1. What refinements to the 2009 Strategic Academic Vision are needed-both in terms of more narrowly focusing or removing current research themes or adding new ones? Consider collaborative, multidisciplinary research themes that can help to forge UC Merced’s identity.

“Interdisciplinary research is a mode of research by teams or individuals that integrates information, data, techniques, tools, perspectives, concepts, and/or theories from two or more disciplines or bodies of specialized knowledge to advance fundamental understanding or to solve problems whose solutions are beyond the scope of a single discipline or area of research practice.”

Committee on Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research, Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy (2004). Facilitating interdisciplinary research. National Academies. Washington: National Academy, p. 2.

The Center for the Study of Comparative Inequalities (CSCI) addresses the program development of multi, inter, and trans-disciplinary research and collaboration as outlined in the 2009 Strategic Academic Vision (pg. 25). CSCI has the potential to unite two core research themes: (4) Community Culture and Identity and (5) Dynamics of Social and Economic Progress. These two core research themes are currently identified in the Strategic Academic Vision (2009) under two separate disciplinary areas, the humanities and social sciences. CSCI offers a transdisciplinary approach to fostering research collaboration and program development in these areas.  The Center will facilitate individual and collaborative multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research that seeks to explain intersectional, comparative inequalities from micro-level perspectives, such as the social and economic inequalities that individuals confront based on intersectional identities rooted in race, class, gender, sexuality, and the like, and at the same time, the Center is committed to understanding larger, macro-level systems of comparative inequality, such as the role of capitalism, patriarchy, and racism in fostering structural inequalities in the United States and abroad, or examining  global systems of inequality rooted in colonialism, human rights, and international migration. A signature area of development will revolve around Comparative Inequalities in the Central Valley, from micro-level concerns relating to, for example, food insecurity, poverty, health, and discrimination among individuals and/or groups, to the relationship between communities and institutions, especially with regard to issues of sustainability and environmental justice, and to macro-level concerns of international and transnational scope, such as the implications for persistent international migration, border security, and concerns related to human rights. The Center’s focus on Comparative Inequalities builds bridges across traditional fields, such as sociology and history, while at the same time, outlining a new field of knowledge that moves well beyond single-group concerns, which typify institutions that focus on gender, ethnicity, or race, separately, or those that focus on US-based research without a global or cross-country reach. The Center for the Study of Comparative Inequalities is transformative, innovative, timely, and a one-of-a-kind center that will garner immediate interest from academicians, policy makers, politicians, NGOs, and community organizers concerned with growing inequality among individuals and groups, within institutions and across countries. It offers a unique contribution to the UC system and beyond, which is why we believe the Center for the Study of Comparative Inequalities deserves consideration in UC Merced’s strategic vision, and we hope to get started in creating this center as early as the Fall of 2014.

2. What are the important research problems or questions in your field(s) and, relative to your response to question one, what research themes does your disciplinary or interdisciplinary field contribute to?

The United States is changing, with more women attending college than ever before, large states such as California becoming “majority-minority,” same-sex marriage being legalized in several states, and economic inequality and poverty increasing at steady rates. Understanding these trends requires an intersectional analysis – one that acknowledges the linked forces of white supremacy, patriarchy, hetronormativity, and capitalism.  Whereas scholars are traditionally trained in critical race or gender studies, few scholars can claim expertise in race, class, gender, and sexuality studies. The need for a center that brings all of these scholars together is thus pressing.

A center that focuses on understanding inequalities must further be transnational and comparative. We cannot fully understand race and gender formations in the United States without a serious consideration of these dynamics in Latin America, for example. The persistence of economic inequality in the United States also requires an understanding of migration flows from Asia and Latin America as well as the rise of manufacturing in Asia and Africa.

Each scholar must approach their topics of interest from their own position in the status quo and with an acknowledgement of their own biases. In this vein, we propose to develop a center that puts at the forefront a radical critique of the status quo that avoids the pitfalls of corporatized liberal multiculturalism and is willing to directly engage practices within the academy itself that perpetuate systems of inequality and oppression.  We further plan to serve as a training ground that produces radical scholar/activists who would seek to change both the academy and the larger society. 

3. Within the context of the 2020 Project, what sort of resources are realistically needed for you to address these important research themes, problems, or questions?

The center would require funding for an Executive Director, Assistant Director, and administrative staff, as well as a physical space to house them. The space should also include office space for potential visiting professors, post-doctoral and dissertation fellows, meeting space for seminars, board meetings, and guest lecturers. The space should also have the necessary administrative equipment, computers, photocopiers, printers, and phone/fax.

4. What national programs align most closely with yours today and what are the programs (if any) to which you aspire to be like by 2020? If you aspire to establish a unique program, what differentiates it?

There are centers and institutes around the country that focus on one or two aspects of inequality related to class, gender, religion or sexuality. These centers are often urban based, intra-disciplinary, paradigmatically limited, focused on research solely within national or regional boundaries, and normative in their approach to knowledge production, solidarity and inter-subjectivity. Centers that focus explicitly on the intersection of these inequalities in transnational and community collaborative frameworks, however, are rare. To the best of our knowledge, an interdisciplinary center geographically located in a space of disenfranchisement that focuses on the intersection of these inequalities in a global perspective will be the first of its kind. The spatial and economic realities of the San Joaquin Valley, the demographic profile of UC Merced, and the global expertise and networks of our faculty, can combine to create an unprecedented center for the study of inequality and prevent the institutional replication of the same societal structural divides we aim to interrogate through intellectual work. While we value and engage with the work of the many centers and institutes focused on inequality that already exist (such as those listed below), we understand our own approach to be unique and intervening.

- Center for New Racial Studies (UC Santa Barbara)

- Center for the Study of Race and Gender (UC Berkeley)

- Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity (Ohio St.)

- Center for Race and Ethnicity (Rutgers)

- Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality (U Chicago)

- James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference (Emory)

- Program for the Study of Race & Gender in Science & Medicine (Harvard)

- Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality

- Center for the Study of Inequality (Cornell)

- The Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity, and Gender (Bucknell)

- Centre for Critical Research on Race & Identity (University of Kwazulu-Natal)

- Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Stuies (Leeds)

- Center for the Study of Race and Law (U.Va.)

- Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Politics (UCLA)

- Critical Race Studies Program (UCLA)

- Center for the Study of Race and Democracy (Tufts)

- Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture (Chicago)

- Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (Stanford)

- Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity (Columbia)

- Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America (Brown)

- Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity (Middlebury)

- Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Gender in the Social Sciences (Duke)

- Center of the Study of Race and Democracy (Arizona St.)

- The Institute for the Study of “Race” and Social Justice (New Mexico)

- The Center for Race, Ethnicity, and Sexuality Studies (Oregon)

- Center on Race and Inequality (Louisville)

- Centre for the Study of Equality and Multiculturalism (U. of Copenhagen)

5. How does your program help to meet important campus metrics of campus enrollments (undergraduate and graduate students), research productivity, student retention rates, reliance on non-ladder rank faculty, etc.?

The Center for the Study of Comparative Inequalities would allow UCM to build on its existing strengths in fields including Literature, History, Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology, Health Sciences, and Hmong Studies and support faculty and graduates in conducting interdisciplinary research.  Much of the most exciting new work in these overlapping fields deals with intersectionality and the way in which structures of power and oppression (including white supremacy, patriarchy, and heteronormativity) combine to produce institutionalized inequality.  Older and more established universities are often limited in the way in which they can fund and promote this kind of truly interdisciplinary work.  By gathering our existing interdisciplinary experts under one roof, the Center for the Study of Comparative Inequalities would leverage our unique situation to help promote the collective and individual scholarly productivity and visibility of the participating faculty and students.  By reaching out to colleagues in the sciences, the center can also help faculty tap into new sources of funding for researches relevant to the study of comparative inequalities, including, where relevant grants administered by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Institutes of Health (NIH). 

As part of its institutional mission, UC Merced actively addresses the interests of our student population. In 2013, the undergraduates at UC Merced are 40% Latino, 28% Asian American, 17% white, and 7% African American. Sixty percent of the undergraduates at UC Merced are first-generation immigrants.  As we expand to a target of 1,000 graduate students and 9,000 undergraduates, the Center for the Study of Comparative Inequalities will produce scholarship and sponsor speakers and events to speak directly to our diverse student body.  More broadly, the goal of the center is to raise fundamental questions not only about the society at large, but also about the institution of the university itself.  As part of this process, the Center for the Study of Comparative Inequalities will promote an active and critical examination of the “metrics” that constitute success at the University of California.  The reductionist drive to quantify the value of higher education is part and parcel of the privatization of knowledge that has been accompanied by the gradual erosion of public funding for state universities.  Rather than accede to this trend, the center will seek to reposition our discussion to include the goals of social justice as a core educational function.   

UC Merced Faculty who support the proposed Center for the Study of Comparative Inequalities

Paul Almeida,

Associate Professor, Sociology

Susan Amussen,

Professor, Humanities and World Cultures

Director, UC Merced Center for the Humanities

Irenee Beattie,

Assistant Professor, Sociology

Paul Brown

Professor of Public Health and Health Economics

Director, Health Sciences Research Institute

Linda Cameron

Professor, School of Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts

J. Elliott Campbell

Associate Professor, School of Engineering

Ricardo Cisneros

Assistant Professor, Health Sciences Research Institute

Michael Dawson

Associate Professor, School of Natural Sciences

Robin DeLugan

Associate Professor, Humanities and World Cultures

Kyle Dodson

Assistant Professor, Sociology

Fabian Fillip

Assistant Professor, School of Natural Sciences

Mariaelena Gonzalez

Associate Professor, Public Health

Jan Goggins

Associate Professor, Humanities and World Cultures

Laura Hamilton,

Assistant Professor, Sociology

Thomas C. Harmon

Professor, School of Engineering

Dalia Magaña,

Assistant Professor, Humanities and World Cultures

Teenie Matlock,

Associate Professor, Cognitive Science

A. Susana Ramirez

Assistant Professor,  Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts

Stergios (Steve) Roussos, PhD, MPH

Executive Director, The Blum Center

Community Research Director, Health Sciences Research Institute (HSRI)

Jitske Tiemensma

Assistant Professor of Health Psychology

Jessica Trounstine,

Associate Professor, Political Science

ShiPu Wang

Associate Professor, Humanities and World Cultures