Join the Herbert A. Young Society

Young Society members speaking with Provost Virginia Hinshaw at the annual Young Society dinner.

The College of Letters and Science mission is to educate thoughtful, innovative, and capable leaders who are prepared to meet the challenges of tomorrow. Teaching a broad range of fundamental courses, the College of Letters and Science is called upon to offer all undergraduates the best education in humanities, arts and sciences.

You can make a significant impact. Strengthened by your generosity, we will continue to provide all UC Davis undergraduates with a challenging and rewarding education, offer graduate students the opportunity to engage in meaningful research, enlist the top faculty in the nation.

By joining the Herbert A. Young Society through an unrestricted gift of $1,000 or more, you will belong to an important group of alumni, parents, and friends who are committed to excellence in teaching and research. You will impact the students and faculty of the College of Letters and Science. You will extend the promise of a quality education and research to change lives.

Your membership in the Young Society allows the deans to meet the most pressing needs of the College, such as

• creating new majors and courses
• funding path-breaking research
• recruiting and retaining top faculty
• developing innovative teaching methods

To join the Young Society, or receive more information about the areas it impacts each year, please contact 530-754-9313.

Download the Young Society Brochure

Initiatives funded by the Young Society in 2006-07

Gifts to the Herbert A. Young Society enhance the variety and increase the quality of activities and initiatives that the College of Letters and Science puts forward each year. Young Society funds in 2006-07 furthered important research, opened new doors for graduate and undergraduate students, and provided opportunities for the campus community to hear from experts on a range of topics. A sampling of projects funded follows:

Division of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies

22nd annual California Indian Conference and Gathering

Open to everyone on campus, the conference, titled Building Community, will include 400 California Indian scholars, artists and community members who will gather at UC Davis for two days of research presentations, elders' circles, "hand game" demonstrations, dance performances, health screenings and programs aimed at encouraging Native American youth to apply to college. http://nas.ucdavis.edu/NALC/cicg/

Globe Theatre Partnership

The Young Society supported a new partnership with Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London. The partnership includes student and professional exchange visits to determine the feasibility of developing a research institute for UC Davis graduate students. Two graduate students had fellowships to study in London, and Globe practitioners came to UC Davis to do workshops. No website available at this time.

Taller Arte del Nuevo Amanecer Community Center

We supported Taller Arte del Nuevo Amanecer (Workshop of the New Dawn), a community-based arts center in Woodland that is run by Chicana/o Studies faculty and students. The Center is an art program for local junior and senior high school students. It includes a silk-screen and print workshop and a gallery that features the work of young, emerging artists in the community. No website available at this time.

Division of Social Sciences

Expanding Our Global Outlook

The Young Society provided critical growth funds to the new Middle East/South Asia Studies undergraduate minor. Recognized as a significant program for the entire university, it helps students learn about regions that play a vital role in the world’s political and economic landscape. Last year, thanks in part to Young Society funds, the program launched new language courses in Arabic and Hindu/Urdu. http://mesa.ucdavis.edu

The Center for the Evolution of the Global Economy

Launched in fall 2006, the Center for the Evolution of the Global Economy, headed by Alan M. Taylor (Economics), seeks to promote understanding of the process of globalization in the long-run, employing cutting-edge comparative and global approaches to the study of economic issues. Economic responses to the external economic shocks that result from the processes of globalization are of special interest to affiliated faculty and a focus of the classes they teach. http://www.iga.ucdavis.edu/Research/CEGE

Junior Faculty Research Program

The goal of the Junior Faculty Research Program is to assist junior faculty in cultivating a base of external funding that will support their work over the long term. The program is open to social science faculty on the UC Davis campus with tenure track appointments at the assistant professor rank who do not have substantial start-up packages. http://www.iga.ucdavis.edu/Research/IGCC

Division of Mathematical and Physical Sciences

Collaboration with Chinese Universities

Support towards the establishment of working agreements between UC Davis and universities in China to pursue collaborations in molecular and nanosciences. Agreements were signed with Peking University, generally regarded as China's finest comprehensive university, and Tsinghua University's Institute for Nuclear and New Energy Technology. No website available at this time.

Physics’ Particle Dark Matter Initiative

Support towards a review of Physics’ Particle Dark Matter Initiative by an External Advisory Committee. This initiative seeks to expose the particle nature of dark matter in the universe. Based on modern cosmology experiments, it is now believed that about 25% of the matter in the universe is in the form of non-relativistic, neutral, stable, gravitationally interacting particles, presumably a relic of the Big Bang. The particle or particles composing this “cold dark matter” have yet to be discovered. http://higgs.ucdavis.edu/gunion/theorygroup.html

From Colliders to Cosmic Rays Conference

Support towards the UC Davis high energy and cosmology groups 2007 C2CR (From Colliders to Cosmic Rays) Physics Conference. http://www.physics.ucdavis.edu/~c2cr07/C2CR07/home.html

The recipients for 2006-07 were