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Diversity and Access

UC San Diego cultivates a diverse and inclusive university community that encourages respectful open dialogue and challenges itself to take bold actions that will ensure learning is accessible and affordable for all. We aim to evolve our campus culture by requiring actionable initiatives and measurable outcomes that enhance equity, diversity, and inclusion.

The Office of the Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (diversity.ucsd.edu) provides leadership, builds capacity, and forges partnerships to facilitate shared responsibility for creating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive campus in which students, faculty, and staff can thrive. By collaborating with partners across campus, EDI leads university efforts in support of UC San Diego's Principles of Community. 

Learn more about the resources and programs that support the diversity of our faculty, staff, and students, and help make our campus community welcoming for all.

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Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

  • Strategic Plan for Inclusive Excellence

    The UC San Diego Strategic Plan for Inclusive Excellence, deeply connected to the UC San Diego Strategic Plan, is a roadmap to fulfill our vision to be a student-centered, research-focused, service-oriented public university. The plan demonstrates our collective commitment to academic and institutional excellence through strategic diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, and outlines a bold vision for our future that will ensure that the campus will have an intellectual and competitive advantage.  

    Learn more 

     

    Strategic Plan for Inclusive Excellence: Strategic Planning Toolkit and EDI Best Practices 

    Accountability: Dashboards, reports, and surveys

  • Black Academic Excellence Initiative

    The Black Academic Excellence Initiative pprovides scholarships for admitted Black undergraduate students and supports programs and activities that elevate the Black experience throughout the campus community.  

  • LatinX/ChicanX Academic Excellence Initiative

    The Latinx/Chicanx Academic Excellence Initiative is designed to ensure that California’s fastest growing student population feels welcome, supported, and able to thrive at UC San Diego. This means attracting and supporting a diverse faculty, staff, and student community—making UC San Diego a place where generations rise.

  • Campus Community Centers

    Campus community centers at UC San Diego build affinity among a diverse population of students, faculty and staff members. Open to undergraduate and graduate students, staff, faculty, alumni, and the San Diego community, the centers contribute significantly toward the evolution of a socially just campus. They are places of belonging, where traditional notions of diversity are challenged. Where self-awareness is learned, leaders are developed, and open dialogue and expression are encouraged. Follow the links below to learn more about each of our centers. 

  • Gender Recognition

    Our campus is working to improve processes, practices, and policies in order to serve students, faculty, staff, and patients who are transgender, intersex, and nonbinary, and to be more inclusive. Many parts of employment processes, housing, sports facilities, payroll systems, and recreational areas are designated by gender in a binary way (men and women), and people across campus are reviewing and working to update those systems. For example, we are striving to do the following:

    • include a nonbinary option in systems which store and use gender;
    • include nonbinary people in reports which indicate gender;
    • update name fields to default to preferred names unless there is a legal or regulatory requirement to use legal name; and
    • educate the campus community about and encourage the use of personal pronouns and names.

  • Equity and Inclusion during COVID-19

    While the novel coronavirus is impartial to who may contract the disease, data shows us that marginalized communities are bearing the worst of this public health crisis. The Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion has created a webpage as a resource to help spread awareness and actionable insights on how we mitigate hate, bias and the health and economic disparities at the intersection of COVID-19 and equity, diversity, and inclusion. Learn more. 

  • Anti-Racism Resources

    The Office for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) is committed to building individual and departmental capacity to address barriers to success for our underrepresented faculty, staff, and students, to further our efforts toward inclusive excellence and foster a more welcoming and supportive campus climate. Visit their website for more information or complete the EDI Engagement & Request form for direct assistance from the EDI Office. 

Academic Personnel Diversity and Inclusion

  • Center for Faculty Diversity and Inclusion

    The Center for Faculty Diversity and Inclusion provides leadership and works collaboratively to cultivate an academic culture of inclusive excellence. We are a unit of the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. 

  • Diversity Benchmark Data

    Academic Personnel Services compiles data on jobseekers with advanced degrees by gender, ethnicity, and discipline that form the basis of a calculated benchmark that measures the diversity of the academic workforce and applicant pools. 

  • Equal Opportunity Programs

    The Office of Academic Recruitment Services (OARS) is committed to academic excellence and diversity within the faculty, staff, and student body and manages several programs to promote academic diversity and equal opportunity at UC San Diego.

Diversity Education & Support Services

  • Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Requirement

    A knowledge of diversity, equity, and inclusion is required of all candidates for a Bachelor’s degree at UC San Diego. Learn more about the DEI requirement, including approved DEI course offerings and how to submit a proposal for a DEI course.  

  • OASIS

    With over 40 years of rich history, OASIS was born out of a movement to level the playing field by facilitating the personal and intellectual development of all students, with a focus on first-generation, underserved, and underrepresented Tritons.

  • Idea Engineering Student Center

    The IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Excellence, Achievement) Engineering Student Center fosters and inclusive and welcoming community, increases retention and graduation rates, and promotes a sustainable culture of academic excellence among all engineering students at UC San Diego. 

  • Physical Sciences Student Success Center

    The Center is committed to fostering an inclusive and welcoming learning community, engaging students in the process of developing and pursuing meaningful career paths and developing lifelong career management skills. To that end, the Center is dedicated to promoting a sustainable culture of academic excellence among all students within the Division of Physical Science and increasing retention and graduation rates.

Expanding Access

  • Preuss School

    The Preuss School UC San Diego is a unique charter middle and high school for low-income students who strive to become the first in their families to graduate from college. Located on the UC San Diego campus, Preuss students come from throughout San Diego County to take advantage of an environment that encourages intellectual risk-taking while offering an array of academic supports. 

  • University Extension

    At UC San Diego Extension, we believe great social and economic prosperity comes from integrating the collective knowledge of the university, community leaders and professionals. Extension strives to combine local impact with national reputation and global reach.

  • University Library

    The UC San Diego Library, ranked among the nation's top 25 public academic libraries, plays a critical role in advancing and supporting the university's research, teaching, patient care, and public service missions. Providing access to more than 7 million digital and print volumes, journals, and multimedia materials to meet the demands of scholars, students, and the general public.  

Help us propel opportunities for all 

With your philanthropic support of diversity—which contributes to the Campaign for UC San Diego—we can make waves for the greater good. We do this by opening more doors to higher education, taking an active approach to teaching and learning, and blazing new pathways to solutions that enrich our community and our world. Visit the EDI website (diversity.ucsd.edu/give) to learn more about our diversity giving priorities and make a gift today.