College Nine's theme of International and Global Perspectives emphasizes the importance of both diversity and unity in understanding individuals and societies. The academic and co-curricular programs are designed to explore the wide diversity found in the world-based people's economic opportunities, political power, and cultural traditions. At the same time, we consider how people across the world are becoming interconnected through global economies, education, mass media, jet travel, and computers. Students interested in these issues, either as their major focus or as part of their general education, are encouraged to join the College Nine community.

– Campbell Leaper
College Nine Founding Provost

There are four major components to the academic mission at College Nine— advising, classroom learning, encouraging academic excellence, and monitoring academic standing. The College Provost is a faculty member who is in charge of supervising these four components. At College Nine, our provost is Professor of Sociology, Helen Shapiro. For more information about Provost Shapiro, please visit the College Staff page under About.

Advising

Throughout your academic career at UCSC, College Nine will be your home for academic advising. The academic advisers will be important resources for getting help with your classes. The advisers are the ones that can answer questions about General Education and graduation requirements as well as other general academic matters. For more information on the academic advisers, please visit the Advising section.

Classroom Learning

The UCSC Colleges are based on a living and learning model. Not only do frosh live together in the residence halls, they also take the same seminar in their college during the fall quarter. In this way, all students within a college have a common learning experience. College Nine's frosh seminar is Introduction to University Discourse: International and Global Issues. We hope that the course provides students with a thought-provoking introduction into some of the pressing issues in the world today. The course is also designed to help students develop important academic skills such as writing, studying, and reading. For more information on the core course, please visit the Core Course section in the sidebar.

In addition to the frosh seminar, we also offer some optional courses within the college. They include the Global Action (College Nine 85), teaching Global Action (College Nine 191), and a service learning class offered through College Ten (College Ten 110 and 110B). For more information, visit Courses section in the sidebar.

Encouraging Academic Excellence

We would like to see you do your best at UCSC. That will mean some hard work on your part and also taking initiative to seek out opportunities.

As a way to encourage student achievement, College Nine students may graduate with two forms of special recognition. One of them is to graduate with honors. This is based on attaining a minimum cumulative grade point average (see the Academic Advisers for details). A second form of special recognition is to graduate with distinction. College Nine distinction is awarded if students pursue three quarters of work through one of two pathways. For more information, please visit the link on the sidebar to Distinction Pathways.

Monitoring Academic Standing

The fourth academic component of the college is to monitor students' academic standing. The academic advisers review students' records to see if they are passing their classes and making satisfactory progress towards the graduation requirements. Additionally, good academic standing involves maintaining academic integrity. Academic integrity refers to doing honest work which means not cheating or plagiarizing. For more information, please visit the UCSC Academic Integrity web page.

College Nine's Partnership with Division of Social Sciences

One of the relatively unique features of College Nine is that its academic administration is affiliated with the Division of Social Sciences. The College Nine Provost, Helen Shapiro, is also Associate Dean of Social Sciences and a Professor of Sociology. This does not mean, however, that College Nine students are only supposed to be majors in the social sciences. We welcome all majors. Indeed, College Nine students come from all majors in the humanities, arts, natural sciences, and engineering, in addition to social sciences. Their shared interest is in learning about the world.

All students can benefit from College Nine's partnership with the UCSC Social Sciences Division. In a comprehensive analysis of more than 200 top public universities, social sciences at UC Santa Cruz ranked first in the nation in research quality. Thus, College Nine students will have opportunities to explore international and global issues with distinguished faculty from a range of disciplines including anthropology, community studies, economics, education, environmental studies, Latin American and Latino studies, politics, psychology, and sociology. Special opportunities for students will include assisting faculty in their research for course credit. Also, students will be able to meet with faculty in small group events as part of College Nine student programs.