Give

Introduction

Our alumni and friends provide essential support for the Department of Mathematics' teaching and research programs. The department benefits from annual unrestricted support, as well as major gifts designated for special purposes. Your generosity plays a critical role in our ability to fulfill our mission and is truly appreciated. Every gift counts. 

There are many ways to support the Department in their educational and research endeavors. Listed below are our key priorities: 

  • Unrestricted Funds
  • Student Support
  • Faculty Support
  • Distinguished Lecture Series

We invite you to be a part of the Department's success in educating the next generation of leaders.

How to give

Contacts

Bethany Innocenti
Lead Director of Development for the Sciences, Dean's Office
2517E Phelps Hall
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-6035
(805) 893-4963
bethany.innocenti@ucsb.edu

 

Matching Gifts

Many employers sponsor corporate matching gift programs and will match charitable contributions that their employees or spouses make. Matching gift programs can double or possibly triple your donation. Please obtain your company's matching gift form and return it with your contribution.

Student Support

Undergraduate Students
Undergraduate scholarship support allows the department to recognize and mentor outstanding undergraduate students. Contributions at any level are greatly appreciated and allow us to support undergraduate research. This is something the campus is moving towards — 'Enhancing Undergraduate Education Through Research' is one of two themes of UC Santa Barbara's proposal for Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) accreditation — but the Mathematics department is proud of its track record already.

Kimberly (Spears) Hopkins (above), class of 2004, won the UCSB Chancellors Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research in 2004, as well as the AWM Alice T Schafer prize. 
Jeff Danciger (below) earned the UCSB Chancellors Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research in 2006.

Named Scholarship Award: A gift of $1,000 or more establishes a one-year named award. For more information, please contact Bethany Innocenti at (805) 893-4963 or bethany.innocenti@ucsb.edu. 

Named Endowed Scholarships

A gift of $20,000 or more establishes a permanent named scholarship which could support undergraduate research. For information on creating a named endowed scholarship, please contact Bethany Innocenti at (805) 893-4963 or bethany.innocenti@ucsb.edu. 

Currently, the Raymond Wilder Award is given to an outstanding graduating senior and to an outstanding first year graduate student. Wilder was past president of both the American Mathematical Society as well the Mathematics Association of America, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Another graduating senior each year receives the Horace Mochizuki Award. "[Horace] was also an excellent teacher who gave very generously of his time to students. Horace loved teaching and doing mathematical research and felt fortunate to be able to do these things." 

Along these lines, we observe that Professor Adil Yaqub completed fifty years of UC service in June, 2010. Adil is amongst our most beloved faculty — indeed the 'Adil Yaqub Is My Hero' Facebook page has 70 members. We would like to recognize his undergraduate teaching. 

Graduate Students
Support for graduate students is a key priority for the department. We are able to attract more strong out of state and international students to our program than we can afford to support. (In science and mathematics, unlike business, law, or medicine, advanced degrees are rarely funded by student loans — the starting salaries are not high enough to repay the loans.) In particular, recruiting and retaining a strong cohort of women in the graduate program is vital.

Alethea Barbarao (above) presents her work modeling fish populations to Jan and Don O'Dowd at 'Back to School Night'. Alethea has since completed her Ph.D. and landed a post-doc at UCLA. Brittany Erickson (below) discusses her work modeling earthquakes at that same event.

Named Fellowship Award: A gift of $5,000 or more establishes a one-year named award which allows the Department to offer supplemental incentive (top-off) support for the recruitment or retention of an outstanding graduate student. 

Named Dissertation Fellowship: A gift of $10,000 will fully support a graduate student for one-quarter of their career. This type of fellowship is extremely helpful for graduate students as it allows them to take a quarter off from teaching and focus solely on writing the dissertation. 

Named Full-Year Fellowship: A gift of $30,000 fully supports a graduate student for one-year of their career. Already two graduate students are supported by the Microsoft Graduate Fellowship at Station Q on campus, working on bleeding edge research in quantum computing. 

Named Endowed Fellowship:A gift of $50,000 or more establishes a permanent named fellowship. For information on creating a named endowed fellowship, please contact Bethany Innocenti at (805) 893-4963 or bethany.innocenti@ucsb.edu. 
 

Lecture Series

Lecture series provide the department with the opportunity to bring internationally recognized scholars to UC Santa Barbara. The visiting scholars are invited to participate with faculty and students within the department through a formal lecture presented to the campus and local community, presentations in undergraduate and graduate level classes, and informal, small group discussions. One such recent talk was co-organized with KITP. We brought physicist and Origami artist Dr. Robert Lang to campus from February 17-19 in 2010. 

Named Endowed Lecture Series: A gift of $20,000 or more establishes a permanent named lecture that can occur annually. For more information, please contact Bethany Innocenti at (805) 893-4963 or bethany.innocenti@ucsb.edu. 
 

Endowed Chairs

Endowed Chairs honor, encourage, and support the professors whose brilliant minds and commitment to education and research promote the University's mission. An endowed chair is the most significant honor the University can offer to faculty, by way of a donor's generosity. Holders of endowed chairs represent the most distinguished scholars who are selected for brilliant scholarship, inspirational teaching, and leadership. An endowed chair is a permanent endowment created by a philanthropic gift that supports the teaching and research of the scholar. A gift of $500,000 or more will support the creation of a new endowed chair and will provide a legacy for the donor on the UC Santa Barbara campus.
For more information, please contact Bethany Innocenti at (805) 893-4963 or bethany.innocenti@ucsb.edu.

Unrestricted Funds

Unrestricted gifts to the department are designated to the highest priority needs. This flexible funding allows the department to seize new opportunities that emerge as well as support the existing outstanding students, faculty, programs and research.

“…Thus, I concluded, if a campus were to have one pre-eminent department in modern times, it should be mathematics.”

Clark Kerr, UC President