School of Education DECADE (Diverse Educational Community and Doctoral Experience) has identified priorities and coordinators for the 2017-2018 academic year. The organization is expanding its mission and reach significantly this year, building on programs from prior years and developing new ones. SoE DEACDE is part of UCI DECADE, an organization of students, faculty, and administrators committed to fostering collaborative efforts to improve climate, access and inclusion on the UCI campus.
2017-18 DECADE Support Programs and Outreach Graduate Peer Mentoring: Each year, incoming students are paired up with more senior “mentor” students who can offer insight into how to transition to and adjust to the graduate school environment. The purpose of this program is to create a sense of community among SoE students and support first year students socially, intellectually, and emotionally. While our advisors are excellent resources for research and many other academic aspects of graduate student life, a fellow graduate student can offer unique perspectives of “graduate life”. Mentors and mentees meet through the year and regular events such as ice cream socials and informal discussions with faculty take place regularly. The DECADE mentoring program is coordinated by Mariela Rivas. DECADE Resource Team Drive: DECADE manages a Team Drive (in Google Drive) to offer doctoral students digital resources intended to support success from the first year to the job market. The drive, set-up to promote equity in access to important documents for all SoE graduate students, is shared with all SoE graduate students. This new space continues to grow as student's support each other by uploading resources across many areas of interest and need. Content on the drive includes:
Support for Undergraduate Mentoring: The Support for Undergrad Mentoring initiative seeks to support doctoral students who are working with or who are interested in working with undergraduate researchers. The program has been set-up both to promote doctoral students’ RA mentoring and management practices, as well as to increase and improve the research experiences of diverse undergraduate RAs to promote their pursuit of post-graduate education. To promote these goals, we will be hosting a workshop in the fall where graduate students will learn how to recruit, manage, and mentor undergraduate RAs, additionally we will be sharing resources through the Team Drive, such as RA syllabi. Additionally, we will be launching a workshop series for undergraduates on a variety of research skills such as writing literature reviews and creating posters with the goal of presenting their original research at the year-end university wide UROP conference. The DECADE RA support program is coordinated by Joanna Yau. Critical Reading Group: The purpose of this reading group is to provide SoE community members with a space to explore and engage with epistemologies (Marxist, Feminist, Critical Race, Queer, etc.) and methodologies (qualitative, quantitative, participatory, activist) that center analyses of power, oppression and hierarchy. By highlighting race, gender identity, class, sexual orientation, disability (and their intersections), we aim to collectively develop a deeper understanding of the historical, cultural, social, economic and other structural forces that constitute inequality, inequity, and injustice--especially in relation to education. We value the intersection of theory and application, which is united by our commitment to social justice. Our collective meets Friday mornings from 8:00 AM - 9:00 AM in room 3216. New, open-minded collaborators are welcome to attend. The group is very sensitive to time and energy constraints, and so while the group will meet every week, we will typically discuss one set of readings over two to three weeks. This allows us to go in-depth with particular readings while reducing the workload. Additionally, the group has a number of remote participants Also, we will typically bring some sort of breakfast food :) The group is coordinated by Miguel Abad. Undergraduate Outreach: DECADE cultivates a sense of community in the School of Education by initiating collaboration with student clubs. This fall, graduate students worked with undergraduate leaders of student groups to organize a workshop series centered on social justice and community engagement. The undergraduate clubs included Teachers of Tomorrow (ToT), Student California Teacher Association (SCTA), Bilingual Teacher Student Association (BTSA), and the Education Honor Society (Kappa Delta Pi). These collaborations build a common sense of purpose in the School of Education that supports the achievement of DECADE's equity-oriented goals. The outreach efforts are coordinated by Chris Wegemer. Comments are closed.
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