Dear Colleagues,
I hope you and yours had a wonderful holiday and a happy, healthy New Year!
I am writing to encourage continued support and participation with the UC
Graduate Fellowship Advisors Consortium (GFAC) in 2004.
In view of the California budget deficit, a difficult financial year lies
ahead for all of us. The importance of promoting external fellowship and
grant opportunities and providing support for successful application is
even more critical. The competition for extramural support grows stiffer
with more students, postdocs, and faculty turning to external
sources. Associate Vice Chancellor Lynne Chronister, UCD Office of VC
Research speaks about the need for continued promotion of grant
opportunities and increased efforts in training workshops offering grant
administration (see Dateline article "Tough Research Competition Prompts
Training", 1/9/04, URL http://www-dateline.ucdavis.edu).
In support of the growing needs for external support for our students and
researchers, I hope that each of our campuses and UC GRAD FAC members are
able to continue programs and new initiatives that enable more students and
postdocs to succeed in obtaining external funding. It will be interesting
to find out more about the affects of the fiscal crunch on our programs,
while (in some cases) we are also experiencing increased external dollars,
and a growth in the number of applications to both internal and external
funding sources.
To follow, please find a review of our mission goal, a request for
additional membership information, and an update on the UCGAPfund project.
In addition, I would like to find out what form of communication you would
be interested in pursuing to enhance GFAC communications between campuses.
Mission Goal and Membership
Our membership includes at least one representative from each of the nine
campuses and the Office of the President (see membership list below). Our
mission, as defined previously in the Mission Statement of the University
of California Graduate Fellowship Advisors Consortium document prepared by
former Chair, John Hadja (UCSB) with member input states GFAC is,
"committed to advancing the successful fellowship and research funding of
UC graduate students and postdoctoral scholars. As such, our members assist
in the search, application and administration for graduate and postdoctoral
fellowships."
GFAC Vice Chair Karen Smith (Karen.Smith@ucr.edu) will be compiling a
comprehensive membership listing to circulate to GFAC members. At this
time, Karen would like you to email her the following information: your
full name, title, the name of the unit/office you are in, campus, phone
number and email address. Karen will circulate a comprehensive membership
list at a later date.
Are you experiencing increases in extramural application and support?
At Davis, we have seen a substantial increase in 03-04 for both graduate
student and postdoctoral fellowship monies. In 02-03, there were 2.1
million dollars in external graduate student fellowships and 3.3. million
in postdoctoral grants and fellowships. In 03-04 the graduate student
fellowships have increased five fold to 10.4 million, and postdocs almost
four fold at 11.6 million. We're very excited about the increases. I would
be interested in hearing if your campus is experiencing similar increases.
UC GAPfund Project Update
As many of you know, Eli Levy (who has now left his position at UCLA), John
Hadja (UCSB), Mike Sacramento (UCB), and other members of GFAC have been
involved with the theoretical development of a system-wide funding web site
that we are currently calling UC GAPfund. The web site would contain a
funding search engine as well as proposal writing and grant seeking
guidelines for both internal and external sources of funding at each of the
UC campuses. On December 3, 2003, the ad hoc group GFAC-GAPfund members met
with the Multi-campus Research Unit from the Office of the President to
discuss the support and development of this project and received a very
positive response. We will be meeting with an expanded group at OP again
next week. If you are not currently involved in this project, and would
like to be, please let us know! I also want to thank John Hadja for keeping
the ball rolling on this project.
Summer 2004 Grad FAC Annual Meeting
At last year's meeting in San Francisco, some members of the Consortium
expressed concern about whether or not they would have travel budgets to
attend a 2004 GFAC meeting this summer. I would be interested in hearing
from you as to whether or not (1) you think you will have funds and be able
to attend a summer meeting, if so, what is your preferred time frame
(before or after the 03/04 fiscal year ends), (2) you wish to continue the
annual meeting, i.e., is it worth while, would conference calling or
listserv communications suffice. I feel there is real benefit to all of us
gathering at one time, in one location. If enough of our members can
attend, UC Irvine (Franchesca del Mundo) has agreed to host the
meeting. Similar to last year, I am hoping to gather a few guest speakers
from outside agencies to speak to the group. Providing our Summer Meeting
is on, please let me know if you have any agency contacts you might be able
to speak to about attending the Meeting.
UC GFAC Listserv Reminder
The UC GRAD FAC listserv is available to you to share and/or gather
information with/ from colleagues who have similar roles at each UC campus.
To utilize the listserv, simply address your email to
ucgradfact@ucdavis.edu. If you have know other colleagues who are
interested in subscribing, please let me know.
In sum, please email your membership information to Karen Smith
(Karen.Smith@ucr.edu), email your response to whether or not you want to
(or will be able to) meet this summer, and last, please share your
fellowship numbers with us, have you seen an increase in funding in 03/04?
If there are any other issues or concerns, please feel free to let me know
or use this listserv as a sounding board.
Sincerely,
Deborah McCook,Chair
Karen Smith,Vice Chair
UC Graduate Fellowships Advisors Consortium
UC GFAC members
Chair: Deborah McCook UCD
Vice Chair: Karen Smith UCR
David Alcocer UCOP
Bob Hastings UC Santa Cruz
B Mount UC Berekely
Cherie Francis UCLA
Cynthia Peete UCOP
Dana Reed UCD
Erik Blaine UCD
Eli Levy UCLA
Franchesca del Mundo UC Irvine
Paul FitzGerald UCD
John Hajda UCSB
Judi Jahn UCD
Jennifer Oh UCSD
Judi Sui UCB
Jim Turner UCLA
Karen Smith UCR
Lani Proctor Pettersen UCSF
Maria Loza UCB
Moira Perez UCB
Michael Sacramento UCB
Nelson UCSF
Puriie Conley UCD
Richter UCSB
Sabrina Soracco UCB
Deborah McCook
External Fellowship Analyst
Office of Graduate Studies, 250 Mrak Hall
University of California
Davis, CA 95616
Ph.: (530) 752-0653
FAX: (530) 752-6222
'Looking for Funding?
http://gradstudies.ucdavis.edu/support/studsup.htm
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