UCI Giving Day 2023

The Office of Inclusive Excellence drives the centralized planning and collaborates with partners to attain UC Irvine’s efforts on equity, diversity and inclusion. We bring passion, strategic vision and diverse expertise to ensure that inclusive excellence remains a core tenet and undertaking at UCI. 

Your gift to the Office of Inclusive Excellence Fund will help UCI to increase equity and inclusion for major priorities that: advance Black thriving, confront extremism, and build exceptional capacities for scholarship to address pressing societal needs. We invite you this Giving Day to support these four major priorities through a gift to our Excellence Fund:
 
1. Advance Black Thriving

The Black Thriving Initiative was launched in August 2020 to recognize and respond to anti-Blackness as an existential threat to our mission as public research university. Efforts to-date have piloted a Black Thriving Initiative Cluster Hiring program, which successfully deepened expertise and scholar recruitment to enhance health equity. Your gift would sustain this important means to build scholarship and education for the success of Black students, faculty and staff, as well as alumni and communities served by UCI. Our goal for 2023-24 will be to launch a Black Thriving Institute with comprehensive care and support to close achievement gaps and to deepen community for undergraduate and graduate students. 

2. Confront Extremism

Understanding extremism is a fundamental responsibility for citizenship in the 21st century. The scale and scope of extremism poses a threat to our civic institutions, democratic values and our very multi-cultural society. The program is designed to fortify our resilience as a campus community while advancing our commitment to inclusive excellence. Support in this area would extend our public programming and educational forums to use evidence-based best practices to counter extremist ideologies and to support deeper awareness and actions against anti-Semitism and anti-racism.

3. Building Inclusive Excellence in Future UC Faculty

The UCI-funded Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (CPFP) funds the best of the next generation of new PhDs in all subject areas who contribute to diversity and inclusive excellence. Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellows work with outstanding UCI faculty mentors who help them develop into future faculty. Many then become outstanding faculty themselves, contributing in their research, teaching, or service to diversity and equal opportunity at the University of California. The CPFP gives fellows access to a UC hiring incentive of five years of the majority of salary or other funding for any CPF hired as a University of California faculty member. Your gift would thus broaden opportunities to host more postdoctoral fellows and be matched by substantial UC funds that create a pipeline to a more inclusive University of California.  

 
4. Chancellor's Inclusive Excellence Awards

The Chancellor’s Inclusive Excellence Award was piloted as a two-year, non-renewable appointment to yield outstanding new UCI Senate faculty. The results were phenomenal – attracting exceptional faculty across fields of education, engineering, health, law, and the social and behavioral sciences. The pilot award recognized the distinguished accomplishments of the recipients to advance inclusive excellence, and provided $50,000 to awardees to support continued scholarship, pedagogy, and exemplary leadership to contribute to diversity, equity, and inclusion at UCI. An public forum also engaged the campus and community in conversations and explorations about the stellar research and awardee contributions. Your gift would sustain and expand this undertaking, helping UCI to build unique capacities from scholars with demonstrated skills in using innovative research, pedagogy, and approaches to public service to address the most pressing societal issues of the day. 


Your partnership with the Office of Inclusive Excellence is a vital step to broaden the reach of inclusive programming and to engage allies in key action plans for accountability. 

Thank you for taking the time to find out more about the UCI Office of Inclusive Excellence. Your gift today will help to advance community, thriving, and wellness at UCI.