit from and synergize with other units and programs to lead the MCB discoveries of tomorrow.  Interdisciplinary collaborations, both on and off campus, will play an important role in the continued success of the MCB program.  We envision that these interdisciplinary studies will not only help to solve these questions, but also contribute to the scholarly development of our faculty, and ultimately, to imbed this intellectual desire into our graduate trainees, as well as into our undergraduate curriculum.

UCM consists of a diverse group of collaborative individuals that appreciate considering diverse approaches to their research problems.  There are numerous opportunities for collaboration, including mathematical modeling, metabolic modeling, exploring microbial interactions with the immune system, exploring how cellular communities evolve, comparative studies across model organisms,  structure-function analyses .   This rich resource of colleagues gives us an advantage over other institutions, as we have the ability to more rapidly incorporate “higher-order” types of data analysis into our thinking and research plans.   Medical practitioners in the Central Valley are motivated and interested in contributing to research that investigates the causes and predicts disease progression within our community, which has been understudied. The MCB Unit is poised to take advantage of this community interest and is already providing lay seminars on our research and collaborating with local physicians to research medical issues within the community to foster this additional unique source of partnerships. 

Extramural funds are absolutely required to support our research.  Financial support for MCB faculty research comes from federal and state organizations (such as the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, California Institute for Regenerative Medicine), nonprofit and private sponsors (UC Cancer Research Coordinating Committee, American Heart Association, American Diabetes Association, National Kidney Foundation, Autism Speaks, Simons Foundation, American Cancer Society, Gates Foundation), local community research grants, industry partnerships, and philanthropists.  One of our faculty members is exploring “crowd funding” as an additional funding mechanism.   Interdisciplinary collaborations, both on and off campus, will play an important role in the continued success of the MCB program, especially if economic drivers of funding agencies are pushed to support a move from basic to translational research questions.

C.  Our Strategic Plan:    The following resources are needed for the MCB unit to realize these research goals by 2020:

a. Increase current number of MCB faculty from 16 to 30, with specific growth in experimentalists (i.e. “wet lab” scientists) in biochemistry, cell biology, developmental biology and metabolism, as well as target faculty recruitment for MCB growth in computational (i.e. “theoretical”, computational biology, bioinformatics) within all the MCB research subareas.  We are in major need of senior-level researchers with their strong scientific connections, mentoring capacity and general understanding/overview of our research programs. We envision that these scientists will also bring the capacity for more funding, are usually well-respected in their fields, and can facilitate invitations to renowned speakers to our research seminar series. Senior-level faculty can also elevate the overall quality of graduate programs by attracting the highest quality students and postdoctoral researchers to UCM.  We also see a need to add L(P)SOE faculty members to our unit to help manage and provide leadership in the improving the rigor and quality of the undergraduate BIO major.

b. Build new faculty research space.  We are currently in a deficit in terms of wet labs for experimentalists in MCB, and even with the opening of the new Science and Engineering-2 Building, all wet lab spaces will be full until an additional new building is constructed.  The lab spaces for current MCB faculty do not allow for adequate growth for the addition of appropriate numbers of graduate students (our target graduate student to faculty ratio is 3:1), postdoctoral trainees and research staff. New wet laboratories will require temperature and air control, gas and vacuum lines, tissue culture rooms, and common work areas for chemical handling, shared equipment, glassware and consumable storage, and electrical capabilities to handle power -20C and -80C freezers, refrigerators, centrifuges, incubators and microscopes.   Shared computing resources are currently constrained and MCB faculty will need access to central planning for computational resources, including server room space, time and staff support for research computing, and infrastructure to support servers, cloud computing, and sharing large data sets, and specialized computing (such as structural biology).  It is envisioned that MCB will participate in the proposed Center for Theory and Computation (CTC) to fulfill some of these needs.  To facilitate interdisciplinary collaborations, these labs would be co-housed in a building that is connected or in close proximity to faculty within the QSB program, which includes faculty researchers in biophysics, mathematical biology, and systems biologists.

c. Core research facilities:  UCM currently has an excellent vivarium, facilities for flow cytometry, confocal microscopy and genomics.  However, additional core facilities are needed.  These cores need to be sustained and be located within close proximity to the faculty research labs that utilize them.  Future core facilities should include:

• Protein engineering/biochemical analysis core:  one room for a mass spectrometer and another room for equipment for N-terminal sequencing, amino acid analysis, and for making new antibodies; space for proteomic and metabolomic analyses
• Bioinformatics core:  space for a core of 3-5 bioinformaticians and biostatisticians (staff, not to be confused with the tenure-track faculty) dedicated to assisting faculty with experimental planning and data processing (especially for large RNA-sequencing);
• Histology core:  space for cryostat/microtome, large sink and fume hood for histological analysis of tissue specimens, and possibly a human tissue repository to store human tissue samples from healthy and diseased individuals. 
• Machine shop for creating custom equipment.
• Transgenic mouse facility to be housed in the vivarium, including space for equipment of microinjection of cells and mouse embryos to create transgenic, knockin and knockout mice, collection of gametes and their cryopreservation
• Animal behavior core:  various cognitive tests, locomotor activity, motor performance tests, etc.)
• Extended imaging facility: laser microdissection microscope, stereology, and real-time, in vivo functional imagery
• Expanded genomics core: to house current DNA sequencing and genomics core, and add oligonucleotide synthesis service and next-generation sequencing equipment
• Standalone BSL2+ to BSL3 facilities for the study of pathogens that could cause severe or lethal human disease.   Such facilities are usually confined to a specific area of a building with appropriate positive air pressure controls, ventilation, equipment for decontamination and biological safety cabinets. 
• Robotics core consisting of useful equipment for high throughput experiments, such as genetic and small molecule screens.  Some examples of equipment in this core could be liquid handling robots like the Beckmann Fx, cell analyzers, plate readers, bulk liquid dispensers, plate washers and dispensers like the Biotek EL406, and colony plating robots.

d. Common physical spaces that promote interactions and collaborations, such as a dedicated large amphitheater/lecture hall for the seminars for the School of Natural Sciences outside of the main buildings that house the faculty labs.  Reorganization and renovation of existing labs to shared spaces between faculty to promote efficiency through the use of shared equipment and facilities, as well as promote close interaction among collaborating labs, and laboratory safety.

e. Increase graduate student recruitment. Currently, most of the graduate students in MCB faculty labs are recruited within the QSB Graduate Group.  We have proposed the formation of a new additional graduate group (MCB) that we anticipate will permit for the growth and strengthening of graduate education at UCM.   We aim to reach a goal of 3 graduate students to each faculty member by 2020.

e. Physical spaces to promotion of the scientific work ethic and culture that is required for scientific success.  Biological research does not follow the traditional “9 to 5” business hours. Secure spaces on campus within science buildings that encourage and support students for round-the-clock experiments and intensive study are necessary (such as a science library, with graduate student library/lounge with kitchenette, couches, coffee, and workstations/wireless internet access).

f. Research funding:  NIH, NSF, Department of Defense, Army, DOE, UC internal funds, state and federal agencies, philanthropic donors, professional societies, international government funds (such as JSPS, UCMEXUS)  industrial biomedical industry.  Funding for interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary research is very difficult to obtain, institutional resources such as the Research Development Services could be leveraged to make UCM more competitive in this area to provide administrative support for faculty in grant preparation, and to maintain an updated database and search for UCM-specific funding opportunities.  Given the current low funding climate, bridge funding programs to sustain faculty research progress as they work to re-establish extramural funding need to be established.  This bridge funding program is also important for faculty retention at UCM. 

D. Targeted faculty recruitment strategy:  We are committed to reaching our goal of 30 tenure-track faculty by 2020.   However, after the 2013-14 academic year, we will be unable to hire faculty that require experimental wet labs without allocation of space in SE2 or construction of new buildings.  Table 1 shows the current MCB faculty by subdiscipline, and planned hires for each type.  Table 2 shows the space needs for our proposed recruitment plan.

Table 1. Current and Proposed Future MCB Faculty by Subdiscipline

Table 2.  Proposed MCB Recruitment Plan with Space Needs*

*this is a proposed plan based on current space constraints; our preference is to grow dry and wet labs simultaneously

E.  The Potential Impact of our Vision and Strategic Plan:    In our plan, we have included projections of faculty and graduate student growth through AY2020 (please see the attached “MCB Impact Metrics Worksheet”).  In addition, we have proposed to cap the number of BIO majors as lectures are currently impacted, and teaching laboratories are currently scarce.  We wish to improve the quality of our undergraduate major by the creation of new upper division specialized lab courses to complement our junior and senior level courses and to provide specialized experiential learning and practical skills to our BIO majors within their disciplinary emphases.  We have added 2 LPSOE positions to our plan to enhance faculty support to the undergraduates.  As is shown in the Impact Metrics, this reduces the undergraduate: MCB faculty ratio to 36:1 by AY2020, (currently at 77:1).  Clearly, more will have to be done to reduce this to the target ratio of 24:1.  We have projected graduate student enrollment to grow with faculty recruitment to achieve a graduate: MCB faculty ratio of 3:1 as early as AY17-18, although we would like this to increase to 4:1.

F. Peer Institutions:  The following peer institutions were selected using data collected by the National Research Council: http://sites.nationalacademies.org/PGA/Resdoc/.  The research programs of the peer institutions mirror what we wish to achieve for UC Merced MCB by 2020.

A. Executive Summary
The Entrepreneurship Research Institute (ERI) can be the University’s vehicle for: (a) the promotion of research in Entrepreneurship, broadly defined; (b) fostering interactions and developing partnerships with the business community; and (c) engaging the local community. The institute will undertake cutting edge research in Entrepreneurship, raise the profile of UC Merced in the business community and facilitate student placement and fund-raising, as well as engage the local community in entrepreneurship activities and related opportunities in the area. UC Merced can become an entrepreneurship hub and a business incubator. Whereas we may not be able to replicate the success of Silicon Valley, it does cost a lot less to start up a company in Central Valley than in Silicon Valley.

B. Thematic Area
The primary thematic area is “Innovation and Entrepreneurship”, but our proposal spans across other themes such as “Information, Computational and Data Sciences, and Engineering”, “Disparities: Equity, Diversity, Social Inequality”, “Environmental Sustainability”, and “Energy and Energy Systems”.

C. Intellectual Components of the Strategic Initiative
The Entrepreneurship Research Institute (ERI) aims at providing a collaborative and interdisciplinary environment fostering new research contributions related to Entrepreneurship and Business Administration, including small business administration and agribusiness, along the lines of business organization and governance, decision making, financial management, uncertainty, risk-taking and enterprise risk management, business strategy and game theory, economics of information, team-building, innovation and information diffusion, human resource management and incentive provision, environmental policy and sustainability, organizational behavior, business ethics and business communication. Emphasis will be placed on agribusiness and agricultural product processing, winery operations management, management of sustainable energy and water technologies, and micro-financing. We aim at stimulating new sources of funding facilitating research which will lead to publications in major scientific journals, supporting existing funded research, and supplying research techniques or services to faculty groups. We will also emphasize quantitative methods (including modeling, optimization, numerical data analysis, simulation techniques and statistical estimation) in our research, which is rapidly becoming a uniform theme across campus (see related proposals, such as the Statistical and Quantitative Research initiative of the Center for Statistical and Quantitative Research (CeQR)). Quantitative Methods can be a cross-campus initiative that will bring distinction to UCM.

The research focus of the institute stems from the existing expertise of the collaborators in this proposal, as well as from their future research plans. Specifically, the collaborators in this proposal have a proven track record in research related to executive promotion and compensation, performance pay and incentives, relative performance evaluation, limited liability and bankruptcy, organizational structure, labor and credit contracts, capital structure, individual and group decision making, computational modeling and data sciences, stochastic systems, Monte Carlo simulations and multi-objective optimization.

The collaborators and affiliates in this proposal are also interested in pursuing research on micro-finance and crowd-funding with applications to Central Valley. Some of the collaborators submitted a grant proposal to CITRIS focused on micro-financing in Central Valley as a facilitator of growth. Another group of collaborators recently submitted a grant proposal to USDA-NIFA-HSI on innovation and entrepreneurship programs for Hispanic College students to be involved in the agricultural (precision agriculture and unmanned drone programs) and food processing industry (Gallo and Foster Farms) of the Central Valley. And other members are engaged in the areas of knowledge diffusion, data sciences, interactive uses of technology, as well as Federal relations in general.

We will work closely with the Office of Research to seek funding from sources such as CITRIS, Blum Center, NSF etc. in order to undertake research projects in the research focus areas above. We will seek industry funding to establish conferences and workshops on innovation, entrepreneurship and finance.

We will work with COR, GC, CAPRA, UGC and DivCo to create a research center that will operate as an organized research unit (ORU) and will be open to all faculty and students across disciplines with an interest in research related to all aspects of innovation, entrepreneurship and the management of organizations, as well as staff that deals with businesses in their University capacity. We will request the Chancellor to appoint an Advisory Committee. We envision working with a variety of business organizations and recognized business leaders nationally and in the state, along with the Office of Research and Economic Development, so that UC Merced becomes an entrepreneurship hub and a business incubator. Whereas we may not be able to replicate the success of Silicon Valley, it does cost a lot less to start up a company in Central Valley than in Silicon Valley. If we focus on our competitive advantage, producing innovations in the areas of agribusiness and agricultural product processing, winery operations management, and management of sustainable energy and water technologies, we will put Merced on the map.

Whereas several units on campus are engaged with entrepreneurship issues, there is no uniform representation of these activities. The institute we propose will provide an umbrella to coordinate all these activities, facilitate cooperation and enable seeking additional funding. We aim at working with all three schools on campus, as well as with SNRI and HSRI to this end. Given the University’s mission, we will also provide an environment were diversity in all its forms is embraced.

As acknowledged by the Management Program Review, UC Merced’s Management Program must develop reciprocal relationships with business and community leaders. In this respect, we propose to work closely with the Career Services Center, Development and Alumni Relations, Corporate Relations, CITRIS, the Margo F. Souza Leadership Center, the Small Business Development Center at our Fresno facility, the Engaged Transformation of Poverty (ETP) in the San Joaquin Valley initiative, the “Global California: The World at Home” initiative, the Blum Center and the Foster Family Center along the following lines: (i) investigate the needs of the state businesses; (ii) support small businesses in the area; (iii) organize business days on campus with Career Services and Development for various businesses that include a panel discussion of the employment needs of the company and of what UC Merced has to offer (similar to the Gallo day Career Services recently organized), with student involvement and recent recruit involvement; (iv) organize classroom visits and interactive sessions for business community members; (v) facilitate student involvement with business projects; (vi) facilitate faculty and student internships with local companies similar to the ones recently secured with Gallo and HotChalk; (vii) investigate fund-raising possibilities with Development among local businesses and entrepreneurs; and last but not least (viii) engage the local community to embrace business development opportunities. We also propose to work closely with students and support their efforts (for example, the student led Entrepreneurial Society Club, the Investment Club (sponsored by Mark Harris), the Business Society, and a new student publication in the works entitled Management Review).

As part of the functions of the institute, we propose to create distinguished speaker series, in cooperation with Career Services and Development, and with financial support from the local business community, which may include: (a) a Leadership Series designed for high-profile business or community leaders; (b) an Entrepreneurship Series designed for entrepreneurs and business managers. We will also support academic, community and student conferences on themes in entrepreneurship, including (for example) the annual Entrepreneurial Seminar and Pitchfest in collaboration with the Merritt Writing Program and the Entrepreneurial Society of UCM (TESUM), a student led club.

Last but not least, the institute will work closely with all existing Schools (SSHA, SOE and SNS) as well as with the E&J Gallo Management program, and will operate under the auspices of the new School of Innovation, Management & Economics when it is established.

D. UCM’s Relative Role
UCM is uniquely positioned to becoming an entrepreneurship hub for Central Valley given its focus on cutting-edge research embracing innovation and entrepreneurship. The emphasis of our proposal on small business administration, agribusiness and agricultural product processing, winery operations management, management of sustainable energy and water technologies, and micro-financing not only will distinguish UC Merced from other UC campuses, but it will spearhead development and growth in Central Valley. Our proposed institutions and programs will exploit all synergies across campus and build on existing strengths in technology, engineering and natural science fields.

Programs that relate to what we propose are the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute, the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Institute at Cornell University, and the Deloitte Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the London Business School. However, none of these institutes have the unique focus we propose above on small business administration, agribusiness and agricultural product processing, winery operations management, management of sustainable energy and water technologies, and micro-financing.

E. Faculty Participation
The Gallo Management program has about 370 undergraduate students currently. With a projection of 9,000 undergraduates, Management should have about 800 students who can benefit from the proposed initiatives. Related fields in Economics, Applied Math, Engineering, Sociology, Political Science and Psychology can also benefit. We will explore all possible links to undergraduate and especially graduate education. Specifically, we will work with Economics, MBE and MIST in curriculum planning.

F. Special Programmatic Needs
Distinguished programs require distinct foci and distinguished faculty. However, Institutes cannot hire faculty directly (however, we do encourage hiring in fields related to Entrepreneurship such as Financial Management or Asset Pricing and Investments or Marketing). Administrative support, space, and operating funds will be needed for the Institute. University, grant, and endowment support will be sought for the Institute's activities.

I. Advances in Human Health since 2009 Strategic Academic Vision:

The 2009 Strategic Academic Vision included “Human Health” as a major theme, with 3 objectives:  1) to establish the Health Sciences Research Institute (HSRI), 2) establish a School of Medicine, and 3) evaluate the potential for a School of Public Health.  We are well on the way to achieving each of these goals.  

1) HSRI became an Organized Research Unit in 2012, with the goal to foster health related research.  

2) HSRI has played a leading role in discussions regarding the future of Medical Education at UC Merced and in the San Joaquin Valley (SJV).

3) HSRI works closely with the Public Health Advisory Group to develop and promote public health research on campus.

II. Goal for 2020

HSRI's primary mission is to promote the development of Human Health research on campus, with the aim by 2020 of having UC Merced be recognized as a top-40 institution in health research in the US.  Achieving this goal will require that we support faculty to:

• Increase research productivity - Promote a high volume of research output, large income from grants and foundational support, and international reputation as a research leader in specific areas. We will do this through:
• Providing the research support, facilities, and infrastructure required to secure external funding,
• Assisting with the development of new research collaborations and projects that take advantage of the assets already in place at UC Merced,
• Identifying and coordinating research around specific areas (e.g., Valley Fever) that are likely to result in significant advances in knowledge and improved health, marked in part through publications and grant funding.
• Research influence - Research influence is traditionally determined by citations. However, because of our special mission in the region, influence might also include improvements in health status of the region, influence on local, state or national policies, and prominence in the region.
• Teaching and training - Promoting a learning environment that nurtures undergraduates and graduate students who are successful in promoting human health related research.

As HSRI grows, we will work with the Provost and Office of Research  & Economic Development to determine a formula for indirect cost return rate.  Combined with our other revenue generating proposals, including the Translational Research Center (see below) and donations resulting from our progress toward Medical Education, we anticipate being financially sustainable well before 2020.

III. Human Health and HSRI by 2020:

The future of the signature theme of Human Health at UC Merced might look as follows:

1. 1.      Health researchers and interdisciplinary health research programs with national and international reputations;
2. 2.      Medical education program modeled on the UC Berkeley/UCSF Joint Medical Education model that engages faculty from across the campus;
3. 3.      Research facilities on UC Merced's campus, including research infrastructure in areas where there is clear cross-disciplinary effort or linkages with external research partners (e.g., UCSF-Fresno, local Health Departments, community groups, or biomedical research firms).
4. 4.      Translational Research Center located in Fresno, administered jointly with UCSF-Fresno and other regional partners (e.g., Fresno State, CSU Stanislaus, regional health providers, and local health departments) focusing on promoting T3 (moving evidence based guidelines into practice) and T4 (ensuring that patients and their families benefit from the medical innovations) translational research.  
5. 5.      HSRI physical presence would include a Health Sciences Research and Education Building (HSREB) in which would be housed HSRI infrastructure, shared resources, and staff (15 to 20), the Medical Education program (one floor of the building), and the School of Public Health faculty (20 to 25).

1. Health researchers and interdisciplinary health research programs with national and international reputations - The key to our achieving the goal of being a top-40 institution in health research by 2020 is to have successful biomedical and behavioral science researchers at UC Merced. HSRI has and will promote health related research and support faculty in a number of ways, including:

• Facilitating health related research on campus through our research clusters and role in organizing research initiatives,
• Assisting with the development of applications for external funding,
• Mentoring junior faculty and supporting emerging researchers,
• Forming research partnerships with regional health providers (such as Children's Hospital, UCSF-Fresno, Mercy Hospital), and
• Identifying and promoting research that would improve the health status and access to health care for people in the region, and

One avenue for developing a national and international reputation is to develop and foster health research programs that will attract research funding, address critical needs in the region, utilize the existing expertise at UC Merced, and lead to national recognition and prominence. These programs will emerge organically through faculty efforts, but possible examples are: Valley Fever; changing the health disparities in San Joaquin Valley populations; applying cutting-edge technology to make health communications impactful; and human genetics.

2. Medical Education - Since UC Merced's inception, there have been proposals to start a Medical School. These initial discussions were not altogether fruitful, and left a bitter taste with many faculty members regarding the potential for UC Merced to have a medical education program. Among the concerns/comments were:

• The campus is too new to develop a Medical School;
• Medical Education will divert resources away from other areas;
• It will stretch our already over-committed biomedical faculty;
• The cost will be exorbitant;
• The program will struggle to meet the specific needs of the region;
• The potential regional partners are not prepared to host clinical training.

These concerns are valid for the model of medical education that was initially proposed. Fortunately, there is an alternative model of medical education that is exemplified by the Joint Medical Program at UC Berkeley/UCSF, which overcomes all these concerns. Over the past year, HSRI has led a process of examining alternative models of medical education. After much consultation and consideration of alternative models, a group of faculty consisting of representatives from all three schools recommended that UC Merced pursue a model similar to the UC Berkeley/UCSF Joint Medical Program (JMP; see below) in partnership with UCSF-Fresno.

The UC Merced-UCSF-Fresno model might involve students spending three years at UC Merced, completing case-based or problem-based learning sessions led by UC Merced faculty and selected people from the region and initial clinical training at Mercy Hospital and/or Golden Valley Health Centers. Students would emerge with a Master of Science in either Public Health or Biomedicine, and then complete their clinical training at UCSF-Fresno. The advantages of the model include:

• Relatively low cost and quick start-up - The case based approach does not involve a significant investment in laboratory facilities and the entire program could be housed on a floor of a building. It could be up and running within 5 years.
• High probability of success - This model is already in existence within the UC system (UCSF/UC Berkeley), UCSF-Fresno is already providing medical training and has the patient base to expand its medical training program, and regional health providers (particularly Mercy Hospital and Golden Valley Health Centers) would be appropriate for the initial clinical training. UCSF-Fresno can coordinate the provision of the anatomy lab. UC Berkeley has been very supportive and is eager to help us adapt their model for our use.
• Takes advantage of our current faculty - The case based learning model is perfect for our faculty as it works best when different backgrounds and perspectives are represented; moreover, it does not require physician instructors.
• Would be unique in the world - The case based learning model could be developed by us to provide health professionals specifically with training in working with diverse (e.g., culture, ethnicity, language) disadvantaged communities in rural areas, such as the SJV. Training specifically for work with culturally/ethnically diverse populations at the start and throughout medical school, rather than as a secondary add-on to pre-existing programs, would be unique in the country. Thus UC Merced would be able to offer a program that would be recognized around the world as a leader in training health professionals to provide appropriate care to disadvantaged and  diverse peoples and communities in the U.S.

Because HSRI is not a Bylaw 55 Unit, we will continue to facilitate discussions on campus but look to develop an administrative structure involving groups from all three schools.

A key question to consider is "Why now?" There are several reasons why this is an appropriate time to move forward with medical education: maturation of UC Merced as a campus, closer ties between UC Merced and UCSF-Fresno, critical mass of health research on campus, and change of attitudes among UC Merced faculty. However, one reason that cannot be ignored is the views and expectations of UC Merced supporters and the broader community around us. Many have long advocated for us to move forward with Medical Education, and many are frustrated with the lack of progress. This includes the groups that would be our partners and financial backers in this venture. A decision to move forward does not commit us to action, and there are many factors that would have to fall in place for Medical Education to become a reality, Yet the alternative of delaying this decision would ultimately be a decision to kill the idea for a long time.

In summary, when HSRI was approved, Chancellor Leland asked us to help guide discussions regarding Medical Education on campus.  To this end, HSRI has:

• Coordinated UC Merced's efforts relating to the SJV PRIME Program,
• Led the development of fund raising strategies for Medical Education with the Office of Development,
• Led discussions of the future of Medical Education with regional partners, including UCSF-Fresno, Mercy Hospital, Children's Hospital, regional and state medical associations, and other universities in the region.
• Held a Medical Education forum in which representatives from UC Berkeley, UCSF, UC Davis, and the Office of the President met with UC Merced faculty to discuss options for Medical Education,
• Developed a report and recommendations summarizing the options for Medical Education at UC Merced that was subsequently presented to and discussed with the Provost and the Chancellor, and
• Developed a plan for continuing our development of Medical Education at UC Merced.

We are prepare to continue providing a leadership role for Medical Education going into the future.

3. Research facilities - A key decision facing the university over the next several years is what type of research facilities should be provided for faculty. We anticipate that the Office of Research & Economic Development will work with Schools and with the ORUs to develop plans for efficient and rational investment in core facilities that will benefit faculty across campus. HSRI sees its role as providing leadership in identifying resources in four areas to support human health research:

• Facilities that promote multidisciplinary research - One limitation of a School or Graduate Group approach to identifying resource needs is that there can be too little investment in resources that span across resource groups. An example of this would a High Performance Computing facility. While this high performance computing facility is not directed at health related research per se (it is a more directed at promoting basic science), the members of HSRI will benefit from having this capacity on campus. HSRI’s role is to help identify these types of facilities and advocate with the Office of Research & Economic Development for investment.
• Facilities that promote biomedical research with outside organizations - As we promote research collaborations with external partners, members of HSRI will be identifying research facilities that would add to the resource base through the region and be used by multiple partners. The High Performance Computing facility is one example (researchers at Fresno State and Stanislaus State would benefit from having access to this type of facility), and another is a mobile BL3 lab that was identified by regional partners (e.g., UCSF-Fresno and the Public Health Departments in the San Joaquin Valley) as being key to addressing the Valley Fever epidemic in our region.
• Facilities that promote behavioral health research – the social and behavioral sciences (e.g., Public Health, Sociology, Psychology) contribute critical knowledge towards addressing health threats, especially in the population in our region. At least 50% of preventable causes of death in the US represent behaviors and social conditions, even more so in this region. This research however requires special lab facilities and equipment, possibly including a Survey Research Center to monitor health and health threats.
• Facilities that promote translational research -  One of the key challenges and opportunities in this region is to give people access to innovative new treatments and interventions. The diversity and significant health disparities in the region provide the opportunity to quickly test the efficacy and effectiveness of new treatments, interventions, and approaches to delivering healthcare. This will require establishing a network of contacts (e.g., partners in rural areas) and procedures (e.g., joint IRB protocols) that will allow UC Merced researchers to quickly access rural and diverse populations.

HSRI will work with the Office of Research & Economic Development on developing research facilities that will promote growth in health research. HSRI will also work with the Office of Development & Alumni Relations and faculty members to identify funding sources for these research facilities.

4. Translational Research Center - The San Joaquin Valley is an underserved area with tremendous health disparities. It is also a region with significant diversity on multiple dimensions, making it a unique laboratory for examining the efficacy and effectiveness of new interventions and treatments in underserved, hard-to-reach populations. This has not been unnoticed by others in California, with both UC Davis and UC Irvine looking to establish networks for providers in the region. Their efforts are motivated by a recognition that the SJV is an underserved area that is rife for expansion, and by pressure from funding agencies (e.g., NIH) to expand their study populations to include more ethnic and socioeconomic diversity.

This confluence of needs by outside groups and by UC Merced researchers for access to diverse patient populations creates an opportunity for UC Merced to develop a Translational Research Center in conjunction with our regional partners. At present, HSRI and UCSF-Fresno have a small grant from UCOP to develop a translational center. The goals of this center will be to provide UC Merced and UCSF-Fresno researchers and clinicians with the support they need to involve hard to reach, low socioeconomic, and ethnically diverse communities in clinical trials and intervention research.

While HSRI will play a large part in the organization and development of this center, it is expected be a true partnership between UCSF-Fresno, CSU Fresno, and HSRI. Each comes with different areas of strength - UCSF-Fresno has clinicians and access to clinical partners, CSU Fresno has a research infrastructure that can provide access to hard to reach communities, and HSRI has faculty with diverse areas of expertise and the commitment to research. These areas of strength complement each other and provide us with the opportunity to form a working partnership that will benefit the region.

We expect that the infrastructure underlying this Translational Research Center will be in Fresno. Fresno has a wider patient and community base than Merced, and thus it makes sense for the main facilities to be housed at UCSF-Fresno. But we anticipate HSRI having a presence in Fresno as well, and will work with our partners to develop this space as the initiative progresses.

5. HSRI physical presence - As health research grows on campus, we anticipate there being two centers of operations: A Health Sciences Research and Education Building (HSREB) at UC Merced and a Translational Research Center at UCSF-Fresno. In Merced, HSRI envisions three types of staff:

• Administrative and support staff - includes staff who can assist with pre and post award grant development and support. Anticipated: 8 FTEs.
• Research support - providing faculty members with project management, help in facilitating research with community groups and health care providers in the region, data management, and biostatistical expertise. We collaborate with our regional partners to develop our capacity in this area, but we would expect UC Merced to be the central location for this support. Anticipated: 8 to 10 FTEs.
• Research Scientists, Post-docs, and Visiting Academics - As with other research institutes, HSRI will host a number of grant-funded Research Scientists, post-doctoral fellows, and visiting academics. A conservative estimate would be that by 2020, we would have 6 to 8 Research Scientists, 4 to 6 post-doctoral fellows, and 4 visiting researchers. Anticipated: 16 FTEs.

Given this, HSRI is anticipated to require between 30 and 35 offices, one large meeting room, several smaller breakout rooms, and a central area for informal gathering.

IV. Summary

This strategic plan has outlined a vision for Human Health as a signature theme at UC Merced through 2020. In order to realize this vision, UC Merced needs to be prepared to continue to invest in health research and education. The specific steps include:

Health researchers and interdisciplinary health research programs  

• HSRI will continue to support faculty in securing grant funding and developing successful research projects
• HSRI will continue to work with faculty to develop interdisciplinary health research programs
• Resource needs:
  • Continued funding of HSRI through the annual budget cycles

Medical Education

• HSRI works with the Senate to convene a committee of UC Merced faculty to explore the feasibility of adopting a JMP-style Medical Education model for UC Merced/UCSF-Fresno. (Spring 2014)
• As part of this process, HSRI commissions a feasibility study to identify more fully the resources that would be required to implement the model and the financial support that is available in the region to support such a model. (Fall 2014)
• Once the plan is finalized, UC Merced hires a faculty member with the appropriate background to lead the development of the program (advertise in Fall 2014 to start in Fall 2015)
• HSRI commits to assisting in process until and after the introduction of the Medical Education program (Fall 2017)

Resource needs

• • Funding for feasibility study
  • Majority of funding should be provided by donors/external sources
  • Research facilities

• HSRI works with the Office of Research & Economic Development to develop a committee to review health-related facilities needs (Spring 2014)
• For those facilities identified as meeting the needs of external partners, HSRI works with faculty and external agencies to develop business plans including recharge rates, host institution, and funding sources (ongoing)
• HSRI works with Office of Development & Alumni Relations to identify foundation and donor support for key research facilities (ongoing)
• Resource needs:
  • The management of facilities will need to be coordinated with the Office of Research.

Translational Research Center

• HSRI will work with regional partners to develop a translational research center (ongoing, with proposed center by September of 2014)
• Resource needs:
  • Can be provided with HSRI's existing resources

HSRI physical presence

• Health Sciences Research and Education Building (HSREB) that would house the groups associate with Medical Education or health research.

The Center for the Study of Education would foster research on all levels of education—from preschool to graduate school. It will address educational processes on a cognitive level, an interactional level (e.g. between teachers and students), and on an organizational level.  The presence of an education center would facilitate interdisciplinary research on educational topics such as retaining women and minorities in STEM fields, evaluation and identification of most effective teaching and learning practices in STEM subjects, and the relationship between social inequality and education, including how social class, race/ethnicity, gender, and immigration status all influence individual experiences within the educational system. The center will be open to scholarship using a variety of methods, including qualitative techniques (ethnography, in-depth interview, content analysis) and quantitative techniques—especially utilizing the many large-scale datasets offered by the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES).

Given this broad vision, the proposed education center will incorporate educational scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. UC Merced has multiple faculty pursuing research on education, and the proposed center would foster research collaboration and interdisciplinary graduate training.  Economics faculty at UCM study the development of universities (Alex Whalley), sociology faculty are studying issues of race, gender, and class inequalities in education (Irenee Beattie and Laura Hamilton), a number of psychology faculty study early child social, health and cognitive development (Jeffrey Gilger, Jan Wallander, others), a consortium of scholars—including those in the natural sciences—study STEM-field retention of women and minorities, public health scholars study how to best education communities about health issues (Susana Ramirez), and cognitive scientists study the human-computer interaction that defines much of the future movement toward digital education (Paul Maglio). The Center for the Study of Education will bring all of these scholars together in one space, and promote the formation of new intellectual synergies in the study of education.  There is not currently any campus infrastructure to connect the various individuals groups interested in educational scholarship with one another, so this Center would fill an important niche on campus that builds on existing strengths. The Center would also likely develop research and funding collaborations with other existing and proposed centers on campus, such as the Center for Humanities, Health Sciences Research Institute, Center for the Study of Comparative Global Inequalities, the Quantitative research center, and the Center for Research on Teaching Excellence.

In addition, the Center will help broaden and grow current educational programs on campus and partnerships with local community schools. In particular, since its inception in 2006 UC Merced CalTeach/Science and Mathematics Initiative (SMI) has attracted 563 undergraduate students and have been highly rated by both UC Merced participants and the local school district partners.  The program is focused on offering undergraduates opportunities to explore careers in secondary STEM education as well as improve their own learning strategies, problem solving and presentation skills.  The program works closely with local school districts and enables UC Merced undergraduates not only to experience teaching in K-12 classrooms during their fieldwork but also enables them to complete both their Bachelor’s degrees and teaching credential simultaneously.  CalTeach is a UC-wide initiative which partner programs across 9 campuses which has an extensive research component.  A Center for the Study of Education could draw on already existing resources within the CalTeach initiative as well as help broaden the research component of the UC Merced SMI program across a complete spectrum of STEM education levels. 

The Center would also facilitate further collaboration and engagement between UC Merced and the Merced public schools.  The proposed Center could facilitate grant application partnerships between UC Merced faculty and school district employees, thereby providing the research and grant writing expertise of the university to local school districts, who are eligible for various educational grants but lack the resources to pursue them.  The Center could manage and facilitate UC Merced student internships with local schools, either in the classroom or as data management and analysis assistants. It could also serve as a hub for student volunteer efforts in local schools, such as the highly successful Project 10%, and integrate research and training components into such endeavors.  In addition, one of us (Gilger) has been in the initial planning process for a community engagement, resource and research facility aimed specifically at children and families dealing with learning and developmental disorders in the schools. This facility would fit nicely with an education center and also link this center with other health related units planned for the university (e.g., HSRI, a possible med school or school of public health).

A Center for the Study of Education would be a valuable resource to the Central Valley, which has the worst educational outcomes in the state of California. This is reflected across multiple measures, including high school completion, college enrollment, and bachelor’s degree attainment. Furthermore, Latinos—a group that is heavily represented in both California, and the Central Valley in particular—have the lowest levels of educational attainment in the country. For example, around 40% of all Latino parents have less than a high school degree. Schools in the Central Valley are not well equipped to serve these populations, as they are among the most poorly resourced in the state. Students from low income communities and families, with little access to educational capital, face serious barriers in educational persistence. UC Merced serves the Central Valley, and a significant population of first-generation, largely minority students. Of all the campuses in the system, ours is most critically positioned to address education, especially educational inequities.

An interdisciplinary education center has the potential to bring in a substantial amount of grant money. Grants to study education are available from both federal agencies (e.g. Institute for Education Sciences) and foundations such as the Spencer Foundation, the Gates Foundation and more.  These agencies are especially interested in educational issues like those faced by the Central Valley. A Center like this could facilitate interdisciplinary collaborations between faculty, and provide support for faculty in grant applications.  Additional hires in education, including a Center Director, would also provide assistance to the University in pursuing grants, such as the NSF ADVANCE grant, which was considered this fall but abandoned due to a lack of senior faculty interested in education available to work on it.  Further, as mentioned above, the Center could help develop grant writing partnerships between UCM faculty and local school district administrators.

The Center will require a laboratory space/office.  Ideally, the Center would begin with a part time staff person who could help organize events and workshops as well as assist faculty with grant preparation.  Eventually a Center like this would easily fund itself with grant money.  We propose that a faculty line be established in order to hire a Center Director.  An interdisciplinary search could be conducted, involving faculty from sociology, psychology, and other affiliated disciplines.  Seed money would be helpful to help the center apply for external funding in order to remain functional and become self-sustaining in the future.

1.     What refinements to the 2009 Strategic Academic Vision are needed?

A focus on Materials Science and Engineering (MSE)

Two of the five research themes identified in the 2009 Strategic Academic Vision would benefit significantly from an increased focus on MSE.  These themes are Environmental Sustainability and Human Health.  Accordingly, we propose

•   the formation of an MSE graduate group that will educate graduate students and provide innovation in the fundamental and emerging areas of the subject;

•   strengthening and growth of the undergraduate major in MSE, to develop the skills that several international studies (e.g. see Refs. 1 and 2, and reports collated therein) have identified as central to technological advancement and economic prosperity; and

•   development of a minor program in MSE, in collaboration with colleagues in physics, chemistry, biology, bioengineering, mechanical engineering, and environmental engineering; relevant existing and planned MSE courses include nanotechnology and nanoscience, nanofabrication, materials characterization, polymeric materials, electron microscopy, x-ray diffraction, materials sustainability, energy materials, and semiconductor materials.

Because of the envisioned strong ties between the new graduate group and the undergraduate major, nearly identical proposal documents are being submitted on behalf of these two self-assembled groups.  The proposals differ mainly in regards to their description of aspirations and metrics.

The drivers for strength in MSE, and the unique attributes of MSE that can help to forge UCM’s evolving identity, include:

•   Existing and potential connections to

     -   Energy Materials (harvesting, transducing, transporting and storing energy)

     -   Self-Assembly (sustainable; uses much less energy than conventional materials processing)

     -   Quantum Computing (lower energy than conventional data processing; reduced instances of hacking, identity theft and consequent loss of productivity)

     -   Environmental impact of materials (sustainable materials and manufacturing processes)

     -   Biomaterials (connects both sustainability and human health themes).

•   MSE is a “central” discipline – a link between fundamental sciences (physics, chemistry, mathematics) and other engineering specialties (mechanical, computing/electrical, environmental, bio, chemical, civil). 

•   MSE is intrinsically a multidisciplinary, collaborative endeavor.  The current core MSE faculty delivering the undergraduate major have degrees and/or professional recognition in materials science and engineering, macromolecular science and engineering, chemistry, physics, and biology.  This breadth will be expanded in the proposed MSE graduate group; colleagues in other disciplines who have already agreed to join the nucleus of this effort will add further expertise in physics and chemistry; and new expertise in bioengineering, mechanical engineering and chemical engineering.

•   MSE is a natural home for the growth of research and teaching in nanotechnology.  Two popular electives in nanotechnology for UCM students across many science and engineering disciplines have been developed by an MSE faculty member.

•   MSE is a natural home for extensive characterization facilities, spanning the range of structure and properties, that serve not only the discipline but also users across campus and the state.  For example, UC Merced’s Imaging and Microscopy Facility, under the direction of a MSE faculty member, has been providing characterization services (optical and electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction) to campus users, industry (Hewlett-Packard, Grundfos), state agencies (SJV Air Pollution Control District, CAL-EPA), and universities (UCLA, UC Davis, Columbia).   With the opening of SE2 and move of all IMF equipment to one location, as well as increased campus support for centralized facilities, it is anticipated that internal and external users will grow.

Comments on Themes in the 2009 Strategic Academic Vision

•   Sustainability

     -   In general, this research theme has seen growth on campus.  It appears that objectives 1 (expanding role of SNRI) and 2 (establishment of MERI) are well on their way to being met, although objective 3 (establishment of a school of design) has not gained traction. 

     -   For the immediate future, it seems that our resources would be better placed in fleshing out the sustainability theme beyond SNRI (which tends to focus on policy issues) to programs that deal with sustainability solutions at a more foundational level (e.g. energy materials, and sustainable manufacturing processes).  Robust dialog between the policy perspective of SNRI and technically-focused graduate programs would be desirable.

•  Human Health

     -   It would be desirable to expand HSRI and the nascent Public Health program to new participants

     -   MSE faculty conduct research in air pollution that is highly relevant to the SJV, where 6 of 10 of the worst polluted cities in terms of particulate matter are located; they have strong ties with other universities and state agencies engaged in similar research.

     -   MSE faculty are engaged in other health related work, e.g. responsive biopolymers, biosensors, and scaffolding for regenerative medicine, that could leverage and/or be leveraged by other human health efforts on campus.

     -   School of medicine should be given a low priority as it is too expensive to build a school of medicine and a general campus at the same time.  Engagement of UC Merced faculty in medical school instruction (as has been rumored for San Joaquin Valley PRIME Medical Program) needs to be thought out carefully, to ensure that there are no surprises in regard to accreditation and infrastructure costs.

•  Cognitive Science and Intelligent Systems – This theme has grown beyond its initial base in CS and EECS programs.  Interestingly, one of the areas in which it has expanded is visualization as used in MSE modeling.  There would appear to be need – and scope – for expanding the program further.

2.   What are the important research problems or questions in your field(s)?

A global view

A recent report from an influential research evaluation provider (Ref. 3) envisages the 21^st century as an era of revolutionary discoveries in materials research that result in far reaching changes for society and how we live.  The authors note that Asian nations and institutions are clearly focusing their research efforts on new materials, and that there does not appear to be a similar commitment to this research on the part of Europe and North America — especially on the part of the USA which has seen its world share of materials sciences research papers not only fall by half in the last three decades but actually decline in output in the late 1990s and in the early years of the last decade. It is only now that the USA’s output of such papers is returning to the level of 1996.  “However, materials research in particular is closely tied to economic growth. Therefore, US and European Commission policy makers and elected representatives may wish to consider whether it is important, even vital, to make a larger commitment to materials research for the sake of future prosperity — even beyond that provided by the US National Nanotechnology Initiative and similar funding by the European Commission.”

         Even more recently, the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has recognized (Ref. 1) several contemporary reports from the USA and Europe, highlighting the importance of materials and materials research. These reports include the USA’s Materials Genome Initiative for Global Competitiveness (Ref. 4).  A majority of the fourteen grand challenges in engineering issued by the National Academy of Engineering require that materials and material systems with properties and performance superior to today’s materials be developed (Ref. 2).

         A clear consensus emerges on where materials have the potential to impact significantly on societal issues. These areas of significant impact are centered on sustainable economic growth, manufacturing, energy, healthcare and the environment – coinciding with the strengths in Sustainability and Human Health that UC Merced has been most successful at developing and that have the greatest potential for growth (see Question 1).  The reports also tend to agree on the technologies that will be required to realize these goals: they include nanotechnology and advanced materials.  There is also agreement on some of the generic requirements to advance the area such as modeling and simulation, as well as on research areas that are especially worth pursuing (areas of existing strength in MSE are in italic font):

•   advanced materials with novel or improved properties

•   development of rational approaches in the design of advanced materials or in their integration into structures and systems

•   inspiration by nature (eco-design, bio inspiration and use of natural materials,  polymers from non-petrochemical sources)

•   anticipation and control of the performance of materials during the life cycle (including self-sensing and self-healing); replacing scarce elements

•   inorganic materials for photonics and energy (e.g. energy transport, storage)

•   non-organic materials for advanced multifunctional microsystems

•   materials based on novel functionality though molecular organic compounds and polymers

•   meta-materials and nanostructured materials

•   functional and multifunctional oxide films

•   materials to support healthcare (biomaterials, stem cells, regenerative medicine)

Current Local Expertise

Within the current five MSE core faculty, we already have expertise in several of the above-listed themes.  Specifically looking at the themes of Sustainability and Human Health, we identify expertise that includes:   

•   “Green” synthesis; all-carbon photovoltaics (Vincent Tung)

•   Materials for energy transduction, transport and storage (Jennifer Lu)

•   Characterization of nanomaterials for energy applications, and of nanoparticulate air pollutants (Valerie Leppert)

•   Rational design of advanced materials through multi-scale computation (Lilian Davila)

•   Bio-inspired and natural materials (Christopher Viney)

The proposed MSE graduate group will expand this pool.  To date, commitment to participate as founding members of the group has been received from experts in:

•  Electrochemical energy conversion and storage devices (Min-Hwan Lee, ME)

•  Control of materials performance: wear and  lubrication; materials for extreme environments (Ashlie Martini, ME)

•   Materials for regenerative medicine; tissue engineering (Kara McCloskey, BIOE)

•  Characterizing biomolecules for development of artificial functional biomolecular structures and ultra-sensitive biosensors (Tao Ye, CHEM).

Further growth of this research talent pool will occur by recruiting additional members of the current faculty, and by new hires as detailed in Question 3.

3.   What resources are needed for your field?

Faculty Hires

•   Materials Sustainability – ensuring materials availability, or finding acceptable substitutes; minimizing environmental impact; materials life cycle development.

•   Solid state structure characterization – focus on x-ray diffraction and spectroscopy; develop in-house labs and capitalize on nearby synchrotron facilities.

•   Nanodevice Fabrication – provide a complement to Jennifer Lu’s and Vincent Tung's research, and teach semiconductor fabrication classes. 

•   Next Generation Solid State Memory Devices to complement Min-Hwan Lee’s work.  A  February 2013 market report by Yole Développement Corp. forecasts conservatively that the solid-state non-volatile memory chip market will see growth at an average annual rate of 46% in the next five years.(http://ebookbrowsee.net/yole-emerging-nvm-february-2013-report-flyer-lau...)

•   Biological Materials Engineering – biosensors and/or nanoscale materials from viruses and bacteria (search currently underway).

We hope that one or more of these can be senior faculty appointments.  It is worth noting that the existing senior MSE faculty were among the first UCM hires, and have been especially concerned with program building and service for the campus and school; there has been no addition to the MSE senior faculty since UC Merced opened its doors to students. 

Other Resources

•   Adequate staffing to support undergraduate research (grant writing and program management), student outreach and recruitment, and collection of data for assessment metrics.

•   Adequate computational and IT resources for

     -   research (e.g. a community cluster where the infrastructure and maintenance are supported by the School, but the compute nodes are purchased by individual faculty)

     -   developing and hosting online courses (one way for a small program to stay near the frontier, is to offer online resources in traditional areas of materials education, leaving faculty the ability to concentrate on emerging areas)

     -   robust internet and videoconferencing facilities to develop teaching and research collaborations with other institutions

•   Investment in adequate centralized spaces for functions that can be carried out efficiently through sharing by all disciplines that need them; examples include nanofabrication, synthesis, thermal analysis, mechanical testing, polymer and other soft material characterization, and microscopy (optical, electron, AFM).

•   Investment in adequate space for current and future MSE faculty.

4.     What national programs align with yours and what programs do you aspire to be like by 2020?

Unique Aspirations

•   A focus on sustainability threaded throughout the undergraduate and graduate curricula, and flexible integration with other disciplines on campus. 

•   A research environment that encourages and facilitates the transition from undergraduate student researcher to graduate student researcher, especially among underrepresented groups in the professoriate.

MSE Graduate Group

•   The core principles should be inclusive of the relationships between (1) structure, (2) properties, (3) processing, and (4) application/performance of materials.

•   Educate students in the evolving computational methods, characterization protocols and data management skills that will enable them to function effectively as the next-generation workforce as envisioned in the Materials Genome Initiative. 

•   Provide continuing education opportunities for people in the existing research and industrial workforce.

•   Incorporate and sustain interdisciplinary research and training into the program.  We will leverage courses from other disciplines to enrich our curriculum (and we will ensure that our courses are appropriate for other disciplines).

5.   How does your program help to meet important campus metrics?

Several influential, high profile reports (see references) point to the national and international need for accelerated growth in undergraduate materials teaching and enabling materials research.  There does not appear to be a “model” program that is held up as an example of what we might become, because no program is yet meeting these challenges.  The best we can do in regard to metrics, is to select those that are more universally recognized as indicators of excellence, along with those (e.g. diversity indicators) that characterize the sort of academic environment that we want to be known for.  In regard to the quantitative indicators of excellence, we aspire to placing in the top 10% nationally.

         While recruiting (retaining) graduate students in-house is traditionally minimized in favor of external recruitment, UCM can benefit from retaining well-trained undergraduates as we address the challenge of growing our graduate student numbers.  (This was a common practice at UC Davis during the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the campus was expanding its engineering programs in terms of number of students and quality while at the same time experiencing difficulty recruiting nationally and internationally.)  Thus, MSE will not discourage its undergraduates who wish to stay in the area, often due to family/community reasons, from continuing on to graduate studies at UC Merced – although they will be informed of the benefits of graduate study elsewhere.

Metrics for MSE Graduate Group: Possible metrics include (as per NRC practice and UC Merced aspiration): percent of faculty with grants, successful applications for large, cross-disciplinary funding opportunities(e.g. MRSEC, STC), percent interdisciplinary, percent minority faculty, percent female faculty (currently 60% for the MSE undergraduate program), percent students receiving full first year support, percent first-year students with external funding, average annual PhDs graduated (correlates with graduate enrollment).

         We are less enthusiastic about using the GPAs and GREs of students accepted into the program as metrics (although many of our students evidence high ranking in these areas), since questions remain as to how well these numbers demonstrate capacity for success in graduate school.  It would be better to measure the output and achievements of our graduate students, e.g. how many papers they publish, weighted by the appropriate journal impact factors.   Also, a measure of our success will be provided by the ranking of the programs from which our incoming students received their undergraduate degrees.

We are not providing projected numerical values of metrics with the present document, because of uncertainties in assembling reliable data that fully describe the status quo.   We look forward to developing our quantitative measures of success as we establish robust mechanisms for collecting plausible input.

References

1.   Materially Better: Ensuring the UK is at the Forefront of Materials Science, EPSRC (UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) 2013.

2.   The Future of Materials Science and Materials Engineering Education: a report from the Workshop on Materials Science and Materials Engineering Education sponsored by the National Science Foundation, September 18-19, 2008 in Arlington, VA.

3.  Global Research Report: Materials Science and Technology (Jonathan Adams and David Pendlebury, Evidence Ltd, Thomson Reuters, June 2011).  ISBN: 1-904431-29-1.

This is the first Thomson Reuters Global Research Report to have a topical focus rather than a geographical one.

4.  Materials Genome Initiative for Global Competitiveness, National Science and Technology Council, June 2011.

1.     What refinements to the 2009 Strategic Academic Vision are needed?

A focus on Materials Science and Engineering (MSE)

Two of the five research themes identified in the 2009 Strategic Academic Vision would benefit significantly from an increased focus on MSE.  These themes are Environmental Sustainability and Human Health.  Accordingly, we propose

•   the formation of an MSE graduate group that will educate graduate students and provide innovation in the fundamental and emerging areas of the subject;

•   strengthening and growth of the undergraduate major in MSE, to develop the skills that several international studies (e.g. see Refs. 1 and 2, and reports collated therein) have identified as central to technological advancement and economic prosperity; and

•   development of a minor program in MSE, in collaboration with colleagues in physics, chemistry, biology, bioengineering, mechanical engineering, and environmental engineering; relevant existing and planned MSE courses include nanotechnology and nanoscience, nanofabrication, materials characterization, polymeric materials, electron microscopy, x-ray diffraction, materials sustainability, energy materials, and semiconductor materials.

Because of the envisioned strong ties between a proposed MSE graduate group and the undergraduate program, nearly identical proposal documents are being submitted on behalf of these two self-assembled groups.  The proposals differ mainly in regards to their description of aspirations and metrics.

The drivers for strength in MSE, and the unique attributes of MSE that can help to forge UCM’s evolving identity, include:

•   Existing and potential connections to

     -   Energy Materials (harvesting, transducing, transporting and storing energy)

     -   Self-Assembly (sustainable; uses much less energy than conventional materials processing)

     -   Quantum Computing (lower energy than conventional data processing; reduced instances of hacking, identity theft and consequent loss of productivity)

     -   Environmental impact of materials (sustainable materials and manufacturing processes)

     -   Biomaterials (connects both sustainability and human health themes).

•   MSE is a “central” discipline – a link between fundamental sciences (physics, chemistry, mathematics) and other engineering specialties (mechanical, computing/electrical, environmental, bio, chemical, civil). 

•   MSE is intrinsically a multidisciplinary, collaborative endeavor.  The current core MSE faculty delivering the undergraduate major have degrees and/or professional recognition in materials science and engineering, macromolecular science and engineering, chemistry, physics, and biology.  This breadth will be expanded in the proposed MSE graduate group; colleagues in other disciplines who have already agreed to join the nucleus of this effort will add further expertise in physics and chemistry; and new expertise in bioengineering, mechanical engineering and chemical engineering.

•   MSE is a natural home for the growth of research and teaching in nanotechnology.  Two popular electives in nanotechnology for UCM students across many science and engineering disciplines have been developed by an MSE faculty member.

•   MSE is a natural home for extensive characterization facilities, spanning the range of structure and properties, that serve not only the discipline but also users across campus and the state.  For example, UC Merced’s Imaging and Microscopy Facility, under the direction of a MSE faculty member, has been providing characterization services (optical and electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction) to campus users, industry (Hewlett-Packard, Grundfos), state agencies (SJV Air Pollution Control District, CAL-EPA), and universities (UCLA, UC Davis, Columbia).   With the opening of SE2 and move of all IMF equipment to one location, as well as increased campus support for centralized facilities, it is anticipated that internal and external users will grow.

Comments on Themes in the 2009 Strategic Academic Vision

•   Sustainability

     -   In general, this research theme has seen growth on campus.  It appears that objectives 1 (expanding role of SNRI) and 2 (establishment of MERI) are well on their way to being met, although objective 3 (establishment of a school of design) has not gained traction. 

     -   For the immediate future, it seems that our resources would be better placed in fleshing out the sustainability theme beyond SNRI (which tends to focus on policy issues) to programs that deal with sustainability solutions at a more foundational level (e.g. energy materials, and sustainable manufacturing processes).  Robust dialog between the policy perspective of SNRI and technically-focused graduate programs would be desirable.

•  Human Health

     -   It would be desirable to expand HSRI and the nascent Public Health program to new participants

     -   MSE faculty conduct research in air pollution that is highly relevant to the SJV, where 6 of 10 of the worst polluted cities in terms of particulate matter are located; they have strong ties with other universities and state agencies engaged in similar research.

     -   MSE faculty are engaged in other health related work, e.g. responsive biopolymers, biosensors, and scaffolding for regenerative medicine, that could leverage and/or be leveraged by other human health efforts on campus.

     -   School of medicine should be given a low priority as it is too expensive to build a school of medicine and a general campus at the same time.  Engagement of UC Merced faculty in medical school instruction (as has been rumored for San Joaquin Valley PRIME Medical Program) needs to be thought out carefully, to ensure that there are no surprises in regard to accreditation and infrastructure costs.

•  Cognitive Science and Intelligent Systems – This theme has grown beyond its initial base in CS and EECS programs.  Interestingly, one of the areas in which it has expanded is visualization as used in MSE modeling.  There would appear to be need – and scope – for expanding the program further.

2.   What are the important research problems or questions in your field?

A global view

A recent report from an influential research evaluation provider (Ref. 3) envisages the 21^st century as an era of revolutionary discoveries in materials research that result in far reaching changes for society and how we live.  The authors note that Asian nations and institutions are clearly focusing their research efforts on new materials, and that there does not appear to be a similar commitment to this research on the part of Europe and North America — especially on the part of the USA which has seen its world share of materials sciences research papers not only fall by half in the last three decades but actually decline in output in the late 1990s and in the early years of the last decade. It is only now that the USA’s output of such papers is returning to the level of 1996.  “However, materials research in particular is closely tied to economic growth. Therefore, US and European Commission policy makers and elected representatives may wish to consider whether it is important, even vital, to make a larger commitment to materials research for the sake of future prosperity — even beyond that provided by the US National Nanotechnology Initiative and similar funding by the European Commission.”

         Even more recently, the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has recognized (Ref. 1) several contemporary reports from the USA and Europe, highlighting the importance of materials and materials research. These reports include the USA’s Materials Genome Initiative for Global Competitiveness (Ref. 4).  A majority of the fourteen grand challenges in engineering issued by the National Academy of Engineering require that materials and material systems with properties and performance superior to today’s materials be developed (Ref. 2).

         A clear consensus emerges on where materials have the potential to impact significantly on societal issues. These areas of significant impact are centered on sustainable economic growth, manufacturing, energy, healthcare and the environment – coinciding with the strengths in Sustainability and Human Health that UC Merced has been most successful at developing and that have the greatest potential for growth (see Question 1).  The reports also tend to agree on the technologies that will be required to realize these goals: they include nanotechnology and advanced materials.  There is also agreement on some of the generic requirements to advance the area such as modeling and simulation, as well as on research areas that are especially worth pursuing (areas of existing strength in MSE are in italic font):

•   advanced materials with novel or improved properties

•   development of rational approaches in the design of advanced materials or in their integration into structures and systems

•   inspiration by nature (eco-design, bio inspiration and use of natural materials,  polymers from non-petrochemical sources)

•   anticipation and control of the performance of materials during the life cycle (including self-sensing and self-healing); replacing scarce elements

•   inorganic materials for photonics and energy (e.g. energy transport, storage)

•   non-organic materials for advanced multifunctional microsystems

•   materials based on novel functionality though molecular organic compounds and polymers

•   meta-materials and nanostructured materials

•   functional and multifunctional oxide films

•   materials to support healthcare (biomaterials, stem cells, regenerative medicine)

Current Local Expertise

Within the current five MSE core faculty, we already have expertise in several of the above-listed themes.  Specifically looking at the themes of Sustainability and Human Health, we identify expertise that includes:   

•   “Green” synthesis; all-carbon photovoltaics (Vincent Tung)

•   Materials for energy transduction, transport and storage (Jennifer Lu)

•   Characterization of nanomaterials for energy applications, and of nanoparticulate air pollutants (Valerie Leppert)

•   Rational design of advanced materials through multi-scale computation (Lilian Davila)

•   Bio-inspired and natural materials (Christopher Viney)

The proposed MSE graduate group will expand this pool.  To date, commitment to participate as founding members of the group has been received from experts in:

•  Electrochemical energy conversion and storage devices (Min-Hwan Lee, ME)

•  Control of materials performance: wear and  lubrication; materials for extreme environments (Ashlie Martini, ME)

•   Materials for regenerative medicine; tissue engineering (Kara McCloskey, BIOE)

•  Characterizing biomolecules for development of artificial functional biomolecular structures and ultra-sensitive biosensors (Tao Ye, CHEM).

Further growth of this research talent pool will occur by recruiting additional members of the current faculty, and by new hires as detailed in Question 3.

3.   What resources are needed for your field?

Faculty Hires

•   Materials Sustainability – ensuring materials availability, or finding acceptable substitutes; minimizing environmental impact; materials life cycle development.

•   Solid state structure characterization – focus on x-ray diffraction and spectroscopy; develop in-house labs and capitalize on nearby synchrotron facilities.

•   Nanodevice Fabrication – provide a complement to Jennifer Lu’s and Vincent Tung's research, and teach semiconductor fabrication classes. 

•   Next Generation Solid State Memory Devices to complement Min-Hwan Lee’s work.  A  February 2013 market report by Yole Développement Corp. forecasts conservatively that the solid-state non-volatile memory chip market will see growth at an average annual rate of 46% in the next five years.

     (http://ebookbrowsee.net/yole-emerging-nvm-february-2013-report-flyer-lau...)

•   Biological Materials Engineering – biosensors and/or nanoscale materials from viruses and bacteria (search currently underway).

We hope that one or more of these can be senior faculty appointments.  It is worth noting that the existing senior MSE faculty were among the first UCM hires, and have been especially concerned with program building and service for the campus and school; there has been no addition to the MSE senior faculty since UC Merced opened its doors to students. 

Other Resources

•   Adequate staffing to support undergraduate research (grant writing and program management), student outreach and recruitment, and collection of data for assessment metrics.

•   Adequate computational and IT resources for

     -   research (e.g. a community cluster where the infrastructure and maintenance are supported by the School, but the compute nodes are purchased by individual faculty)

     -   developing and hosting online courses (one way for a small program to stay near the frontier, is to offer online resources in traditional areas of materials education, leaving faculty the ability to concentrate on emerging areas)

     -   robust internet and videoconferencing facilities to develop teaching and research collaborations with other institutions

•   Investment in adequate centralized spaces for functions that can be carried out efficiently through sharing by all disciplines that need them; examples include nanofabrication, synthesis, thermal analysis, mechanical testing, polymer and other soft material characterization, and microscopy (optical, electron, AFM).

•   Investment in adequate space for current and future MSE faculty.

4.     What national programs align with yours and what programs do you aspire to be like by 2020?

Unique Aspirations

•   A focus on sustainability threaded throughout the undergraduate and graduate curricula, and flexible integration with other disciplines on campus. 

•   A research environment that encourages and facilitates the transition from undergraduate student researcher to graduate student researcher, especially among underrepresented groups in the professoriate.

Undergraduate Program in MSE

In light of the recommendations in Refs. 2 and 4, we additionally aspire to the following:   

•   Research, internship, and industrial experiences, both domestic and foreign, are important for the preparation of future materials scientists and engineers in both industry and academia.  Undergraduate students need research experiences even as early as the freshman year.  MSE has provided exceptional undergraduate research experiences to well over one hundred UCM students over the past ten years, due to its leadership in the NSF Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center – Center Of Integrated Nanomechanical Systems.

•   Curriculum revision should seek novel ways to include biology, business, project management, leadership, entrepreneurship, and international experiences into undergraduate education – and to integrate/leverage resources for training across disciplines.

•   Educators should consider online educational programs to continue teaching traditional materials areas as faculty expertise in these areas is lost and these courses are displaced to accommodate ones in emerging areas.  (Many UC Merced students engage especially well with these traditional areas, because they are relevant to everyday life experiences.)

•   To attract more students to the discipline, materials programs should change the message used to engage prospective undergraduates. The discipline is an enabling one and one that has the potential to provide technological solutions to critical societal issues. This type of message needs to be used to excite students about opportunities in the field.

•   Provide training and professional development opportunities for K-12 teachers to improve their knowledge of materials concepts and applications that are relevant to their classrooms.

•   Educate students in the evolving computational methods, characterization protocols and data management skills that will enable them to function effectively as the next-generation workforce as envisioned in the Materials Genome Initiative. 

•   Provide continuing education opportunities for people in the existing research and industrial workforce.

5.   How does your program help to meet important campus metrics?

Several influential, high profile reports (see references) point to the national and international need for accelerated growth in undergraduate materials teaching and enabling materials research.

There does not appear to be a “model” program that is held up as an example of what we might become, because no program is yet meeting these challenges.

         The best we can do in regard to metrics, is to select those that are more universally recognized as indicators of excellence, along with those (e.g. diversity indicators) that characterize the sort of academic environment that we want to be known for.  In regard to the quantitative indicators of excellence, we aspire to placing in the top 10% nationally.

         While recruiting (retaining) graduate students in-house is traditionally minimized in favor of external recruitment, UCM can benefit from retaining well-trained undergraduates as we address the challenge of growing our graduate student numbers.  (This was a common practice at UC Davis during the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the campus was expanding its engineering programs in terms of number of students and quality while at the same time experiencing difficulty recruiting nationally and internationally.)  Thus, MSE will not discourage its undergraduates who wish to stay in the area, often due to family/community reasons, from continuing on to graduate studies at UC Merced – although they will be informed of the benefits of graduate study elsewhere.

Metrics for Undergraduate Program in MSE: percent of students participating in research opportunities (currently helped by COINS funding), percent of students enrolling for graduate degrees, growth of enrollment in MSE electives, contribution of faculty to interdisciplinary courses, participation of faculty in outreach and recruitment activities, contribution of faculty to general education.   MSE faculty have made significant contributions in all these respects.

We are not providing projected numerical values of metrics with the present document, because of uncertainties in assembling reliable data that fully describe the status quo.   We look forward to developing our quantitative measures of success as we establish robust mechanisms for collecting plausible input.

References

1.   Materially Better: Ensuring the UK is at the Forefront of Materials Science, EPSRC (UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) 2013.

2.   The Future of Materials Science and Materials Engineering Education: a report from the Workshop on Materials Science and Materials Engineering Education sponsored by the National Science Foundation, September 18-19, 2008 in Arlington, VA.

3.  Global Research Report: Materials Science and Technology (Jonathan Adams and David Pendlebury, Evidence Ltd, Thomson Reuters, June 2011).  ISBN: 1-904431-29-1.

This is the first Thomson Reuters Global Research Report to have a topical focus rather than a geographical one.

4.  Materials Genome Initiative for Global Competitiveness, National Science and Technology Council, June 2011.

This proposal is initiated by the Humanities and World Cultures Bylaw Group, the World Cultures (soon Interdisciplinary Humanities) Graduate Group, and the Center for the Humanities:  three units representing 30 faculty, 30 graduate students, and the students majoring and minoring in four undergraduate majors and seven minors and programs.

Refinements to the 2009 Strategic Academic Vision:  The 2009 Strategic Academic Vision offers three points of orientation to our Strategic Academic Focusing Initiative:

• The “World at Home” reflects the capacity of the AHA fields to approach questions at scales ranging from the global to the local and to move with facility among such frames.  It also reflects our commitment to socially engaged research.
• The “Culture, Community and Identity” theme gestures towards the scope and aims of the humanities at UC Merced.  However, our work crosses over and beyond all five of the themes developed in the 2009 plan.  
• The AHA faculty remain committed to interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary scholarship balanced with disciplinary excellence.  As the largest and most diverse faculty group in SSHA, we are beacons for this UC Merced vision.
• Important research problems or questions in your field(s):  Interdisciplinarity is the hallmark of the AHA approach at UC Merced.  All of our faculty and graduate students read work from every one of our disciplines, and all of us utilize each other’s frames of understanding. The interdisciplinary stance of AHA fields is well expressed in the current issue of  thejournal of the interdisciplinary humanities Occasion(arcade.stanford.edu/occasion_issue/volume-6).  An interdisciplinary orientation in the AHA fields helps to illuminate grand challenges, since the task of humanists, artists and anthropologists is to explain and express cultural complexity and contingency.  Our brief is the human condition as it has existed at all times and at all places, and our insights apply to problems also addressed by scientists and engineers. 

Grand Challenges in the Arts, Humanities and Anthropology 

• How do social power, exploitation and hegemony function, from intimate to social scales, and how do individuals and groups resist and restructure power?
• What are individual and collective identity?  What kinds of communication across identities create new and hybrid identities, while other kinds of interactions reify difference?
• How do states and other entities control territory, what are the limits of state power, and how do people, goods and ideas cross borders?
• What are creativity and transcendence?  What do people find valuable, meaningful, sacred or beautiful, and what do they find ugly, worthless, profane, or distasteful?
• How does the human experience vary over time and across space, shaped by various structures of power and hierarchy, and how are slow processes of change disrupted by contingent events?
• How do humans interact with other life forms and the inanimate world in ways that are exploitative, sustainable, or resilient?

Scholars of the arts, humanities and anthropology address these challenges using methods that include fieldwork, description, narrative, hermeneutics, qualitative and quantitative analysis, curation, and an orientation toward ethics and politics.  In addition, the work of making art – writing, painting, music, drama, and dance – connects theory to practice.

Needed Resources: 

In 2020, with 75 to 90 faculty members in the AHA fields, we will be positioned to maintain research excellence, support a graduate program of international repute, and educate undergraduates in core disciplines of the liberal arts.  At build out, in addition to robust disciplines, AHA will have thematic interdisciplinary clusters in:

• • Regions, eras, and languages: Global Asian Studies/Asian Languages and Literatures, Global Early Modern Studies, Latin American Studies/Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literatures, and World Languages and Literatures
  • Methods:  Ethnography, Archaeology, Digital Humanities,  Geography and Spatial Analysis, Museum/Heritage Management, Performance Studies, Community Engaged Research, Public Humanities, and Sociolinguistics
  • Analytical frameworks:  Empires/Borders/Transnationalism,  Environment/Food/Agriculture, Human Rights, Medicine/Health, and Religious Studies
  • Social identities: Ethnic Studies, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Working-Class Studies.

A 75 to 90-member AHA faculty is adequate for critical mass in our current programs, and in addition will permit us to support:

• New Undergraduate Programs:  GASP will submit an application for major status within the year.   Additional new undergraduate programs will develop organically from existing programs and faculty.  Organized as a single group, AHA faculty and teaching assistants can easily serve multiple degree programs, with many courses cross listed between programs.  Some of the thematic strengths referenced above may become undergraduate minors or majors.  We will also develop an Interdisciplinary Humanities undergraduate major parallel to the Interdisciplinary Humanities Graduate Group and similar to the Stanford Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities major.
• New Graduate Programs:  We will sustain growth in the Interdisciplinary Humanities Graduate Group to a total size of approximately 135-180 students (1.5:1 to 2:1 student to faculty ratio).   As part of that process, we will develop a self-paying fifth year coursework-based MA program geared to UCM undergraduates. The fifth year program will enable our brightest undergraduates to develop their intellectual skills and prepare them to apply to top ranked Ph.D. programs or jobs that require M.A. degrees.   UC Merced will thereby become known as a pipeline for outstanding first generation and diverse college students to enter professions and graduate education in AHA fields.  We estimate admitting a class of approximately 10 students per year to the MA program.  In addition, the Merritt Writing Program will propose a self-paying MFA degree.

To support these aims, in addition to the additional faculty detailed above, we also need specialized staff:  (1) one Digital Humanities Developer, (2) one gallery/museum curator, one gallery/museum manager, one LPSOE faculty member to manage the video/music production labs and teach classes, (3) three additional Center for the Humanities staff members, (4) administrative staff dedicated to student advising and faculty support for the AHA group, (5) one LPSOE faculty member for every 200 students or fraction thereof enrolled in each foreign language that we offer, (6) one language lab coordinator, (7) one fine and performing arts LPSOE faculty member for every 200 students or fraction thereof enrolled in each art form that we offer, (8) one arts program and facilities coordinator.  A robust AHA group also requires synergistic development of: (1) an adequately staffed and funded library, a library collection that includes a core print collection of books to support undergraduate and graduate research, sufficient bandwidth for data-intensive research, and a library staff with the specialist knowledge to support undergraduate and graduate research in the arts, humanities and anthropology;  and (2) an adequately staffed and funded UCM Presents performing arts organization that supports performances from high visibility touring performing artists.

The AHA group requires a building or a complex of adjacent and physically integrated buildings that supports the interdisciplinary, and community-facing aims and needs of our large and diverse group while supporting our continued collaboration.  Crucially, we want to be able to perform our many functions in spaces that are efficiently designed and optimized to our needs and that allow for serendipitous and casual meetings in lounges, hallways, and cafes.   While we are not proposing any large-scale concert halls or theater spaces on the campus, we need basic performance spaces for teaching and rehearsal.  Beyond these, we will seek to reinforce town-and-gown connections by using downtown spaces for student and guest performances. This vision requires an excellent transit link, as well as clear, explicit and adequately funded agreements for collaboration between UC Merced and community-based arts presenting entities.  Specifically our needs include:

• A performing arts and exhibition building that includes a public museum and gallery, a café, and theater,  music, and dance spaces that support teaching and research as well as extra-curricular and social student functions.   The museum/gallery, at 15000 sf, would be used to display artworks and artifacts, but also library exhibitions, science and engineering projects, or almost anything that a course or campus club would want to propose—thus establishing the building as the public face of not only the arts but also the University as a whole. It would also serve as a teaching gallery that makes collections available to faculty and students across campus for courses and to create study exhibitions.  The museum/gallery includes divided exhibition spaces, staff offices, secure storage, exhibition preparation workshop, as well as an interactive education room for the UCM communities and the general public.  This building’s spaces (soundproofed as necessary) would support interdisciplinary approaches to the arts by leveraging pedagogy, research, public performance and student activity together.  This building should include, in addition to the 15000-sf museum/gallery: (1) music practice rooms: 4 individual, 8 keyboard, 2 medium group:  840 sf total, (2) two ensemble practice rooms that can double as seminar rooms, 900 sf total, (3) one dedicated dance rehearsal space, 1200 sf, (4) a combined piano and video/music production lab with individual stations for up to 20 students, 1000 sf, (5) an 80-seat black box theater with requisite backstage areas that could double as a film theater and teaching space for art history, film studies and drama classes, (6) a combined music and dance studio that could allow dancers to collaborate with live musicians, with storage space for musical instruments, (7) a 2500 sf ballroom that could serve for large ensemble rehearsals and for social dancing, (8) two fairly substantial dressing rooms that would serve the black box theater and the ballroom, doubling as changing rooms for dance studios, (9) A shop space for set building, either adjacent to the theater, or in accessible studio space in the adjacent building, (10) classrooms with flexible seating supporting movement-based pedagogy which would double as rehearsal spaces for student groups and as green rooms or dressing rooms when multiple performances are taking place in the building. These classrooms would be equipped with data projectors, sound systems, and motorized black-out shades so that they can serve as useful teaching spaces for courses in music, art, performance, film and other studies in the arts.
• An art, archaeology and biological anthropology building or wing with ventilation, plumbing and safety features appropriate to teaching and research in these fields.  This space should include: (1) Four 1800-sf fine art studios , each with proper ventilation, built-in cabinetry and sinks, and the ability to adequately darken the room for instruction, i.e. slide presentations (2) eight 725-sf anthropology research damp labs with built-in workbenches, sinks, and snorkel hoods; one 900-sf research lab with a HEPA air filter system; and one shared 300-sf wet lab with a fume hood, (3) two 1000-sf anthropology teaching labs to accommodate 20 students each with lay-out and work space, and one adjacent 500-sf shared washing and storage area with built-in cabinetry, a workbench, and sink, (4) one approximately 500-sf of outdoor space adjacent to the anthropology teaching lab and arts studio with retractable sun/weather shade, (5) storage areas for musical instruments, anthropological teaching materials, artworks, and arts supplies
• A digital media cluster that includes: (1) a 6000 sf digital media lab, recording studio, digital heritage lab and digital humanities lab suite with light proofing and sound proofing as appropriate, (2) a 1000 sf language lab, (3) a digital humanities/digital heritage/digital media teaching lab for classes of up to 40 students 
• Offices, study spaces and seminar rooms including: (1) faculty, staff, lecturer, and graduate student offices adequate for the personnel we have specified, (2) a Center for the Humanities suite that includes a suite of 12 offices for a total of 1,560 sq. ft. of office space for: five offices for staff members (610 sf total), one reception / shared student office (130 sf), two offices for visiting faculty fellows (260 sf total), two offices/studios for artists/writers-in-residence (260 sf total), one shared office for two postdocs (150 sf), one shared office for three graduate fellows (150 sf) and also includes an adjacent seminar room of approximately 600 sf, (3) a small auditorium to seat about 90, with a projector, screen, sound, movable chairs, podium, and small storage room for equipment and chairs, (4) 10 seminar rooms, conference rooms and scholarly activity rooms seating 20-60 people for meetings and lectures, (5) an AHA administrative suite with staff space for advising, academic personnel, purchasing, and other needed functions, and (6) quiet shared study space for undergraduates.

National programs that are most closely aligned

• In the UC system:  University of California, San Diego, Literature Department (literature.ucsd.edu), and University of California, Irvine, Ph.D. Program in Culture and Theory (http://www.humanities.uci.edu/cultureandtheory)
• At other public research universities: Binghamton University (State University of New York) graduate program in Philosophy, Interpretation and Culture (pic.binghamton.edu/); Florida State University, Program in the Interdisciplinary Humanities (iph.fsu.edu), and University of Louisville, Humanities Doctoral Program (http://louisville.edu/humanities/ph.d-program-in-humanities )
• At private research universities: Brown University Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage (www.brown.edu/academics/public-humanities); Stanford University Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities (www.stanford.edu/dept/registrar/bulletin0809/5925.htm);  Concordia (Canada), Ph.D. in the Humanities (cissc.concordia.ca/Ph.D.inhumanities/); Johns Hopkins Humanities Center Graduate Program (http://humctr.jhu.edu/graduate), and New York University, Department of Social and Cultural Analysis (http://sca.as.nyu.edu)

On the Role of Disciplinary Organizational Units in a Multidisciplinary Campus

An underlying assumption of this strategic focusing initiative seems to be that faculty lines are best planned in the context of creating specific applied themes instead of in the context of building strong, well-balanced disciplinary units.  Although much important and influential research occurs through multi-disciplinary collaborations, this does not mean that the best strategy for creating and nurturing the building blocks of such research is to recruit faculty into collaboration themes.  Instead, disciplinary units play a critical role in providing a long-lasting, enriching, and collegial environment in which faculty can build their research careers and train their students.  Disciplinary units have the expertise to recruit, evaluate, and nurture faculty that build and complement the program’s current strengths.  Moreover, the top faculty candidates will be looking to join programs with disciplinary units that they (and their advisers) recognize will best support their careers.  A hiring process that emphasizes bringing expertise into a specific research theme may not attract or select the most talented researchers, which is why virtually all research institutions are organized to recruit talent into disciplines, even if the researchers spend their time in cross-disciplinary research groups.

Another issue is that the functioning of UC Merced as a true university that fulfills its missions in research, teaching, and service will require effective administrative units below the level of schools.  These units are almost universally disciplinary departments, and a process that largely removes such units from faculty planning will greatly undermine the ability of these units to ensure courses are taught, students graduated, faculty promoted, and so on.  Any proposal to radically change this planning process should identify what administrative structures will be created to ensure these roles are fulfilled.  Finally, it is understandable why it is tempting for the campus to invest in a few select areas that may quickly gain recognition; however, the responsibility given to us in starting UC Merced was not to build a research center with a few pillars of excellence, but rather to create a university that will last for centuries and has the breadth and eventual depth to excel in research domains as yet unknown.  Building a university requires the patience to build strong foundations across the many disciplines of human knowledge, a process that will take a long time, as it has at every university, including the world's top private universities and our sister campuses in the UC system.

Definition of Thematic Area

Chemistry is the science of the composition, properties, and transformations of matter.  Since its earliest roots in antiquity, chemical research has spanned the range from purely theoretical investigations of the nature of matter to very practical application of this knowledge to improve the human condition.  To this day chemistry retains this role as "the central science" translating fundamental physics and mathematical knowledge to practical applications in biology, medicine, and materials science, as well as industrial processes and products.  Because of this role as the link between many disciplines of science and engineering, a strong chemistry program is a critical part of a successful research university.  This central role became evident in Round 1 of the Strategic Academic Focusing process when the Chemistry and Chemical Biology Proposal was linked to five of the nine campus research themes: Human Health, Energy and Energy Systems, Information, Computational, and Data Sciences, and Engineering, Matter Science and Engineering, and Life Science.  In all of these areas, chemistry provides essential collaborative capabilities in measurement, synthesis, and simulation.  Indeed, a significant fraction of journal papers from UC Merced chemists involve collaborations with other disciplines and many large research grants to UC Merced involve multidisciplinary teams including chemists.  In addition to its role as a linking competency for research, chemistry courses provide a core part of all technical majors; 100% of all science and engineering majors at UC Merced take at least one chemistry course.

Intellectual Components of Strategic Initiative

Although chemistry is inherently a very broad discipline, there are a handful of common "grand challenge goals" that encompass most of the current research in chemistry.  These are:

1) Atomic-level control of molecular structures and chemical reactions

2) Single molecule measurements and manipulation

3) Computer simulations of chemical processes at "predictive accuracy"

4) Design and synthesis of materials with pre-specified properties

5) A chemical understanding of the machinery of life.

Together, these goals promise solutions to many of the challenges of the modern world, from discovering new medicines for emerging diseases, creating more efficient processes for food production, developing new energy sources, to inventing more environmentally friendly materials and industrial processes.

Faculty Participation

At present the UC Merced Chemistry and Chemical Biology (CCB) Bylaw 55 unit includes 12 ladder rank research faculty and one Lecturer with Potential Security of Employment.  The CCB Graduate Group was approved last year as a stand-alone graduate program by the system wide Coordinating Committee on Graduate Affairs, and includes all of the CCB unit faculty and two additional faculty who are part of the Molecular and Cell Biology Bylaw 55 unit.  The CCB faculty span most of the major subfields of chemistry including 4 faculty whose research is in theoretical and computational chemistry, an unusually high fraction of non-experimental faculty compared to most other chemistry programs.

The productivity of a chemistry research program is measured by its publications in the top-rated chemistry journals.  Since 2012, CCB faculty have published articles in Nano Letters, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Nature Chemistry, Journal of Chemical Physics, Journal of Physical Chemistry, ACS Nano, and Angewandte Chemie, all high-impact-factor journals that are read by a wide cross-section of the chemistry community.  This recognition builds the reputation of both the chemistry program and UC Merced as a whole.  The ability to produce such high-impact publications depends upon sustained funding, which in chemistry is primarily from extramural grants from federal agencies.  CCB faculty have established a strong track record getting numerous grants from the NSF, NIH, Petroleum Research Fund, Dept. of Energy, US Air Force, Army, and UCOP Lab Fees program.

The chemistry undergraduate major at UC Merced has had very robust growth, quadrupling in size over the past five years to 238 in fall 2013.  The CCB graduate program has grown more slowly, to 19 graduate students in fall 2013, limited primarily by challenges in a very small program attracting sufficient qualified applicants.  So far the 2014 graduate recruiting has been going well, with 7 new doctoral students joining the CCB graduate group.

Distinctiveness

Chemistry is an inherently multidisciplinary science, so to create competitive research and educational programs will require strength in all primary subfields of physical, organic, inorganic, theoretical and biological chemistry, and across the underpinning capabilities of synthesis, measurement and simulation.  A program that lacked any of these components would not be able to support the types of multidisciplinary research that are meant to be UC Merced's hallmark, nor would such a program be able to sustain accredited undergraduate degrees or graduate programs able to attract top students or training grants. 

Although it is not productive to create a chemistry program that is unique simply by narrowing its focus to exclude subdisciplines of chemistry, many excellent chemistry programs do have special features that distinguish them from other programs.  For example, CCB is notable in the number of its publications and grants that span disciplines.  Nearly all CCB faculty have published papers with faculty in other units in SNS or other schools.  These collaborations have led to high profile publications with UC Merced faculty in biology, materials science, computer science, physics, applied math, and mechanical engineering, as well as several large collaborative research grants.

Another distinguishing feature is that CCB is a very modern chemistry program in that nearly all faculty do research focused on the four grand challenges of chemistry described at earlier in this proposal, taking advantage of particular strengths in theoretical/computational chemistry and nanoscience.  A large fraction of the CCB faculty use computational or mathematical modeling as a central element of their research.  While not creating a radically different type of chemistry program—which may end up as an unsuccessful gimmick—these features of CCB are recognized as distinct and should provide recruiting opportunities for faculty and graduate students interested in multidisciplinary, prediction-based, chemical research.

To help determine the size and disciplinary make up of successful university chemistry programs that are recognized for their contributions to chemical research and provide effective teaching for its majors and service courses, we referred to the US News rankings of the best chemistry graduate programs (most recent version is 2010) that lists nearly 200 chemistry graduate programs (http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/...) and the 2010 Assessment of Research Doctorate Programs from the National Research Council that includes 147 programs  (http://sites.nationalacademies.org/PGA/Resdoc/).  In this analysis we focused on programs tagged as simply "Chemistry" to exclude some very large hybrid chemistry-life sciences programs.

Across the US, chemistry programs listed in these sources range in size from 8 to 174 faculty, with an average (from the NRC report) of 36 faculty.  These numbers vary to some extent with the size of the university, but it is notable that there are a number of strong to excellent chemistry programs with faculty sizes around 20-24, a size reasonably achievable for UC Merced by 2020.  An "aspirational peer" could be the chemistry department at Johns Hopkins University which is ranked as 21st in the nation despite having only 22 faculty (numbers from http://www.chemistry.jhu.edu/).  Clearly the program at Johns Hopkins benefits from being located at a top ranked university (12th among national universities in the 2013 US News ranking) and from being a wealthy private university.  Another clear advantage of this program is excellent research space including a recently renovated 44,000 sq. ft. chemistry building, providing about 2,000 sq. ft. of office and lab space for each faculty member.  Each faculty member has, on average, 5 graduate students for an overall program size of 120 students.  Another high quality, modest-sized chemistry department is at Emory University, which has only 24 chemistry faculty and yet is ranked 38th amongst chemistry programs and supports over 120 graduate students.  Like Johns Hopkins, Emory is a top ranked university (20th in the UC News rankings) with superb chemistry research facilities including two laboratory buildings. 

There are programs at less elite institutions that rank relatively high in national rankings despite their small size.  These include one public university, the University of Illinois at Chicago which ranks 67th in chemistry programs (tied with several other programs) with 24 faculty and over 140 graduate students.  Two other programs achieved good rankings with a small faculty and graduate program, including Brandeis, ranked 67th with 21 faculty and 45 graduate students, and Northeastern, ranked 90th with 27 faculty and 54 graduate students. 

It is important to note that despite their small size, all of the chemistry programs cited above have faculty covering all of the major subfields of chemistry, indicating the need for disciplinary breadth even in small chemistry programs.

CCB Planned Program Growth to 2020

Our aim is to grow the faculty of CCB to reach 21 faculty by 2020.  This will involve a net gain of 9 research faculty.  Based on the example of our exemplar schools, this number of faculty would constitute a "critical mass" of faculty for our research and graduate programs.  Using the projected growth in the number of chemistry majors and service teaching load, 21 faculty would lead to a 16.5/1 student-faculty ratio for chemistry majors and an 18.0/1 ratio for service teaching student FTEs to faculty. 

A major aim of CCB over the next several years is to grow the graduate student per faculty ratio from the current value of 1.6 graduate students per CCB faculty to 3.0 by 2020, leading to a total CCB graduate population of 63 students in 2020.  (Note that a number of students supervised by CCB faculty are in other graduate groups, so the actual graduate student/faculty ratio among CCB faculty is higher than 1.6).  Assuming an average of 5 years to complete a Ph.D., our proposed growth rate will require ramping up our graduate recruiting to about 12 students per year, compared to the 7 recruited for fall 2014.  This goal of 3 graduate students per faculty is nearly 50% lower than most of our top rated exemplar schools, but above peer schools like Brandeis and UI, Chicago. 

With the success of CCB faculty in grant funding to support GRAs and the large number of chemistry TAships, student funding is not a primary limitation in growing the CCB graduate program.  The biggest challenge to date has been the small size and short history of the program that has limited its visibility to qualified students.  The continued growth of the CCB faculty, recognition through our publications, and the word-of-mouth advertising by our graduate program alumni will inevitably boost our applicant pool and the size of our program.

Resources Needed to Achieve our 2020 Goals

The primary resource limitation to our proposed growth plan is laboratory space for new faculty.  Assuming that CCB moves towards a 40% fraction of theoretical/computational chemists—which would be very high compared to other chemistry programs—we will need at least 6 new chemical laboratories for new faculty hires.  These will most likely be "wet labs" including a minimum of 600 sq. ft. each, for a total of nearly 4000 sq. ft. of laboratory space.  This exceeds by 4-5 laboratories the space currently assigned to CCB faculty in SE1 or SE2, once we factor in the move of two CCB faculty to campus from Castle.  Therefore, we would need a larger allocation of space in the existing buildings or space in new laboratory buildings.  Alternatively, the CCB faculty is willing to explore plans to renovate laboratory space at Castle to make it suitable for thematic groups of CCB researchers.  However, such a plan would be contingent on sufficient institutional funding to support the additional costs and support services needed to perform research offsite from the main campus.

In addition to the laboratory space needs, the CCB hiring plan requires startup funding for at least ten new faculty (including start up needed for the replacement hire for a faculty member leaving in summer 2014).  As is true in nearly all fields of science and engineering, sufficient startup funding is essential to a successful hire and, more importantly, successfully starting the career of new faculty member.  Competitive offers in experimental chemistry require startup funding of $600-800K and for theoretical/computational chemistry startup of $300-500K.  Finally, to be a modern, competitive research program, CCB will need to continue to build its shared research infra-structure, including instrumentation such as high-field NMR.

1. Politics, Philosophy, and Economics (PPE)*
2. Philosophy and Cognitive Science
3. Gender and Race Studies
4. Applied Ethics.

• Political Science
• School of Innovation, Management, and Economics (SIME)

• Center for Human Adaptive Systems and Environments (CHASE)
• Cognitive Science

•  Diversity, Inequality, and Representation

• Human Health Sciences
• School of Innovation, Management, and Economics
• Sustainability: Environment, Energy, Climate and Communication

• The 2013-14 “Race and Justice in Transnational Perspective” Seminar Series organized by faculty in History, Sociology, Anthropology, and Literature.

• The annual UCM Human Rights Film Series, which draws from multiple fields and brings together scholars from these diverse areas.

• The 2014 “Thirty Years of Mass Incarceration Conference,” organized by Tanya Golash Boza, David Torres-Rouff, and Nigel Hatton, and which included presenters from the local and scholarly community and faculty in the School of Social Science, Humanities and the Arts.

• Past community-engaged conferences and symposia: Merced Immigration Forum (2012); Abolishing Homeless (2011); and Water Quality in California’s Rural Central Valley (2010).

• Discovery centered on the dynamics of immigration and immigration policy, and global economic development, including Economics faculty Alex Whalley, Greg Wright, and three new hires starting AY 2014-2015; faculty in Sociology including Tanya Golash-Boza, Zulema Valdez, and new affiliated faculty member Marjorie Zatz; and faculty in the humanities including Mario Sifuentez.

• Research by faculty members including Virginia Adan-Lifante, Susan Amussen, Irenee Beattie, Jan Goggans, Tanya Golash-Boza, Laura Hamilton, Linda Anne Rebhun, Anna Song, Zulema Valdez, Anne Warlamount, and potential Literature faculty Matthew Kaiser focuses on the many ways gender shapes our lives and identity.

TBD

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TBD