Diversity & Outreach

GRIP - Sponsors

The National Science Foundation

Funding for the UCSB Summer GRIP comes from a National Science Foundation AGEP (Alliance for Graduate Education Program) grant, which is administered by the UCSB Graduate Division.

The goal of the AGEP program is to increase the number of underrepresented minority students (African Americans, Alaskan Natives, American Indians, Hispanic Americans and Native Pacific Islanders) pursuing advanced study, obtaining doctoral degrees, and entering the professoriate in STEM disciplines. Alliances participating in this program are engage in comprehensive institutional cultural changes that will lead to sustained increases in the conferral of STEM doctoral degrees, significantly exceeding historic levels of performance.

The scarcity of role models and mentors in the professoriate constitutes a significant barrier to producing minority graduates, and NSF is particularly interested in increasing the number of minorities who will enter the professoriate in these disciplines.

The University of California

The University of California’s Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (UC AGEP) is a partnership among the ten campuses of the University of California and the National Science Foundation (NSF). The goal of this partnership is to increase the number of underrepresented minority (URM) students who acquire doctoral degrees in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), and ultimately enter the professoriate. To achieve this goal, UC AGEP has created a structured series of program initiatives that span the pathway to the professoriate. The Graduate Research Mentorship Program at UC Santa Barbara is a pathway program that ensures student success in doctoral research programs and helps new Ph.D.'s compete for post-doctoral positions.