Graduate Division

Promoting Graduate Education

UCR Scotty Bear mascot wearing I Love UCR tshirt with arms raised in front of belltower on UCR campus.

UC AGS Conference 2026

UC Riverside welcomes you to the 2026 Advising Graduate Students Conference!

 

Friday, June 26, 2026 at UC Riverside

Check in, Breakfast, & Keynote - 8:00am

  • Check in will begin at 8:00am in the Student Success Center rooms 121-125 (will be one larger combined room). Please pick up your name badge and goodie bag!

    Breakfast will be served.

  • Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies at UC Riverside, Lidia Kos, will deliver the welcome remarks to kick off the day.

  • Dr. Joi Spencer, Dean and Professor of the UC Riverside School of Education, will deliver the keynote.

    Dean Spencer's work is centered on educational equity in higher and K-12 education and has resulted in the launch of the doctoral program in Education for Social Justice, the implementation of school-wide professional development on anti-racism and a  Diversity Post-Doctoral Fellows Program. Dr. Spencer’s research investigates the mathematics learning opportunities of African American and other minoritized youth. Along with colleagues Drs. Perla Myers and Odesma Dalrymple she runs the STEAM Academies, interactive summer learning labs for middle and high school students from under-serviced communities in the Inland Empire and San Diego.

Session I - 10:00am

  • This panel presents an informed discussion on UCLA’s holistic mentoring ecosystem model, bringing together complementary perspectives from staff members leading mentoring initiatives, academic case management, and retention programming. Panelists will discuss how layered institutional structures – spanning faculty mentoring, departmental leadership, case management, and peer‑to‑peer programs – collectively scaffold graduate student success. Drawing on UCLA’s integrated approach, the panel will explore both responsive interventions and proactive culture-building strategies that foster student motivation, resilience, community connection, and degree progress. Through moderated dialogue and audience questions, attendees will examine how institutions can intentionally align mentoring and advising efforts across units. This session offers a replicable framework for universities seeking to grow advising capacity and strengthen graduate student support through collaborative, ecosystem-based approaches.

    Presenters: Daniel Wong, Jaine Park and Jenny Lee, UCLA

  • Director of Student Affairs at UC Riverside, Kara Oswood, will facilitate a graduate student panel discussion on building trust between advisors and students.

  • The UC’s Growing Our Own program has the goal of diversifying our graduate programs across the system, with a particular focus on increasing enrollments from community colleges. This focus has borne some fruit, as the percentage of new enrollees with CC experience in UC STEM PhD programs has grown from 4.5% in 2017 to 9.5% in 2025. Nonetheless, challenges remain in this pipeline. For example, while 16% of freshman-entering UCR STEM graduates from 2018 were enrolled in a PhD program by 2024, only 11% of transfer students were similarly enrolled. Retention is another challenge: while 2.5% of the transfer cohort mentioned above enrolled in a UCR PhD program, only 0.7% graduate with a PhD from UCR.
    This presentation will discuss a proposed UCR initiative that combines cross-campus and community college collaborations to address this gap in transfer enrollment and retention in UC graduate programs.
     

    Presenters: Laura McGeehan, UC Riverside

Lunch - 11:45am

  • Lunch will be served. Dietary restrictions provided during registration were noted and incorporated.

Session II - 1:15pm

  • AI at Berkeley for Graduate Student Administrators: Tools, Policies, and Advising Practices
    This session equips graduate student administrators with a practical overview of university‑approved artificial‑intelligence tools, the data‑classification framework that governs their use, and strategies for integrating AI responsibly into advising workflows. Attendees will learn how to select the right AI applications based on protection levels, understand key privacy and academic‑integrity policies, and see a real‑world example of automating graduate funding tracking with Microsoft Copilot and Google Apps Script. The presentation emphasizes a step‑by‑step “mentor‑intern” approach to prompt engineering, ensuring all outputs are reviewed by a human before implementation. Participants will leave with actionable guidance, a checklist of compliant tools, and resources to support students while maintaining confidentiality and policy compliance.

    Presenter: Marcela Cardona, UC Berkeley

  • What can higher education learn from geek culture about belonging, fandom, and identity? This interactive roundtable explores how visible “geek” culture—defined not by gatekeeping, but by unbridled enthusiasm—can dismantle traditional hierarchies in academia and foster deeper student belonging. Drawing parallels between fan communities and academic spaces, participants will examine who is seen as “allowed” to participate, whose identities are validated, and how diverse representation can transform access.

    Presenter/Facilitator: Jeremy Parker, UC Santa Cruz

  • This session will include an introduction to the elements of culture and exploring the differences in how values and belief systems play out in advising and workplace settings. Participants will gain an understanding of cultural competence and receive the foundation for a successful approach to intercultural interactions via the Cultural Intelligence (CQ) Framework. Participants will complete a 20 item self assessment that will reveal their areas of strength and opportunities to improve the outcomes of intercultural interactions. Participants will discuss how this framework and associated skills can improve their practice as advisors who work with a diverse population of students, staff, and faculty (which may include international students and diverse cultural identities).

    Presenters/Facilitators: Dustin Domingo & Christopher Brown, UC Riverside

Session III - 2:30pm

  • Innovative advising doesn’t require being a "tech expert", it requires shared systems that work. To effectively "Grow R’Grads," advisors must move past the manual bottlenecks that cause burnout. This roundtable provides a judgment-free space to share technical struggles and crowdsource accessible solutions within the UC’s technical ecosystems. Designed for the "tech-curious," this session focuses on "too-neutral" logic that works regardless of departmental funding. Participants will audit their current manual processes, collaborate on "low-tech" shortcuts with UC colleagues, and learn to reframe these technical fixes as leadership deliverables for career advancement. Attendees will leave with a Technical Roadmap and a Vocabulary Cheat Sheet to transform everyday administrative hurdles into documented professional assets for their current and future UC roles.

    Presenter/Facilitator: Erika Santoyo, UC Riverside

Closing Remarks - 3:45 pm

  • The UC AGS conference brings together graduate program coordinators, graduate faculty advisors, and Graduate Division staff and mentors to discuss best practices and innovations in advising, program management and graduate student support. The conference was established in 2018 through an ongoing collaboration between the Graduate Program/Group Coordinators and Graduate Studies and has demonstrated tremendous success and growth.  

    The theme for 2026 is: Growing R’Grads: Innovative Approaches to Graduate Student Advising

    Questions about the conference? Please contact representatives from the Planning Committee:

  • Registration closed May 1st.

  • Transportation

    Air

    The closest airport to the UCR campus is Ontario International (ONT). There are many direct flights from other California cities. 

    Drive

    The UCR campus is located at 900 University Avenue, Riverside CA 92521. 

    Parking

    UC Riverside uses Automated License Plate Recognition as our virtual permit system that allows you to use your license plate as your parking "permit". No more worrying about properly displaying your parking permit, your plate is your "permit"!
     
    Simply click on the link below to provide your vehicle information and UC campus for your permit. No need to provide your permit number or payment information, just simply select "yes" or "no" when prompted about your permit status. Parking is free for all registered participants. 
     
     

    This Offstreet link is very easy to use, please see the steps below:

    1) Click and open the link

    • Select the date(s) for the permit

    2) Enter the license plate number (LPN) in the 'Plate' section

    3) Select appropriate state, if not California.

    4) REQUIRED: Add your email address to receive a confirmation email

    5) REQUIRED: Add Additional Information in fields

    • Name
    • Campus Affiliation
    • Do you have a valid UC parking permit?

    6) Click 'Park' to complete.

    Event Name: Advising Graduate Student Conference

    Lodging

    There are several local hotels that offer special UC rates. In downtown Riverside there is the Marriott, Hyatt Place, and the historic Mission Inn. The Ayres Hotel in Moreno Valley is a short drive to campus, is very nice and has good rates. There are also a couple of more basic options close to campus (just avoid the Dynasty Suites, trust us). 

    The complete list of hotels is available on the UCR Procurement website.

  • The deadline to submit proposals is February 20, 2026, 11:59 PST. Please submit the proposal here:  https://forms.gle/dsMANLtVnQJKX9rh8 

     

    Suggested topics are below, and we also welcome submissions in other areas that are related to the conference theme:

     

    • Navigating AI in advising 

     

    • Fostering supportive mentoring relationships

     

    • Repairing professional relationships after conflict 

     

    • Creating cross-campus partnerships to holistically support students

     

    • How do we create community in a virtual world?

     

    • Professional Development: Enhance your current work or prepare for other positions on campus

     

    • Reconnection: How do we reconnect our work and student communities?

     

    • Hybrid Advising: Best practices for advising students both in-person and remotely

  • Interested in volunteering on the planning committee or helping the day of the conference? Fill out the Conference Volunteer Form by March 1, 2026 and someone from the committee will be in touch.