ADVANCING STEM

• UC Davis ADVANCE: a federally funded project to build and sustain a diverse community of STEM scholars. Read about the grant.

• CAMPOS (an ADVANCE initiative): Center for the Advancement of Multicultural Perspectives on Science, which aims to increase participation by women, especially Latinas, in STEM academics. Read about the newly appointed director.

• C-STEM: Center for Integrated Computing and STEM Education, which aims to improve teaching methods in kindergarten through community college, and inspire students to pursue computing and STEM-related careers and postsecondary study. Read about the Girls Leadership Camp on Computing and Robotics; registration now open.

UC Davis is on a new rankings list from U.S. News & World Report: top-ranked national universities that grant the most bachelor’s degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, by percentage of total degrees.

The list shows the UC Davis figure at 38 percent. U.S. News, which also puts out “Best Colleges” rankings, looked at degree data for the school year that ended in June 2012, as compiled by the National Center for Education Statistics.

Four other UC campuses are on the list: San Diego, 49 percent; Berkeley, 39 percent; Irvine, 37 percent; and Los Angeles, 35 percent.

The list came out June 18 in conjunction with the U.S. News STEM Solutions conference in Austin, Texas. Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi attended as a participant on the panel “Bringing — and Keeping — Women In the Fold on Campus.”

To make the list, a school had to have been ranked in the top half of U.S. News’ "Best Colleges" of 2013. UC Davis is eighth among public universities on that list.

U.S. News then counted up each school’s science, technology, engineering and mathematics degrees (as designated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security), and ranked only those schools where STEM degrees accounted for at least a third of all bachelor’s degrees.

The final list comprises 39 colleges and universities, topped by the California Institute of Technology and the Colorado School of Mines in a tie for first place, at 98 percent — which is understandable, given the names of those schools!

UC Davis, on the other hand, is a comprehensive university with nearly 100 majors in four undergraduate colleges: Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Letters and Science. The largest college, Letters and Science, has three divisions: Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies; Mathematics and Physical Sciences; and Social Sciences.

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