The $3 million grant—Graduating and Advancing New American Scholars: Promoting Postbaccalaureate Opportunities for Hispanic Americans (GANAS PPOHA)—from the U.S. Department of Education will help the campus increase the readiness of Latinx, low-income, and students of color from UC Santa Cruz and CSU Monterey Bay to apply and succeed in graduate programs.

The GANAS-Graduate Pathways Project includes interventions positioned to address the need to overcome institutional barriers that impede Latina/o graduate student preparation, retention, advancement to candidacy, and completion.

Three strengths drive the Project: a) UCSC and CSUMB, two regional HSI campuses, have both made progress supporting Latina/o, low-income, and students of color to and through the graduate student pipeline; and can, in partnership, accelerate and deepen these efforts to address this equity gap; b) Latina/o graduate students at UCSC are retained, advance to candidacy, and complete graduate degrees at similar rates as White students; and c) the UCSC HSI Initiatives Team has developed expertise in designing and implementing racial equity interventions by using the Practitioner Inquiry Model as a Driver of Change (Dowd & Bensimon, 2015).

The GANAS-Graduate Pathways Project will build on these strengths to open the graduate school pipeline for degree completion for Latinas/os, students of color, and low-income students by addressing the following four gaps in services, infrastructure, and/or opportunities.

• Gap 1: The relative lack of representation of Latina/o graduate students at UCSC and in higher education nationally, and that is reflected in the equity gap among faculty across the University of California.
• Gap 2: The gap in rates of advancing to candidacy and degree attainment between White and Hispanic/Latina/o doctoral students.
• Gap 3: UCSC graduate students, including Latina/o, low-income, and students of color, experience writing challenges.
• Gap 4: Non-academic barriers, including financial planning/literacy, basic needs, and lack of personal support, can impede students’ progress and completion, especially those who are Latina/o, low-income, and students of color.

The UCSC GANAS-Graduate Pathways Project Budget is $3 million from October 2020 - September 2025.

Grant Abstract	Year 1 Grant Activities Summary	Year 2 Grant Activities Report	Year 3 Grant Activities Report

Grant Initiatives

Following extensive inquiry conducted by the HSI PPOHA Grant Development Work Group, eight project activities have been precisely crafted to address student-level and institutional challenges and barriers. Each of the eight GANAS-Graduate Pathways Project services reflects up-to-date knowledge from research and effective and high-impact practices. Activities include three related to Graduate Student Pipeline Interventions (activities 1 - 3), and five related to Graduate Degree Completion Programs (activities 4 - 8). 

• Activity 1: Summer Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program - This summer residential program will engage Latina/o undergraduates in experiential research opportunities that expose them to graduate school pathways and careers in academia.
• Activity 2: Navigating Graduate School Application Process Course - The course is designed to serve junior and senior Latina/o and/or Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) undergraduate students who are unfamiliar with graduate school and its application process and equip them with strategies to address barriers in this process.
• Activity 3: Careers in the Creative Economy Course - Pathways to Graduate Degrees in the Arts - This hybrid online and human interactive course will cover financial literacy and career paths for artists and art scholars, and build on prior research and best practices.
• Activity 4: Financial Planning/Literacy, Holistic, and Basic Needs Counselor - The GSC will serve as a one-stop center for Latina/o and graduate students of color to address non-academic challenges that impede transition and degree completion. Services will emphasize financial planning, budgeting, cost-control strategies, borrowing, and financial literacy.
• Activity 5: Doctoral Summer Bridge Program - A one-week residential Doctoral Summer Bridge Program focusing on students’ transition to the graduate school environment to help them complete master’s or doctoral degrees.
• Activity 6: VOCES Graduate Student Writing Center - The center will provide Latina/o, low-income, first-generation, and graduate students of color an array of writing strategies designed to address conceptual thinking, reading/literacy, and multiple forms of writing needed at various stages in graduate student development.
• Activity 7: Graduate Student First-Year Experience Course: Induction to the Discipline through Collective Learning - These graduate seminars are designed to introduce first-year graduate students to a discipline through a team-taught approach involving six faculty and direct exposure to their research.
• Activity 8: Latinx Initiative for Future Teachers (LIFT) Credential and Master's Degree - This initiative will provide Latinx Scholars interested in teaching with a streamlined pathway to the Master’s in Education and Teaching Credential (MA/C) Program, as well as mentorship and financial support while they are in the program. This program will provide a streamlined 4+1 Pathway (four years of undergraduate and one year of graduate study), with scholars taking one required MA/C course as undergraduates and receiving preferential admissions to the MA/C Program. 

Anticipated Impact

Specific grant outcomes for student advancement as part of the GANAS-Graduate Pathways Project include:

• Increase the number of Latina/o graduate students enrolled at UCSC by 35%
• Increase Latina/o graduate students’ writing proficiency by 3 percentage points.
• Increase Latina/o graduate students’ sense of belonging to UCSC by 12%
• Increase graduate degree completion for Latina/o, low-income, and graduate students of color by 3 percentage points.

For more information about this grant, please contact Program Director, Sara Sanchez at ssanch34@ucsc.edu