Graduate Ally Coalition

Mission

The UC Davis Graduate Ally Coalition (GAC) was formed in 2008 with the central purpose of training members of the graduate student community to serve as resources for their peers. GAC seeks to enhance access, awareness, and availability of campus resources and information to students and groups who may experience oppression, harassment, or isolation due to race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, ability, age, language, nationality, socioeconomic status and/or religion/spirituality. GAC works to facilitate a process for graduate students to empower themselves and their colleagues to have a more successful and positive graduate school experience.

Recommendations to Improve the UC Davis Campus Climate for Graduate and Professional Students

Proposed by the Graduate Ally Coalition

April 15, 2010

Dear Chancellor Katehi and Dean Gibeling,

As the organizing members of the Graduate Ally Coalition (GAC), we write with a set of recommendations that we believe will enable UC Davis to work to fulfill the many needs of graduate and professional students on our campus. As the Regents acknowledged at their March 2010 meeting, the recent series of deeply troubling racist and homophobic events on UC campuses, including our own, have brought necessary attention to significant issues with the climate of UC campuses. We believe that the steps proposed here are crucial in order to concretely improve the campus climate for historically underrepresented minorities and other marginalized graduate and professional students. Importantly, we offer these recommendations in solidarity with the recommendations the Chancellor has already received from representatives of the Black Student Union and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Resource Center with a focus on graduate and professional student needs.

Graduate and professional students fill many roles on the Davis campus as students, researchers, and instructors and thus have unique needs, which are often unmet, and unique abilities, which are often underutilized. This is especially true for students from historically marginalized groups such as students of color; Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender students; non-US citizens; students with disabilities; returning students; students from underrepresented religions; and, in many fields, women and parents. The UC Davis Graduate Ally Coalition (GAC) was formed in 2008 with the central purpose of training members of the graduate student community to serve as resources for their peers. GAC seeks to enhance access to and awareness of campus resources and information for students and groups who may experience oppression, harassment, or isolation due to race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, ability, age, language, nationality, socioeconomic status and/or religion/spirituality. GAC works to facilitate a process for graduate students to empower themselves and their colleagues to have a more successful and positive graduate school experience. The goal is to move beyond simply meeting the legal requirements for non-discrimination and to move towards creating a truly inclusive campus climate.

Currently, GAC is run by graduate and undergraduate students and staff representatives from campus resources who reserve time in their schedules for this program, and the Graduate Student Assistant to the Dean and to the Chancellor (GSADC). In the past, GAC activities have been funded by the campus resource centers, the Graduate Student Association (GSA), and the Office of Graduate Studies (OGS).

GAC has composed these recommendations in consultation with the Chancellor's Graduate and Professional Student Advisory Board and the Graduate Student Association, and thus represents a collective assessment of graduate and professional student needs at the broadest structural level. GAC has also consulted with the Graduate Student Retention Task Force that is currently conducting an empirically based study of doctoral student satisfaction on issues including mentoring, financial support, and program environment. We anticipate that the forthcoming results and recommendations from the Retention Task Force will provide analytical support for those included with this report. We ask Chancellor Katehi and Dean Gibeling to seriously review the enclosed recommendations and consider various methods to meet the needs discussed by implementing immediate changes.

Our list of recommendations focus on the following areas:

Work Study Units and Funding for Graduate Student Researchers at Campus Resource Centers
Set Funding for Student Work on Recruitment and Retention Activities
Structural Incentives for Graduate Student Mentoring
Balancing Work and Life
Graduate Student Mental Health
Graduate Student Space
Graduate Student Safety
A Strong Stance Against Differential Fees
Grad Ally Coalition Funding and Administration Support

1) Work Study Units and Funding for Graduate Student Researchers at

Campus Resource Centers

Our primary recommendation is to allocate work study units and funding to cover fees ($7,000 per quarter + one non-resident tuition fellowship) for Graduate Student Researchers for the campus resource at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Resource Center (LGBTRC), the Women's Resource and Research Center (WRRC), the Cross Cultural Center (CCC), and the Student Retention and Recruitment Center (SRRC). It would also be beneficial to have GSRs at Services for International Students and Scholars (SISS) and the Student Disability Center (SDC) and the Campus Violence Prevention Project (CVPP). This allocation is essential in order for GAC to continue and to expand our current work on the UC Davis campus. For instance, since its inception one of GAC's primary administers has been Brook Colley, the GSR at the WRRC, but as of April 2010 this position has not yet been funded for next year. The other graduate students involved in GAC are through the SRRC's funded graduate student worker, the Graduate Student Association, and the GSADC. Because the LGBTRC, CCC. SISS, SDC, and CVPP do not have GSRs they are either not represented in GAC's core organizing group or GAC relies on undergraduate student and staff labor. Without funded GSRs GAC will not be able to continue to exist.

Beyond supporting GAC, however, graduate student researchers can provide other important capacities to the centers and the campus including: 1) improved outreach to graduate and professional students 2) informed graduate student representation on administrative councils (such as the Campus Council on Community and Diversity), 3) mentoring for undergraduate students, 4) expertise developed from their research and experience as students and workers, and 5) increased communication with faculty and staff. The GSR positions will also offer employment and professionalization opportunities to graduate students at a time when such opportunities are increasingly limited. The presence of GSRs in campus resource centers is thus an all around benefit to campus culture.

GAC strongly recommends that the Office of Graduate Studies and the Office of the Chancellor and Provost prioritize the full funding of GSR positions

for student resource centers.

2) Set Funding for Student Work on Recruitment and Retention Activities

Over the past four years several ethnic graduate organizations, such as Black Graduate and Professional Student Association (BGPSA), Latino/a Graduate Student Association (LGSA), Asian Pacific Islanders (API) student organization, have organized annual fall welcome and other social events for graduate students in historically under represented communities. These events provide students with an orientation to UC Davis campus resources and connect incoming students to students, faculty and staff within their ethnic communities. These events have been very influential in retaining graduate students from undeserved and underrepresented communities at UC Davis. In addition to graduate student retention, the welcome events have also served as avenues for recruiting graduate student mentors to help undergraduate ethnic minority students prepare for graduate school.

In order to make these events successful, ethnic organizations have leveraged funds from different sources. The support that has historically been offered by the Office of Graduate Studies and various campus resource centers has made these events possible and is deeply appreciated. However, the financial support has been inconsistent for different organizations and is unpredictable from event to event. In order to have meaningful and successful welcome events in the future, we recommend the designation of annual funding for student-led recruitment and retention activities at the graduate and professional student level (as was recently established at the undergraduate level at UCSB). We believe that this will contribute tremendously to the recruitment and retention of historically marginalized students at UC Davis. Two possible avenues for distributing these funds would be either through GAC as a graduate student centered organizing group or through the designated GSR at the SRRC. Either approach could be taken in consultation and collaboration with the Outreach, Recruitment and Retention work done within the Office of Graduate Studies.

Designate annual funding for student led recruitment and retention activities for historically marginalized groups at the graduate and professional student level.

3) Structural Incentives for Graduate Student Mentoring

The major academic concern expressed by students across academic fields is significant disappointment with the quality of the mentorship they receive from major professors and other advisers. This is particularly true in STEM fields in which would be mentors are increasingly seen as "Principal Investigators" and bosses who must focus on grant applications and administration rather than enhancing the capacity of graduate students (and post-docs) as researchers, scholars and teachers. Mentorship is particularly important for historically underrepresented groups in STEM fields (such as people of color, international students, LGBTQI individuals and women) as students navigate professional worlds dominated by white, straight men. It is especially important that major professors in STEM fields know and respect graduate student rights as GSRs and that graduate students are informed of their rights.

In the humanities, the lack of mentorship is perhaps most apparent in the dearth of guidance provided to graduate students who work as teaching assistants, readers, or associate instructors. The abrupt stoppage of the Chancellor's Teaching fellowship this year has only exacerbated this situation and fomented the perception that mentorship is not a valuable component of academic life. It is all too often assumed that the Teaching Resource Center will pick up the slack. Despite the impressive work of this resource, this center cannot provide students with the necessary tools to teach highly specialized fields; all teaching is not the same. Therefore, it is necessary for would-be-educators to learn from professors who are experienced in their field. Indeed, the production of new generations of pedagogically skilled professors seems vital to the continuation of every field and the university as a whole.

In all disciplines in the land-grant university, service is another area in which increasing the effectiveness of mentoring would increase student commitment and retention. Often, graduate students lack opportunities to learn how to work effectively and collaboratively with agencies, policymakers, communities, and industry, thus end up lacking the professional skills necessary to move their careers and the world’s use of university knowledge forward. Mentoring should therefore include the skills of engagement—helping students to help deliver the resources of the university for the benefit of students and communities alike.

We strongly recommend that the Academic Senate and the Office of the Chancellor and Provost work together to implement structural incentives for mentoring, ideally via UC Davis' merit and promotion system. Increasing pressure to procure research-funding works against valuing mentorship as a quality use of time. Effective mentoring takes a lot of time and dedication, however, research shows that effective mentorship increases the productivity of graduate students, thereby enhancing research and creating synergy between faculty and graduate students further enhancing the integration of teaching and research. If graduate students are considered "future professors," then the mentoring of graduate students should be a major part of enhancing the research experience and graduate education/training. It is therefore necessary to implement new procedures to ensure that mentoring is properly valued as a central component of professors' academic responsibilities. We acknowledge that assessing the success of a professor's mentorship is challenging because, unlike research funding, it can not be easily quantified. However, the serious negative impact inaction will have on the university in the future should be encouragement enough to overcome this hurdle. High quality mentoring is often the key to graduate and professional student success as students and in their broader careers. Low quality or non-existent mentoring drives students out of the university and can have truly disastrous consequences on students' lives. It is imperative that the university prioritize and recognize the work of mentors.

GAC strongly recommends that the Academic Senate and the Office of the Chancellor and Provost work together to implement structural incentives for mentoring, ideally via UC Davis' merit and promotion system.

4) Balancing Work and Life

UC Davis could better support graduate students by honoring their often-competing commitments to both family and career. Approximately twenty-five percent of graduate students care for dependents. According to a 2006 study on graduate student attrition and retention, doctoral students with children or other dependents are more likely to stop out of their programs. Those students who continue in their programs take longer than students without dependents to complete their degrees (Nettles and Millett). Available data and analysis on the impact of dependents on graduate students is limited, however it is important to acknowledge the additional costs, pressures, and workload that having dependents adds to a household. Having dependents has the potential to disproportionally impact graduate student mothers and graduate student caregivers of all genders from lower economic strata. Recognizing a family-friendly academic culture contributes to the well-being of the entire campus community by assisting in the recruitment and retention of the best graduate students, providing systems of support to women graduate students, supporting graduate student parents and caregivers of all genders, and ensuring a more sustainable campus climate.

GAC recommends the following: 1) Establish paid maternity leave for Graduate Student Researchers. At minimum, this paid leave should be equitable to the current agreement with salaried Teaching Assistant's (and others Academic Student Employees represented by the Union), who are eligible for four weeks paid maternity leave. 2) Fully fund the Child Care Subsidy Program (CCSP), which was designed to partially defray student families' childcare expenses during the academic year. This year, graduate students were 80% of the students served by this program. Graduate students also made up 78% of the wait-lists for CCSP. This program is currently funded with monies from student registration fees, a federal grant (CCAMPIS) and contributions from Student Housing. The cost of childcare is prohibitively expensive for many graduate students and the recent cuts may leave students without the resources to obtain care for their children. Over 50% of the kids in this service are school-aged children that will not be covered by the grant next year due to cuts and cannot obtain care on-campus, as there are no childcare options fo school-age children to date. 3) Establish a dependent coverage healthcare option. We recognize and support the ongoing efforts by the Dean and Associate Dean of Graduate Studies and representatives from the GSA to establish the system-wide G-SHIP program with an affordable dependent care option and look forward to its implementation. 4) Continued support for the Breastfeeding Support Program (BFSP). The BFSP has been serving the campus community since 1995 as an initiative of the Chancellor's Child Care Advisory Committee managed by the WorkLife office. The BFSP facilitates women returning to school/work and the attainment of the Academy of Pediatrics recommendation for 12 months of breastfeeding. The BSFP demonstrates the principles and practices stemming from several academic initiatives, including the Program in International and Community Nutrition and the UC Davis Human Lactation Center. In 2008–2009, there were 97 registered participants and 5,716 recorded visits to the sites (476 per month). In 2008-2009, 32% of the BFSP’s registered users were students and in 2009-2010 to date, 26% of the BFSP’s registered users were students. We recognize the outstanding work of Barbara Ashby (BFSP Administrator) and Lonna Hampton (BFSP Lactation Specialist), who worked with Professor Bruce German from (Food and Science Technology) to forge a partnership in which the Food and Health Institute will underwrite the cost to keep the BFSP fully funded.

Establish paid parental leave for all graduate students, fully fund the Child Care Subsidy Program, establish a dependent coverage healthcare option, and continue to support the Breastfeeding Support Program.

5) Graduate Student Mental Health

In the last decade there has been increasing attention to the mental health needs of university students. Not surprisingly, it has been demonstrated time and again that students from marginalized groups are at particularly high risk for mental health problems for a variety of reasons (including lack of mentorship and support services such as those provided by resource centers) and that these students benefit from advising and counseling services that are directed towards them. Graduate students have the highest usage rate of psychological services on campus and this is especially true for international students, LGBTIQ students, and students from racial and ethnic minorities. At the same time, over the last few years UC Davis has expanded its mental health services, most notably with the creation of a Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) position specializing in graduate student needs and the launch of the Community Advisory Network (CAN) program designed to provide an active mental health outreach bridge to student campus communities. Both of these new programs have been incredibly successful. So successful, in fact, that several of the counselors involved in them, such as Dr. Thomas Roe (the designated CAPS counselor for graduate students) and Ms. Jezzie Fulman (the designated CAN counselor for the LGBTRC and WRRC) are called upon far beyond the capacity of their positions. We commend OGS and CAPS for their innovative efforts to meet student needs but we also see that student need still exists.

GAC recommends several steps to address the mental health and counseling needs of graduate and professional students. GAC is already working with CAPS counselors on increasing the visibility of these services, but ground level, community directed visibility promotion is one task the GSRs could undertake. We stress that individual and group counseling cannot be effective in a broad sense if it is not supported by a wide effort to create a more inclusive campus climate through the support of resource centers and other student focused initiatives and programs. We advocate for consultation with Dr. Roe and CAPS regarding the feasibility of increasing graduate student focused services. GAC also supports the recommendation put forth by the LGBTRC for an increase in Ms. Fulman's position in the LGBTRC (from 50% to 100%) and the recommendation from the Black Student Union for an African American male counselor to work with undergraduate, graduate and professional students.

Increase direct counseling and psychological services to graduate and professional services through additional psychologist staffing and enhanced outreach through the expansion of the CAN program with particular attention to marginalized communities.

6) Graduate Student Space

One major improvement that can be made to support graduate students on campus is to move forward with the development of a dedicated graduate student space. It is critical to have this space for several reasons, including the ability for graduate and professional students to network with other graduate students and to have a location where students can find support. More specifically, a dedicated graduate space would alleviate feelings of isolation, a common effect of graduate student life that is often cited in discussions of mental health, and one that has long lasting and detrimental effects. It would also serve as a space for graduate and professional students to go in order to interact with other graduate and professional students. This would be a place to put up posters, an informational calendar, and other communication forums to keep graduate students well informed of campus happenings. Lastly, it would be a place for graduate groups to hold meetings, organize, and otherwise come together in common purpose. Several universities already have dedicated student spaces (ex: University of Maine, Arizona State University, Rutgers University) and even dedicated graduate and professional student centers (ex: UCSC, UCSF, Yale and Stanford).[i]

While we do not have a specific recommendation for where this space can be located, there are various possibilities such as the Zinfandel Lounge, which is located just outside of the GSA office. Currently, this space is used during the day as a default graduate student lounge, but the Experimental College has control over it. Other possible spaces include a location in the new Student Community Center, which is already set to house the cross Cultural Center (CCC), the Student Recruitment and Retention Center (SRRC), the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Resource Center (LGBTRC), the Information and Educational Technology (IET) Media Lab and Computer Classrooms, an Extended Hours Reading Room, the Undergraduate Research Center (URC), and Satellite Offices for administrative functions and affiliated student service programs housed elsewhere on campus. Another possibility could be a dedicated study space in Shields library.

We recommend that UC Davis designate a specific space for graduate student

community and organizing.

7) Graduate Student Safety

Concerns regarding safety range from issues for graduate students who work late hours in labs, to the complexities of graduate student interactions with peers, faculty and staff on campus, to the built environments of campus buildings, and the interactions between graduate students and representatives of the administration and campus security. For instance, graduate students frequently work extended hours in closed environments where there is a likelihood for various forms of violence and harassment to occur that may not be reported for several reasons including fear of retaliation or professional consequences. We have a series of recommendations for improving graduate and professional students safety. 1) We believe that one method for preventing violence within the graduate student population is by providing a designated GSR to work with CVPP staff to develop violence prevention programs that meet the needs of graduate students. 2) We are also in support of the proposal from the LGBTRC for the implementation of a campuswide hate crime and bias motivated incident reporting system. A centralized, clear, and explicit process for specifically reporting such events is especially crucial for graduate students. Because of the significant impact that a disagreement with a faculty member can have on a graduate student's career, many students are unwilling to report policy violations or even criminal behavior and are willing to put their head down and get through their degree. However, many students would like an avenue to report misconduct so that there is a record of events and ideally positive change in the future. 3) We also support the LGBTRC's recommendation for gender-neutral bathrooms in all campus buildings. Many transgender and gender non-conforming people experience discrimination, harassment, or general discomfort when forced to choose from gender binary restrooms because they do not clearly fit into either. Not having gender-neutral bathrooms available in all buildings poses a significant risk for gender non-conforming students. Being able to have access to facilities that meet one of our basic human needs is one way to affirm the inherent dignity in all of us. 4) Finally, it is also necessary to comment on the complicated relationship between historically marginalized communities and conventional practices of creating safety, such as policing. While many people might feel that a police presence makes for a safer environment, many other people and groups have histories of victimization at the hands of police forces on the UC Davis campus. This is particularly true for communities of color and LGBTQI communities who often feel targeted by individual police officers for increased surveillance and harassment. Because of this, we ask that the administration not only think about the issue of graduate student safety in more explicit ways, but that in doing so the question of safety be understood to encompass various forms of individual and structural violence.

We urge the UC Davis administration to recognize the particular safety needs of graduate and professional students and take concrete steps, such as implementing a reporting system, to ensure the security of all students, faculty and staff.

8) A Strong Stance Against Differential Fees

While we recognize that UC policy regarding fees is set at the level of the Regents and not by individual campus administrations, we urge the UC Davis administration to help protect the publicness, accessibility, and diversity of our university by taking a strong stand against the further implementation of differential fees across campuses, and academic and professional programs. As members of the Chancellor's Graduate and Professional Students Advisory Board informed the Chancellor at their February 22, 2010 meeting, the board is quite concerned about the increasingly untenable levels of professional school fees and with the continuing escalation of other graduate student fees.

We join with the GSA in support of the UC Davis Graduate Council's February 22, 2010 resolution on the Proposed Principles for Determining Professional Fees: "As a public research university, the University of California has an obligation to 1) provide affordable graduate professional education to all California citizens, not only the well-off, and 2) provide training that does not prevent students from pursuing public service careers by saddling them with exorbitant loans. Given the importance of these principles to graduate education in the University of California, the Graduate Council of UC Davis supports the position of the UC Davis Executive Council that adequate time has not been provided to consider this important topic, and that the Academic Council needs to put in place a process by which the Academic Senate can fully review and have the opportunity to provide thoughtful/meaningful feedback before this important change is forwarded for review by the UC Regents."

Fee increases disproportionately impact already marginalized students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, many of whom tend to be students of color, LGBTQI students and women, because the combination of high debt and high interest rates creates a strong disincentive to pursue and complete graduate education. Graduate education is necessary to prepare future research scientists, doctors, teachers, social workers, psychologist and lawyers. Those who choose a career in the public sector are particularly hard hit due to their lower pay. Any decision to raise fees for any graduate/professional degree program should be made while considering the impact that rising fees would have on access, affordability, and the legacy that graduates will take with them when they leave UCD. As a public university, UCD facilitates the needs of the general public of CA through its three-part mission of research, teaching, and public service. The implementation of differential fees puts all three of these missions at risk.

We urge the UC Davis administration to take a strong public stand against the implementation of differential fees across campuses and academic and professional programs.

9) Grad Ally Coalition Funding and Administration Support
The most fundamental support for GAC that the administration can offer is the allocation of GSR positions to the campus resource centers. However, this year GAC has also worked to ensure its own funding for next year as we look towards our fall 2010 training and the desired expansion of our role on campus in order to provide year long trainings, speakers and workshops directed towards raising awareness about various forms of difference within and among graduate students. We have already secured a line item of $1,000 from the GSA, which GAC will use to implement our goals in even closer association with this vital organization for graduate student life. In addition, Dean Gibeling and the Office of Graduate Studies have pledged $700 for the fall training and supported the official integration of the GSADC position as a coordinating member of GAC. These contributions are very generous and enable GAC to undertake its work. GAC would like to see these forms of funding further institutionalized and, ideally, procure a similar commitment of support from the Office of the Chancellor and the Provost.

Provide institutionalized support for the Graduate Ally Coalition from the Office of the Chancellor and the Provost.

We thank you for taking the time to read and consider these recommendations. We have taken the time to discuss and assemble them with confidence that you share our commitment to improving graduate and professional student life on the UC Davis campus. We would welcome and appreciate the opportunity to meet with you to discuss these recommendations in further detail at your earliest convenience. We can be contacted through the GSADC at gradassistant@ucdavis.edu

Sincerely,

The UC Davis Graduate Ally Coalition Committee

Cassandra Paul
Graduate Assistant to the Dean and to the Chancellor
gradassistant@ucdavis.edu

Vanessa Niño-Tapia
GSR, Women's Resource and Research Center
wrrcgrad@ucdavis.edu

Luis Ramirez $ George Sellu
leramirez@ucdavis.edu & lgsellu@ucdavis.edu
GSR, Student Recruitment and Retention Center

Graduate Student Association
gsa@ucdavis.edu

Tiana Brawley
Intern, Cross Cultural Center
tsbrawley@ucdavis.edu

Wesley Young
Director, Services for International Students and Scholars
wyoung@ucdavis.edu

Sarah Merideth
Education and Outreach Coordinator, Campus Violence Prevention Project
sameredith@ucdavis.edu

Sheri Atkinson
Director, Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Resource Center
slatkinson@ucdavis.edu

Thomas Roe
Psychiatrist, Counseling and Psychological Services
troe@ucdavis.edu

Goals

To facilitate an annual training for a Cohort of graduate students representing a wide array of departments and graduate groups each year. In this training students will begin to gain the skills and knowledge necessary to provide informational support and resources to their fellow grads
To continue the process of ally development with each Cohort through a series of campus trainings and conversations.
To put on programs and events that empower, inform and educate graduate students.

Call for participants in annual training

The Graduate Ally Coalition (GAC)* and the Office of Graduate Studies invite you to join the GAC Fall 2011 Training to empower yourself and your colleagues to have a more successful and positive graduate education experience. We invite you to attend an on campus training, facilitated by the Graduate Ally Coalition Saturday October 1st, 2011.

Graduate students are often left unfamiliar with valuable resources that serve to support a positive graduate school experience. This unawareness has left many in the graduate student community vulnerable to personal and academic conflicts that undermine the experiences unique to graduate students. The Graduate Ally Coalition (GAC) hopes to address this issue by conducting a Fall 2011 Training to empower students to be a Grad Ally within their graduate program and to the graduate student community overall.

The GAC Fall 2011 Training will teach graduate students to be peer resources to those who may be facing challenges or barriers as a result of their race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, age, international status, socioeconomic status, ability, religion, maternity, and conflict with peers/faculty by developing an understanding of the basic dimensions of oppression and of the UC Davis campus resources that can assist a graduate student in navigating such experiences.

This program is open to any interested graduate/professional student. Space is limited so please RSVP with your name and graduate program to Sarah Meredith (sameredith@ucdavis.edu) at Campus Violence Prevention Program no later than Thursday, June 23rd.

Join our 2010-2011 Cohort!

Call For Nominations From GSA Representatives

The Graduate Ally Coalition and the Office of Graduate Studies invites you to nominate two students from your graduate program to participate in this fall’s Graduate Ally Coalition* (GAC) facilitated training. The training is scheduled for Saturday September 18th, 2010.

GAC recognizes that graduate students nation-wide are dropping out at an alarming rate, often for reasons that could be avoided with timely prevention or intervention strategies. This training will provide basic information about campus resources and teach strategies for understanding and assisting graduate students who are facing challenges or barriers as a result of their racial or ethnic background, sexual orientation, gender, age, socioeconomic status, ability and religion or are facing issues of sexual harassment or stalking. We hope to develop Peer Resources by discussing topics such as privilege, bystander intervention and ally development, while also training students to know more about campus resources and how to access them. Students who take part in this training begin a process of empowering themselves and their colleagues to have a more successful and positive graduate education experience. The recent hate crimes on our and other UC campuses exemplify the need for programs such as GAC and we urge you to send your nominations in right away.

Please join us in addressing issues of oppression, equity and access, by nominating two individuals from your program to participate in this training.

Please provide your nominations by April 9th 2010 to Sarah A. Meredith Campus Violence Prevention Program sameredith@ucdavis.edu

Thank you for your time,

The Graduate Ally Coalition

*The Graduate Ally Coalition is sponsored by: Campus Violence Prevention Program (CVPP), Cross Cultural Center (CCC), Lesbian Gay Bi-sexual Trans Resource Center (LGBTRC), Services for International Students and Scholars (SISS), Women's Resource and Research Center (WRRC), Student Recruitment and Retention Center's Graduate Academic Achievement and Advocacy Program (GAAAP), Graduate Student Association (GSA), Black Graduate & Professional Student Association (BGPSA), and Office of Graduate Studies.