Introduction

We are very pleased to welcome new faculty to UC Santa Barbara. We look forward to learning from you, supporting your development as faculty members, and seeing you contribute to our campus and our community. This guide is designed to provide useful information about our campus and department. We hope that you find it to be a valuable tool in directing you to resources on campus that will help support and facilitate your needs. 

This handbook is based on Academic Personnel’s 2022-2023 Handbook with supplemental DCB specific information included by the DCB staff. 

UCSB

The University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) is distinguished for its interdisciplinary programs, collaborative culture, commitment to innovation, and its teaching and research excellence. In 1994 UCSB achieved the highest Carnegie rating of Research Intensive (formerly “Research I” or R1”), and in 1995 became a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU). UCSB is one of only 63 institutions elected to this prestigious membership and was the first AAU member to be designated as a Hispanic Serving Institution. 

We offer more than 200 majors, degrees and credentials through our three colleges, two schools, and our Graduate Division. 

The campus is also a recipient of consistently high levels of external funding for research. External research funding has doubled over the past decade, with $305.6 million in Fiscal Year 2020-2021 and $241.5 million in Fiscal Year 2021-2022. 

We are currently home to numerous national centers and institutes, eight of which are sponsored by the National Science Foundation, including:

• Materials Research Laboratory

• National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis 

• Southern California Earthquake Center 

• Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics. 

A wide variety of centers have received philanthropic support for their research and public programs, such as the Center for Information Technology and Society, the Broom Center for Demography, the Carsey-Wolf Center, and the Walter H. Capps Center for the Study of Religion and Public Life. 

The University of California’s Natural Reserve System consists of 39 protected natural areas throughout the state of California, and maintains significant examples of the state’s diverse aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems for teaching, research, and public service. UCSB oversees seven such sites, which provide a natural laboratory where new approaches to conservation and environmental restoration are tested. 

Before World War II, the University of California was composed of a medical school in San Francisco and two general campuses at Berkeley and Los Angeles, with several affiliated research stations, farms, and laboratories. In 1943, a four-year state college in Santa Barbara (which itself had evolved from what was called a “manual school” in the late 19th century, and then a “teachers’ college”) was incorporated into the system as the Santa Barbara College of the University of California, the third campus in the UC system. After the war, the California legislature and the Regents of the University of California founded seven new general campuses. Four were built on existing institutions (the Santa Barbara College, the agricultural stations at Davis and Riverside, and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at San Diego). Three were entirely new (Irvine, Santa Cruz and Merced). 

All of the UC campuses have grown rapidly and the system as a whole is generally considered to be the premier system of public higher education in the country, if not the world. All ten campuses share a three-part mission committed to teaching, research, and service. 

Although UCSB is a relatively young research university, its faculty includes 6 Nobel Laureates (2 of which were in Chemistry), members of the National Academy of Sciences, members of the National Academy of Engineering, Pulitzer Prize winners, Guggenheim fellows, MacArthur fellows, ACLS Fellows, National Endowment for the Humanities fellows, and Presidential Young Investigators, among other honors; it has developed one of the largest research libraries on the west coast; and directs several internationally famous research or study centers, the oldest and best known of which is the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics. 

Some of the major sources of funding for our faculty research grants are the National Science Foundation (UCSB is among the top 50 NSF-funded institutions), National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the MacArthur Page | 5 Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the American Council of Learned Societies. 

UCSB currently houses three separate colleges and two professional schools: the 

The College of Letters and Science and College of Engineering offer both undergraduate and graduate degrees in a broad range of fields with the College of Letters and Science as the largest unit on campus. 

The College of Creative Studies offers undergraduate degrees, in a setting which gives talented students in certain disciplines intensive interaction with faculty and early exposure to research. 

The Gevirtz Graduate School of Education and Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management both offer only graduate degrees

In each college, a faculty executive committee (a committee of the UCSB Academic Senate) sets degree requirements and academic standards. Each college has its own dean that heads each of its three divisions: humanities and fine arts; mathematical, life and physical sciences; and social sciences. Interdisciplinary cooperation is encouraged, not only among departments in the same divisions and colleges, but also among other colleges. Many faculty hold joint appointments with different departments, sometimes in different colleges.

Shared Governance

Faculty Senate

Shared governance is one of the distinctive features of the University of California system. Shared governance means that decision-making is shared; especially (for faculty) between the administration and the Academic Senate. This structure gives faculty, through the Academic Senate, a voice in the operations and oversight of the University, a responsibility for the manner in which the University functions, and involvement in the planning for the future of the institution. Committees of the Academic Senate review individual merit cases and make recommendations on faculty promotion and tenure, help plan capital improvements and long-range budget priorities, and set policy on research and teaching matters. Faculty participation in shared governance unifies the ten campuses of the UC into a single system under a uniform standard of excellence. All ten UC campuses have a strong commitment to the concept of shared governance. Additionally, there is a systemwide Senate that operates in parallel with the UC Office of the President, referred to as UCOP. 

For more details on the committee structure of governance at UCSB, visit the Academic Senate website. 

Faculty

UCSB currently has over 900 Academic Senate faculty. Senate faculty are either hired as “ladder” (or research) faculty or as “lecturers with potential/security of employment” (L[P]SOE), also known as Teaching Professors. There are over 250 lecturers and part-time or temporary faculty at UCSB and over 600 Researchers and Postdocs on campus. 

Undergraduate Students

There are approximately 21,000 undergraduates enrolled at UCSB. The majority of these are enrolled in the College of Letters and Science (~19,000 undergraduates). The College of Engineering enrolls about 1,500 undergraduates, and the College of Creative Studies about 400. In Fall 2022, UCSB received 130,000 applications. The number of students applying for admission has steadily increased, with each year’s number exceeding the previous one. Of those who apply, about 6,300 new students are enrolled annually. 

For every two first year entering students that UCSB accepts, the university also accepts 1 transfer student. The “2:1 ratio” is mandated in the California Master Plan, the policy document that shapes public higher education in the State of California. The 2:1 ratio is enforced via funding mechanisms from the California State Legislature that are implemented by UCOP (the UC Office of the President). 

The California Master Plan also lays out other guidelines for postsecondary education in the State of California. It stipulates that in order to be considered UC-eligible, high school students Page | 7 must be in the academic top 12.5% of their class. Students between 12.5% and 25% are CSU eligible, and students below the 25% in their graduating classes are eligible to enroll in California Community Colleges (CCCs). The CCCs, the CSUs, and the UCs also have transfer pathways for students and other agreements that facilitate transfer between institutions. 

UCSB is a minority-serving institution. This designation, assigned by the U.S. Department of Education, is based on enrollment data and the percentage of students who identify with particular ethnicities. UCSB is an Asian American, Native American, and Pacific Islander (AANAPISI) Serving Institution and a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI). These designations mean that UCSB and its faculty may apply for grants and other funding available to faculty and students in minority serving institutions. This funding is intended to enhance the institution’s goals of creating equitable and socially just learning environments for all students. 

UCSB faculty have the privilege of working with an exceptionally diverse population. Our students bring a wealth of knowledge about their prior experiences as scholars and community members to their learning. 

In 2021-22, among undergraduate students: 

• 28% of students identified as Chicanx/Latinx 

• 29% of students identified as Asian/Pacific Islander 

• 36% of students identified as white 

• 4% of students identified as Black/African American 

• 44% identified as man/Trans man 

• 54% identified as woman/Trans Woman 

• 1.9% identified as Other identity 

Among graduate students: 

• 17% identified as Chicanx/Latinx 

• 17% identified as Asian/Pacific Islander 

• 5% identified as Black/African American 

• 57% identified as white 

• 51% identified as man/Trans man 

• 45% identified as woman/Trans woman 

• 2.7% identified as Other identity

Graduate Students

Each year UCSB enrolls over 800 new graduate students. The total population of Graduate Students is almost 3,000 with about 2,600 of those on the Doctoral track. Students are chosen from the top of a pool of applicants from around the world. 

There are 71 Master's and Ph.D. programs that are part of the highly ranked UCSB graduate programs in the humanities, fine arts, social sciences, education, engineering, mathematics, and life and physical sciences. The specific graduate degree programs offered at UCSB can be viewed on the Graduate Division website. 

The DCB department only offers Ph.D. programs which are typically 5 years. Most 1st year graduate students will hold TA appointments for Fall, Winter, Spring while completing their rotations. Once students have officially joined a group, they are eligible for GSR appointments with their faculty advisor/PI.

Postdoctoral Scholars RB III-17

UCSB hosts approximately 325 postdoctoral scholars each year as they pursue further research training in the sciences, engineering disciplines, social sciences, and the humanities. In the past several decades, UCSB has earned a reputation as a distinguished research and teaching institution where postdoctoral scholars find a highly collaborative, and often interdisciplinary, array of advanced research endeavors. 

If you are interested in information about hiring postdoctoral scholars, visit the Office of Academic Personnel website for Postdoctoral Scholar Appointments and speak with the Payroll Manager (currently Angela Mai).

Academic Researchers

If you are interested in hiring Academic Researchers (Specialist, Project Scientists, Researcher) ask the Payroll Manager (currently Angela Mai) for more specific information.

Staff

There are approximately 3,500 staff (non-academic) personnel on our campus. Their fields and expertise range from clerical support, financial oversight, and administrative functions to building and site maintenance and specialty fabrication. We also employ, on a part-time basis, over 3,200 student employees who attend classes as full-time registered students. Check the DCB website for a list of all of our staff members and office hours. The DCB department currently consists of 37 staff members.