Sheldon Kamieniecki Dean of Social Sciences

Greetings!

As one of the largest of five academic divisions at UC Santa Cruz, the Social Sciences Division is home to many outstanding faculty, staff, and students. I invite you to tour our web site and learn more about our teaching, research, and public service.

The division is the intellectual home of nearly half of all UCSC undergraduates and almost one-third of the campus's graduate students. Our faculty are engaged in cutting-edge research on some of the most pressing topics of the day, from politics and economics to education, community studies, and environmental conservation and policy, and they are making their mark: A national study showed that UCSC's social scientists are setting the standard for their peers at campuses across the country (Graham and Diamond).

We encourage undergraduates to get involved in research opportunities and are proud of our internship and field-study programs that encourage students to integrate classroom theory with "real-world" learning.

Our state-of-the-art facilities include labs in anthropology, psychology, geographic information systems, and the 25-acre organic farm operated by the Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS). Our research centers include the Center for Global, International and Regional Studies (CGIRS); the Chicano/Latino Research Center (CLRC); the Center for Integrated Water Research (CIWR); the Center for Integrated Spatial Research (CISR); the Center for Collaborative Research in an Equitable California (CCREC); the Educational Research in the Interest of Under-served Students (ERIUS) Center; the Santa Cruz Institute for International Economics; and the Institute for Scientist and Engineer Educators (ISEE), each of which fosters collaboration across disciplines and with outside partners.

The research generated in our division is making a difference nationwide. UCSC researchers are participating in the federally funded Center for the Mathematics Education of Latinos/as (CEMELA), which seeks to reverse the problem of low mathematics achievement among Latino schoolchildren. It is path-breaking work like this that will help strengthen educational opportunity for all students.

Several exciting and important research initiatives are on-going or in-progress in our division: the Bruce Initiative on Rethinking Capitalism, the South Asia Studies Initiative in the Division of Social Sciences, and the Sury Initiative for Global Finance and International Risk Management. Like our research centers, these initiatives encourage interdisciplinary research, engage and develop communities of academics, regulators, and practitioners, and promulgate to broad audiences the best ideas in emerging fields.

With so much going on, I encourage you to learn more about us.