Dear CHASS Chairs and Faculty Executive Committee Chair Leonard:

Last December, I detailed how the College was responding to historic labor agreements with Academic Student Employees and the Graduate Student Researchers in the University of California and the broader future of graduate studies in the UC. The resourcing of graduate studies and the embrace of graduate student success — all relative to our MSI-AAU status — were my single most important preoccupation as 2023 came to a close. One year later, graduate studies remain at the forefront of my mind. 

I thank each of our graduate program leads for taking the time in the fall quarter to sit down with me, Dean of the Graduate Division Lidia Kos, and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Covadonga Lamar Prieto to explore what’s working in our admirable PhD and MFA programs. We learned about the best of your rising scholars and artists alongside what’s keeping us all up at night. These conversations are the foundation for sharpening the discipline-specific metrics of success that undergird excellence across all graduate programs. This work continues, enhanced by dashboards by degree program (forthcoming) and across the entire College and University.

I am equally grateful to each program for the open-ended explorations of what appropriate and competitive graduate funding packages can look like in a new environment in which all incoming students are compensated at levels sufficient to pursue their studies and receive strong training in pedagogy, research, and creative activity. 

CHASS is on solid footing for another year of steady success —  from the current admissions cycle to the celebration of graduate achievement at the spring hooding ceremonies next June. The College, degree programs, and Graduate Division are finally talking to one another about short- and long-term goals. We are developing a common language of student success, supported by standardized data. We are getting better at identifying systemic barriers to student success. Dean Kos and I are collectively invested in addressing the very legitimate demand to rebuild fellowship support in the first year, during candidacy, and at degree completion. CHASS will continue to support the obligations of the UAW contracts (extended through December 31, 2025, with guaranteed 4% increases effective next October). I commit to investing in our graduate programs all permanent and one-time dollars reallocated from the Graduate Division and Central Administration as part of the sunsetting of the outdated and inequitable “cohort model.”

The complicating factor is that a budget squeeze in State finances delivered a $3M cut to CHASS. I invite you to review the FY25 Fall Budget Letter and the 2024 State of the College to understand the numbers and our response. The College now must return an additional $1.1M in permanent funding, as our portion of cuts that stem from slack undergraduate enrollments across all UCR. As staff and Senate faculty hiring continues, while temporary teaching requests and operational costs increase, the College cannot grow graduate studies at this time and at the pace of our aspirations and legitimate needs. The costs associated with a universal three-quarter fellowship are simply out of reach.  

But we shall not slip backward. Even in the face of budget cuts that constrain the entire College, no program will be forced to shrink its new student cohort size below five-year historical averages; no funded student will see their compensation rate drop below current levels. I commit to maintaining next year’s funded graduate admissions targets at the current year’s levels. Therefore, no program will face a cut in its allotted slots and no current or incoming student, regardless of appointment type, will earn less than the UAW minimums. I will, moreover, commit CHASS resources to continue the three-quarter fellowship recruitment package (currently known as the Vice Provost for Excellence Award), expanding the number of such packages proportional to program size.

Funded admission slots for Fall 2025 are set at a combined 126 matriculating PhD and MFA students — the same level as the Fall 2024 target and 9.6 slots above our combined five-year average.

In FY26, all funded admissions packages shall continue to carry two quarters of fellowship to be taken exclusively in the first year of study. Under a rebranded CHASS Dean’s Fellowship, twenty percent of these funded packages will carry one additional fellowship quarter, also to be taken in the first year. Tuition, benefits, and most fees are also covered for students on fellowship as well as Academic Student Employees. For PhD programs, CHASS continues to backstop four-year packages, inclusive of the first-year fellowship quarters, for Fall 2025 admits who remain in good standing. The same guarantee is set at two years for the MFA programs. To offer packages competitive with our peers, individual programs may extend longer guarantees, drawing from departmental resources as the backstop. The Dean of the Graduate Division is also making available additional resources to supplement packages offered to each program's top recruit to help us compete with other programs’ offers. 

The following table reflects the number of authorized multiyear funding packages for Fall 2025 matriculated students, inclusive of the CHASS Dean’s Fellowships allocations.

Although our overall target of 126 cannot meet some programs’ aspirations to rebuild, the target represents an increase of 16 relative to the Fall 2024 incoming cohort of 110. The number of incoming students with a three-quarter first-year fellowship will double. And no student on a fellowship quarter will face the dim prospect of constraining their household budget relative to peers on ASE-regulated appointments. 

In January, Cova will be following up with a more detailed explanation of the CHASS Dean's Fellowship allocations and the overall timeframe and workflow of the admissions season. 

For this December, I wish each of you rest in the coming two weeks and peace in the New Year.

Yours sincerely,

Daryle Williams
Professor and Dean
College of the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
University of California, Riverside