State support now covers less than 15 percent of UC Irvine's total budget. Now, more than ever, private gifts are vitally important to ensure the excellence of the School's varied scholarly activities. Individuals, foundations and corporations that value our work have a profound and beneficial impact on research, scholarships and fellowships and community outreach programs. For general support and online giving 
The School appreciates support in its priority giving areas, described below.
For additional information, please contact:
Mickey Shaw
Director of Development
(949) 824-1874
shawmm@uci.edu
Dean's Award for Community Engagement
Volunteerism, a staple in our democracy, serves to educate individuals to the merits of public service, enrich the lives of those engaged in public service and addresses virtually every kind of pressing human problem or need. To emphasize the importance of social involvement, the Dean's Award for Community Engagement enables the School to recognize students who demonstrate both academic achievement and outstanding community service during their college experience. In 2010-11, three remarkable students were honored as the recipients of this award:
Sang Xuan Do, Mahrukh Madad and Stacey Tsuboi. Learn More...
If you would like to show your support by donating, please contact Mickey Shaw at shawmm@uci.edu or
(949) 824-1874.
Field Study Program
From criminal justice agencies to elementary schools to non-profit agencies and beyond, Social Ecology students have the opportunity to take what they learn in the classroom out into the community, effectively serving our communities and enhancing the value of their education. The Field Study program is a unique experiential-learning program for undergraduates in Social Ecology and a key element of the School's commitment to training future leaders. The general goal of Field Study is to integrate academic and experiential learning. This approach is based on evidence that learning is maximized when it is active, when students are engaged and when theories and research are informed by their application to "real world" problems. Having students reflect on how to apply what they learn in the classroom to addressing societal challenges facilitates personal and professional growth and deepens understanding of linkages between theory and experience, producing more informed and engaged civic leaders.
Year in and year out, over 800 Social Ecology undergraduate majors complete a minimum of 100 hours of field-based learning in more than 225 participating organizations and corporations. These organizations are the School's partners in a collaborative effort to enable students to apply classroom-based learning to real-world problem-solving and to develop our students as community leaders. This first-hand community interaction gives students an opportunity to examine social problems, evaluate the merit of
classroom ideas and conduct naturalistic observations or investigations. The benefit to the community is immense-students complete at least 100 hours of community Field Study work. Last year, more than 81,300 hours were completed, which is equivalent to more than 17 full-time positions in the public-sector agencies and 16 full-time positions in nonprofit agencies.
Learn More...
To support a Field Study internship, please contact Mickey Shaw at shawmm@uci.edu or (949) 824-1874
Health Psychology Endowed Chair
Skyrocketing healthcare costs, scientific findings linking childhood poverty to health and disease later in life, and the promise of early interventions that promote longer and healthier lives beg for more research in developmental health psychology. Childhood and adolescence have long been recognized as critical times of growth and development, and research increasingly points to early life experiences as playing a crucial role in vulnerability to chronic illness later in life. The Department of Psychology and Social Behavior seeks a major gift(s) to recruit a scientist working at the intersection of developmental and health psychology. This cutting edge interdisciplinary scholar would study how physiological, psychological and social processes interact over the life course to affect the development, management and treatment of age-related conditions such as cardiovascular disease, asthma, and autoimmune disorders.
For example, one of the most promising sets of findings in this field are those systematically linking low socioeconomic status in childhood with degradation in the body’s immune response that in turn increases vulnerability to cardiovascular disease later in life. Other fascinating examples of developmental health
psychology research include how adolescent brain development affects risk
perception and health-related decision making, and how media use in adolescence (television, videogames, internet) affects weight control (a major risk factor for many diseases of aging). Identifying the mechanisms underlying these effects and determining interventions to address them is critical for enhancing health in both childhood and later adulthood.
For more information, please contact Mickey Shaw, Director of Development at shawmm@uci.edu or (949) 824-1874.
Metropolitan Futures Initiative (MFI)
Better communities and more effective solutions to common problems through integrative planning and collaboration beyond jurisdictional borders – those are the aims of the Metropolitan Futures Initiative (MFI), a collaboration between the departments of Planning, Policy and Design and Criminology, Law and Society in the School of Social Ecology. By sparking and sustaining thinking about the connections among seemingly disparate community problems, the initiative will bring together individuals and groups in a process of discovery, strategic thinking and planning. MFI research focuses on the interlinkages between various demographic, social, and economic processes and their consequences for the social relations and well-being of persons living in the southern California region. Concretely, these processes include studying the intersections among air quality, energy, water, and land use; the distribution of jobs and housing and transportation network supporting this distribution; and the connections among crime, neighborhood well-being, segregation, and social conflict within the region.
Learn More...
Thanks to a generous seed gift from Five Point Communities and the Great Park Neighborhoods, the Initiative plans its first Regional Progress Report for May 2012.
To join this proactive discourse or join in the consortium of investors, please contact Mickey Shaw at shawmm@uci.edu or (949) 824-1874.
Science to Fight Injustice
Justice can and should be fairly and predictably delivered. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t. When justice is not delivered and miscarriages of justice occur, people and communities suffer. The Science to Fight Injustice Lecture Series, a sustained effort to examine and address the problem of “justice delivered and justice denied,” is proposed by Distinguished Professor Elizabeth Loftus in collaboration with the Center for Psychology and Law and the Center for Law, Society, and Culture. The series is poised to become a viable nexus for academic researchers and the many practitioners in the world of criminal justice to come together with the common goal of delivering justice. It also provides a forum for developing programs and funding scholarships related to the examination of justice in the criminal justice system, including everything from police to the courts to corrections.
Under the leadership of Professor Loftus and with the support of her scholarly colleagues, Science to Fight Injustice would provide two educational opportunities to help UC Irvine students, the public, and legal/law enforcement professionals better understand the use and interpretation of science in the law, including the latest findings in basic research that speak to how justice is delivered and the circumstances
under which is a false promise.With Professor Loftus’ leadership, prominent scholars from across the United States will be 
brought to the campus to share their knowledge with the campus community and the local public and to interact more informally with faculty and students. Their impact has the potential to instill passion in our students, many of whom will go on to become major players in the world of criminal justice, and to provide them with information concurrent with a high caliber of educational training. The second prong of the project proposed is a one-day training session for legal professionals in Orange County. The training session would be open to attorneys, paralegals, judges, law enforcement personnel and other professionals throughout the legal system. The aim of the program is to educate the audience about scientific developments and their application to the legal field.
For additional information about sponsorship of the series or funding scholarships/fellowships, please contact Mickey Shaw at shawmm@uci.edu, or (949) 824-1874.
Center for Unconventional Security Affairs (CUSA)
In the modern era environmental change and global transformations are happening with increasing speed, fundamentally changing the nature of our communities and how we live our lives. Meeting the human and environmental security challenges of the 21st century is the mission of The Center for Unconventional Security Affairs (CUSA). CUSA’s Unconventional Security Research Group conducts and promotes interdisciplinary, field-based research on the relationships between processes of global change (especially climate and environmental change) and transnational security problems including violent conflict, political violence, population displacement, and underdevelopment. For example, research conducted at the Center has identified links between deforestation and social strife in northern Pakistan, land scarcity and violent conflict in Nepal and Rwanda. The role of technology in understanding and addressing these problems is the focus of CUSA’s Transformational Media Lab. Recent research, for example, assesses the role of documentary films in deepening understanding and mobilizing activity around complex global challenges.Finally, CUSA recently has created the Earth Studio to create bridges from the science and social science communities to the arts community around the issues of sustainability and human security.
The Center places considerable emphasis on diffusing research findings into the policy and practitioner worlds in the U.S. and abroad. For example, it has played a unique, hands-on role helping the United Nations integrate natural resource management into peace building operations. Likewise, it has worked with U.S. Marine Forces Pacific on developing a plan for managing a potential avian flu pandemic, and has worked closely with various government agencies on rethinking security in the post-Cold War world. In addition to its policy activity, a key focus for the Center is on developing solutions that empower and protect communities with heightened vulnerability to processes of global change.
By encouraging students to critically examine these issues, and supporting their efforts to do so, CUSA is producing future leaders who will play a key role in navigating how we respond to the many challenges facing the 21st Century.
CUSA works closely with the Newkirk Center for Science and Society, as well as other entities on campus such as the Center for Hydrologic Modeling in the Samueli School of Engineering and the Environment Insitute in the School of Physical Sciences. A magnet for corporate, foundation and individual interest on a wide scale, CUSA invites your support and partnership. Learn More...
To learn more, contact Mickey Shaw in the School of Social Ecology at shawmm@uci.edu or (949) 824-1874.
Building Naming Opportunities
Generous donors who make a major commitment to support the research and teaching of the University deserve the greatest possible recognition. The School of Social Ecology and the School of Social Science are offering once in a lifetime naming opportunities in the newly constructed Social and Behavioral Sciences Gateway building. These naming opportunities, at a variety of gift levels, offer a legacy of recognition for substantial gifts that benefit scholarships, fellowships, endowed chairs, and collaborative program support. This way of expressing appreciation for significant contributions recognizes that this building is more than a mere physical structure, it’s a home to world class research, meaningful educational engagement, lasting memories, and a sense of belonging.
For more information please contact Mickey Shaw at shawmm@uci.edu or (949) 824-1874.