Research Opportunities
The University Library is a fundamental resource in the intellectual and academic lives of students and faculty. The combined holdings of the McHenry and Science & Engineering libraries include nearly 1.5 million volumes, over 25,000 current print and electronic periodical titles, 800,000 microforms, and 400,000 audio-visual items. The library also provides access to a growing collection of digital texts including e_books (e.g., ebrary, Netlibrary), electronic journal articles (e.g., JSTOR, SAGE PS Online), full-text archives (e.g., EEBO, CQEL), and Indexing & Abstracting Services (e.g., Public Affairs Information Service, Worldwide Political Science Abstracts, Lexis Nexis Academic).
Students have access to the combined UC library holdings through the 25+ million records represented in the Melvyl Union Catalog and a sophisticated Interlibrary Loan system. Cooperative library agreements also provide UCSC graduate student access to the Stanford University and UC Berkeley libraries. The Gary F.Reed Memorial Endowment for Political Theory supports the development of a strong collection of interest to political scientists.
UC Santa Cruz is known for the accessibility of its computing facilities to students and faculty. The library provides public computing stations which support Internet access, document downloading, pdf viewing, and basic word processing. Photocopier, microform printer, and high-speed laser printer services are available. Wireless network access is available at both libraries and students have remote access to the library's online resources as well as the Electronic Reserves System via a proxy server.
The Center for Global, International and Regional Studies (CGIRS) was established within the Division of Social Sciences in 1996, bringing under one umbrella the Stevenson Program on Global Security, the Center for the Study of Global Transformations, the Santa Cruz Institute of International Economics (SCIIE), the UC Pacific Rim Research Program, and related research, teaching, conferences, workshops, and public-education activities. CGIRS is organized around the idea that human activities, although anchored in specific regions and nation-states, are increasingly integrated by social, economic, and cultural networks to states, regions, and communities in other parts of the world. Accordingly, globalization processes and responses to them are a major research focus of CGIRS. The center sponsors the weekly Stevenson Global Security Colloquium, a faculty speaker/seminar series, the annual SCIIE conference on international economics, and collaborative research groups focusing on five main areas. These research areas are global economics; civil society and social movements; global environment and development; globalization, states, and regulation; and regions and networks. The Global Informational Internship Program, a dynamic interdisciplinary program offered by CGIRS, trains students in cutting-edge information technologies and current processes of social change, which are then applied through international and domestic internship placements. CGIRS is funded by the Division of Social Sciences, the UC-systemwide Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, multicampus research units, and extramural sources. For further information, e- mail global@cats.ucsc.edu or visit the Web site: www2.ucsc.edu/cgirs.
The Center for Cultural Studies builds on UCSC¹s strong history of innovative scholarship in the humanities, and particularly on its unusual strength in interdisciplinary and global cultural studies. The center sponsors conferences, lectures, film series, faculty seminars, scholarly visits, workshops, and discussion groups. It also organizes and supports research clusters of faculty and graduate students working on a variety of topics, including cultural theory, critical regional studies (Asia-Pacific-America, Inter-Americas, and Hawai'i have been recent foci), contemporary cultural production, minority discourse, and queer studies. The center is based in the Humanities Division, but sponsors collaborative work involving faculty and graduate students from the social sciences, the natural sciences, and the arts. It also hosts a residency program for U.S. and international scholars in cultural studies. The center publishes a newsletter every quarter listing events and activities and maintains a Web site with programs, schedules, and other material at http://humanities.ucsc.edu/CultStudies/. The center can be reached at (831) 459-4899 or by e-mail at cult@hum.ucsc.edu.
The Chicano/Latino Research Center (CLRC) is an internationally recognized site for the support of scholarship on Chicano and Latino issues. Promoting cross-border perspectives linking the Americas and the study of U.S. changing demographic and cultural panorama, the Center focuses on globalization and transculturation, processes that are redefining cultural, social, and political identities in the Americas. Under new directorship, the Center in the next three years (2006-2008) will focus on opening up the educational pipeline by insuring that UCSC undergraduates obtain research training, graduate students have the necessary support to complete their studies, junior faculty are given guidance in navigating the tenure process, and tenure faculty needs are facilitated to obtain full professor status. These goals will be supported through the research activities initiated by CLRC. The center supports research clusters: “Borders, Nations, Regions,” Transcommunal Studies,” Transcommunality and Feminist Coalitions,” “Latinos in California,” “Cuba in Americas and Transatlantic Contexts,” and “Transnational Popular Cultures”; sponsors conferences, a colloquium series, and publishes an annual newsletter and a working paper series. The center sponsors three yearly fundraisers: The Frida Kahlo Ball and Awards Ceremony (fall quarter), The CLRC Scholar of the Year Award (winter quarter), and the Gloria Anzaldúa Scholar/Activist Award (spring quarter). For further information, email clrc@ucsc.edu or visit the web: http://clrc.ucsc.edu/.
This cluster provides an opportunity for grad students and faculty from across UCSC to share their ideas and research about the history, people, and places around the Pacific Rim. APARC has been active for several years and has sponsored a number of successful graduate research conferences. Last year's conference on the theme of "Mobility in the Asia Pacific Americas" featured a seminar by UC Santa Barbara Professor in East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies, Dr. Hyung Pai, as well as graduate presenters from the UC system and beyond. This year we are planning on having an informal reading group and a winter conference on "Asian Pacific American Spacial Imaganaries" planned with the support of the Center for Cultural Studies. For further information email aparc.ucsc@gmail.com or visit the web: http://www2.ucsc.edu/aparc/ .
The Science and Justice Working Group brings together faculty and graduate students from all five academic divisions on the UC Santa Cruz campus—arts, humanities, social sciences, engineering, and physical and biological sciences—to promote interdisciplinary conversations and exchange. We expand UCSC’s historical focus on social justice to include questions about the formation of science and technology, and related public-policy debates. We define social justice broadly to include both the profound human benefits of science and technology and the social and political transformations that they may pose. For further information or to be added to the email list, visit the web: http://www2.ucsc.edu/scienceandjustice// .