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UC Santa Barbara is among 29 universities nationwide selected to participate in a collective effort to gather and use data about the careers of Ph.D. students and alumni.Grants from the National Science Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will support data collection about Ph.D. careers in STEM and humanities fields. UCSB is part of the University of California Consortium spanning all 10 campuses in the system.
“I am delighted that the University of California was selected to take part in this national project to track the broad career outcomes of our doctoral alumni,” said Carol Genetti, dean of UCSB’s Graduate Division. “Being part of this initiative will allow us to compare our outcomes against national benchmarks, as well as to further hone our professional development offerings to ensure that they best suit the career aspirations of our doctoral students.”
Over the course of the multiyear project, universities will collect data from current Ph.D. students and alumni with surveys developed by the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) in consultation with senior university leaders, funding agencies, disciplinary societies, researchers, doctoral students and alumni. The resulting data will allow universities to analyze Ph.D. career preferences and outcomes at the program level and help faculty and university leaders strengthen career services, professional development opportunities and mentoring in doctoral programs.
“The UC project will also include more in-depth work with humanities disciplines, as the UC Humanities Research Institute will lead a multicampus team of PhD researchers to conduct focus groups of humanities PHD alumni at work,” Genetti explained. “This will integrate well with a recent yearlong project led jointly by the UCSB Graduate Division and the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts, and funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. That project led to a divisionwide conversation on engagement of humanists with the broader public and ...

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