Faculty Advancement
Key Initiatives
Center for the Advancement of Multicultural Perspectives on Science (CAMPOS)
A flagship program supporting faculty in STEM fields from underrepresented groups. CAMPOS provides targeted mentorship, research support, cohort programming, and community building.
The counterpart to CAMPOS for scholars in the arts, humanities, social sciences. Focused on promoting inclusive scholarship, peer networks, and leadership development.
Dialogues Across Difference: Solutions to Disruptive Speech in the Learning Environment
Training, dialogue and infrastructure to manage and transform campus discourse around difficult topics, protecting inclusion while preserving academic freedom.
Focused on research productivity, family support, and retention strategies. ENHANCE centers holistic supports so that faculty can thrive in all dimensions of their lives.
Faculty Retention and Inclusive Excellence Networks—Designing Solutions (FRIENDS)
Cross-disciplinary peer networks supporting retention, shared learning, and solutions to organizational climate challenges.
Faculty of California United in Scholarship–FOCUS
A UC-wide network for faculty of color to connect, collaborate, and advocate, with a UC Davis chapter.
Professors Leveraging A Community of Engagement (PLACE) with CAMPSSAH
Encourages community-engaged scholarship and builds bridges between faculty, students, and local communities.
Workplace Climate Action Group (WCAG)
A participatory group that diagnoses climate issues and designs actionable responses in partnership with faculty across all divisions.
Twenty Years of Innovation
UC Davis’s commitment to faculty excellence spans more than two decades of intentional transformation.
In the early 2000s, Vice Provost Barbara Horowitz laid the groundwork for cultivating a professoriate that reflects the breadth of perspectives essential to world-class scholarship. Her leadership established a foundation for a lasting commitment to faculty advancement grounded in inclusive excellence. In 2011, Vice Provost Maureen Stanton launched the first implicit-bias workshops for faculty search committees—an initiative that evolved into the STEAD program, now a campus standard. The National Science Foundation’s 2012 ADVANCE Institutional Transformation Grant built on this progress, expanding leadership opportunities for women in science and engineering.
From that effort, the Center for the Advancement of Multicultural Perspectives on Science (CAMPOS) launched in 2014 with $3 million in hiring incentives, followed by CAMPSSAH in 2016 for the social sciences, arts, and humanities. Both centers have become integral to UC Davis’s inclusive excellence ecosystem, supporting communities of scholars whose research and mentorship strengthen the university. UC Davis is also an active participant in the University of California’s Advancing Faculty initiative, contributing models and lessons learned through programs such as FRIENDS, FOCUS, PLACE, ENHANCE, and the Faculty Workplace Climate Action Group. The university continues to play a key role in the UC President’s and Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Programs, which expand opportunities for promising scholars to launch research careers within the UC system.
Together, these efforts reflect UC Davis’s enduring commitment to cultivating a vibrant academic community where every faculty member can thrive and shape the university’s legacy of inclusive excellence.
Critical Research Hangs in the Balance
University of California breakthroughs — from the internet to cancer drugs to the chip in your smartphone to the food on your plate — have saved countless lives worldwide, sparked whole new industries and kept America safer and stronger on the world stage. But now, UC scientists’ ability to move forward faces multiple obstacles.
Experts Weigh In
Hear UC Davis researchers explain how federal support speeds treatments, protects communities and supports local jobs.
