Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) Competitive-Edge Summer Program
OVERVIEW:
The Competitive-Edge Summer Program, through the Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) program at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), is a diversity program designed to those population groups identified by the National Science Foundation as traditionally underrepresented in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines including African American, Hispanic, American Indian, Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders.
The UCI AGEP Competitive-Edge Summer Program provides students who are interested in pursuing academic careers, at the college level, in order to become qualified candidates for faculty positions within American colleges and universities, and who have already been accepted to a UCI doctoral program, an opportunity to arrive early and begin research at UCI the summer prior to their first quarter of enrollment.
BENEFITS INCLUDE:
- Advanced introduction to UCI faculty.
- Advanced introduction to UCI campus resources.
- Guaranteed on-campus housing.
- Acquisition of critical teaching skills through workshops and lectures.
- A community-like experience with support from a peer cohort and the UCI Office of Graduate Studies.
- Summer stipend of $4,000.
GENERAL ENTERING STUDENT DIVERSITY QUALIFICATIONS:
- Nominees must be entering first-year graduate students only (must enroll Fall Quarter).
- Nominees must demonstrate high potential and promise.
- Nominees must indicate an interest in an academic career in teaching and research*.
- Nominees must be United States citizens or permanent residents of the United States of America.
- Nominees must provide evidence of a minimum 3.0 cumulative GPA as undergraduates or masters students.
- Students must enroll in 12 units (full-time) during each quarter of fellowship tenure.
- Nominees must demonstrate experience of situations or conditions which were an impediment to advancing to graduate study, such as socioeconomic or educational limitations, the absence of a family member who attended college, matriculation in a school with poor financial or curricular support, having a physical or learning disability or working long hours while attending school.
ADDITIONAL QUALIFICATIONS SPECIFIC TO THIS FELLOWSHIP:
- All nominees must be doctoral students entering their first year of graduate study in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines.
- Special emphasis is placed on those population groups identified by the National Science Foundation as traditionally underrepresented in the STEM disciplines including African American, Hispanic, American Indian, Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders.
- All nominees must indicate an interest in an academic career in teaching and research.
REQUIREMENTS:
Entering doctoral students must commit to a full-time, eight-week Summer Research Program during July and August of the summer prior to their first quarter of fall enrollment as a doctoral student at UCI. Summer program commitment includes 40 hours of lab research per week and mandatory workshops, lectures and other preparatory programs to be held throughout the summer.
FUNDING PACKAGE:
- $4,000 summer stipend.
- Guaranteed on-campus housing.
HOW TO APPLY:
- Students should check with the department to which they are applying for internal departmental deadlines.
- Students should notify the department to which they are applying of the submitted application so that the application may be reviewed for nomination consideration.
- Departments are responsible for submitting their top candidates to their school Dean for review.
- Academic schools are responsible for nominating their school’s top candidates in ranked order to the Office of Graduate Studies by the deadline established in the UCI Diversity Program Guide.
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Raslyn Rendon, Director of Outreach, Recruitment, and Retention
Graduate Division
Tel.: (949) 824-9169
Fax: (949) 824-9096
E-Mail: rrendon@uci.edu
* All diversity fellowship nominees EXCEPT those students nominated for the Graduate Opportunity Fellowship (GOF) must indicate a strong interest in an academic career in teaching and research.
** Fellowship award recipients will be required to participate in UCI’s tracking programs to assess student progress and eventual job placement.
*** Nominations will be based on the student’s merit and his/her contribution to the diversity of their discipline/graduate program. In accordance with state law, nominees to state-funded programs are not given preferential treatment on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion or national origin.
