Departmental Self Review - UCLA Academic Senate

We believe that our approach to merit-based admissions has had a positive impact in severaldifferent domains. Our approach to graduate admissions and funding has led to a markedimprovement in graduate student morale, which may be attributed to both the greater freedomthat students have to concentrate on their studies and the importance given to funding equitywithin the student body. Students are also more productive as shown by the measurablesuccess our students are having in securing extramural funding and the increased rate at whichthey are publishing both independently and with their faculty mentors. Our students are alsohaving greater success on the job market (see below).3.2. The Graduate PopulationThere is one negative consequence of our current approach to admissions and funding.Incoming class sizes have dropped from a peak of 27 in 1993-94 to an average of 9 during thereview period. Smaller incoming classes have started to have a dramatic impact on the totalsize of the graduate program. The total number of registered graduate students has fallen byabout 1/3 since the end of the last review period (96 enrolled students in 1998-99 to 62 in 2005­06). The small incoming class size also means that that the four subdisciplines in the departmentreceive on average two new students every year. This presents significant problems inmaintaining a viable graduate curriculum.Our graduate student population is drawn from a wide geographic region and is ethnicallydiverse. Domestic students coming from universities outside of California have consistentlyformed around 50% of each incoming class during the review period. Most are able to establishCalifornia residency within one year of enrolling. Foreign students on average constitute about8% of the enrolled student body. We anticipate that the proportion of foreign students in ourprogram will drop even further with the continued rise in non-resident tuition (NRT). Womenhave constituted 62.7% and minorities 18.8% of all enrolled students on average during thereview period.3.3. Graduate Academic ProgramUpon admission to the graduate program, students are assigned primary and secondaryadvisors. Increasingly, as a result of our added emphasis on recruiting on the basis of merit, thestudents entering the program have already had some direct contact with their primary advisorbefore arriving. The faculty mentors guide entering students through their first few years ofcoursework and planning of their MA and PhD research.Graduate coursework is structured around required core courses in the four subfields ofanthropology. The core courses are designed to introduce students to the key concepts,14