Come join Teaching and Mentoring

Current Activities:

Priority A: Improve DEI in student recruitment, retention, and advancement.

  1. Work with campus and national-level groups to identify key barriers to recruiting and retaining students from diverse backgrounds in Plant Sciences.
  2. Promote avenues to increase recruitment, support, and retention of diverse students. 
  3. Develop outreach activities for potential students to understand the diverse types of careers available, and the different types of impacts they can make through these careers.
  4. Lower barriers to pursuing undergraduate and graduate work. For example, financial barriers can include costs of field gear, class fees, application fees. Work with donors to provide support. Improve undergraduate student understanding of funding opportunities for graduate school.
    • Current effort: recruiting diverse high school students in Plant Sciences major
    • Development of gear lending library

Priority B: Mentor undergraduate students to help them in their program and career trajectory.

  1. Provide a 1-page document to the department with options for how to bring career and graduate school preparation advice into classes.
  2. Develop a fall-quarter “What is your next step?” class to cover graduate school applications, career preparation and job-seeking advice for non-academic careers.
  3. Develop and promote a peer-mentoring network for Plant Sciences where students can collaborate and support each other in their undergraduate experiences, career explorations, and applications. This can include helping students find opportunities for jobs and internships while still at UCD through events such as career-panels. This can also help build a peer network across undergraduate programs, such as: clubs, existing peer mentorship programs, group work in the classroom to promote equity, related networks, etc.
  4. Survey undergraduate students to ensure this teaching & mentoring work group’s priorities and actions match students’ needs and interests. 

Priority C: Mentor graduate students to help them navigate graduate school and their career trajectory.

  1. Provide workshops for exploring and preparing for academic and non-academic careers.
  2. Provide skill-building and wellness workshops (e.g. grant-writing, manuscript-writing, supervisory skills, budget skills, managing stress, conflict resolution, work-life balance).
  3. Support faculty training workshops on mentoring and student wellness.
  4. Survey graduate students to ensure this teaching and mentoring work group’s priorities and actions match students’ needs & interests.

Priority D: Improve DEI in classroom teaching.

  1. Provide resources, workshops, speakers, and training documents to TAs and professors. 
  2. Regularly share and update DEI in the Classroom “6 things” document and appendix.

Past Events:

    • Career panel- May 2022
    • Panel on navigating applications to graduate school- October 2022

Resources:

Bringing careers into the classroom  

Career resources

Incorporating DEI in the classroom

DEI Plant Sciences GSR Fellowship

Barbara D. Webster Scholar Award

*In development: a calendar of opportunities for students (e.g. fellowship application due dates, graduate school application due dates, internship due dates, etc.)

When we meet:

  • Second Tuesday of the month, 3:10 - 4:00 PM

Contact Us:

  • Matthew Gilbert, megilbert@ucdavis.edu
Documents