In coming months, committee of top campus academic, fiscal, development and financial-aid officials will carry out a task force's recommendations to significantly increase support for graduate students. Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Robert Grey appointed the eight-member committee last month in response to a report by the Task Force on Graduate Student Support. "At a time when the competition for top Ph.D. students has become fierce, our Ph.D. programs offer neither enough funding nor the right kind of funding," the report says. "We clearly need to increase fellowship funding, if we are to improve the competitiveness of our graduate programs." In its report, titled "The Pursuit of Excellence," the task force recommended that the campus increase block-grant funding to graduate programs by 66 percent. That proposal would require the campus to shift state funds, raise more private contributions and secure more training grants. Other recommendations by the task force include streamlining the financial-aid process, encouraging more graduate programs to offer multiyear financial packages and developing a reliable funding system for cross-disciplinary graduate groups to support their students. Strategies to satisfy recommendations Grey directed the implementation committee to "determine a strategy for satisfying each of the recommendations and project what resources are needed to implement them." Recommendations with little or no cost should be implemented by Jan. 15, he said. He requested that the committee provide him with feasibility analyses and financial schedules for the other recommendations by June 15. Associate Provost Richard Meisinger heads the committee. Other members are: Barbara Horwitz, a neurobiology, physiology and behavior professor and member of the Academic Senate Committee on Academic Planning and Budget Review; Charles Duffy, director of analysis planning for graduate studies; Anthony Flores, associate vice chancellor for finance, accounting and financial services; Cristina González, dean of graduate studies; Patricia Kearney, executive director of financial aid and student housing; Virginia Kelsch, associate vice chancellor of university relations; and Robert Loessberg-Zahl, budget director. The task force report, issued in August, followed a 14-month review of graduate student support. González, at the request of Grey and Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef, appointed the 18-member task force in spring 1998. The Chancellor's 1998 Fall Conference on graduate student education laid the groundwork for the task force and its four subcommittees with recommendations to increase the number of fellowships and create multiyear support packages for graduate students. González said five doctoral programs participating in a pilot project last year were better able to recruit top students by promising them up to four years of financial support. UC Davis graduate students received more than $15.8 million in financial support last academic year-with more than 45 percent of that coming through teaching and research assistantships. Fellowships, a critical tool in recruiting top graduate students, made up 20.5 percent of total support. Other aid came from scholarships, financial-aid grants, work-study programs and loans. Of the $4.5 million in block-grant funds for graduate programs in 1998-99, about $3 million was used to help reduce tuition for out-of-state and foreign students. The other $1.5 million in block-grant funding went to California students. In terms of net stipends-total dollars awarded from all sources minus fees and tuition-UC Davis doctoral students in 1996-97 received $8,814 per capita, compared to $11,415 at UC Berkeley, $11,305 at UC San Diego and $9,422 at UCLA. More importantly, the task force said, the kind of funding UC Davis offers graduate students is less attractive than that offered by the other campuses. Fellowships, one of the best tools in recruiting top students, were $2,939 per capita for doctoral students here in 1996-97, compared to $7,161 at UC Berkeley, $5,829 at UC San Diego and $5,506 at UCLA. Emphasis on fellowships needed As the number of undergraduates and faculty members grow, UC Davis will receive more funds for teaching and research assistantships. However, the task force said the campus particularly needs to increase fellowships. Under UC plans to increase graduate enrollments, UC Davis will see an increase of 680 from 3,120 graduate students last academic year to 3,800 in 2005-06. Last spring, the chancellor and provost set aside an extra $600,000 in permanent funding for this academic year and another $500,000 for 2000-01 for graduate-student support. The task force called that fund infusion "an important first step, which, if followed by others, can help raise us to the level of competitiveness expected of a top-flight research university." The panel recommended increasing the campus's block grant, nearly $4.9 million this academic year, by about two-thirds to nearly $8 million. Of that amount, nearly $1.7 million would need to come from private endowments. To meet enrollment growth, the task force recommended the block grant grow to $11.1 million by 2003-04; under the current funding formula, the total would be $6.3 million by that year. The report urged the campus to give higher priority to graduate-student support in its fund-raising campaigns. The UC Davis task force recommended setting a $50,000 minimum for naming en-dowed graduate fellowships; encouraging donors to en-dow fellowships in conjunction with endowed faculty chairs; offer matching funds for gifts; and hiring a development officer in the Office of Graduate Studies. Follow UCLA's example To make better use of existing resources, the task force proposed that the campus follow UCLA's example in combining its pools of need-based financial aid with block-grant funding beginning next academic year. Under the proposal, all graduate students would fill out a financial aid application. Graduate programs would distribute money according to students' merit. In discussions with graduate students and faculty members, the task force found that one issue arose repeatedly-the difficulty faced by the campus's unique graduate groups in supporting their students. The cross-disciplinary graduate groups have about 56 percent of the campus's graduate students, but most graduate-student support is allocated by departments. The task force recommended the creation of another panel to propose a reliable funding system for graduate groups. Other recommendations included: o Providing staff assistance as well as matching funds and other incentives for faculty members who secure training grants. o Assigning two faculty members to help graduate students apply for outside fellowships. o Creating a work group to develop ways to streamline delivery of financial aid. o Expanding graduate-student job titles so more students qualify for work study. Some changes are already under way. The Office of Graduate Studies, for instance, is working to fund fellowships worth $4,000 each for 50 of the campus's most promising graduate students next summer. In other developments: o The number of dissertation fellowships was doubled to 12 this year and their annual stipend increased from $12,000 to $16,000. o The number of travel fellowships was doubled and their amount increased from $18,000 to $40,000 a year. o Two McNair Graduate Fellowships will be established in 2000-2001, providing research assistantships worth $13,788 each plus in-state fees.