Student Excellence, Engagement and Inclusion Staff
Dr. Carmen Robinson
(she, her, hers)
As Director of Student Excellence, Engagement and Inclusion, Dr. Robinson develops new programs and expands existing ones to enhance the education and research experience for all students. These programs aim to improve the four-year graduation rates and reduce any "achievement gaps" that exist between identifiable groups. Achievement gaps, which are disparities in academic performance, can show up in grades, degree-completion rates and elsewhere. They can be found between groups with differing socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, gender, physical ability, or learning ability.
Andrea Taylor
(she, her, hers)
As programs Assistant, Andrea helps to implement and organize new and existing programs created for student excellence, engagement and inclusion. She is available to answer questions students may have regarding availability, eligibility and logistics of programs offered on campus and at BSOE.
Jennifer Wood
(she, her, hers)
Mathematics, Engineering and Science Achievement (MESA) engineering program students are typically first generation students or students at an economic disadvantage who are coming from low-resource school districts or re-entry students or those who don’t have a background in STEM or are from backgrounds underrepresented in engineering.
Students come in with any number of strengths but they also come in with any number of weaknesses or holes in their learning process. So there are many ways I support these students: I coordinate certain services such as a lending library, and I work very closely with our Learning Support office for tutoring, and work with students one-on-one. Students come to me for time management issues, for study skills help. Making that transition from high school or community college to university can be really rough and so I help demystify that process for them, and help them brainstorm techniques for ways they can succeed at UC Santa Cruz.