UC Women's Initiative for Professional Development (UCWI)

 

An experiential, mid-career professional development cohort program committed to enabling the full participation, success and advancement of professionals at the University of California (UC) systemwide.

The program is designed to cultivate a professional network that spans the UC system, provide access to top UC Leaders to learn about their diverse leadership approaches and journeys, as well as strengthen skills and confidence through hands-on practice in the areas of self-awareness and reflection, professional development and impact, strategic relationship building, developing and delivering a compelling narrative regarding one’s professional accomplishments and vision, negotiating for yourself at work, and peer coaching. 

The program involves employees from every UC location brought together as a cohort for 4 days of sessions, assignments, access to an online networking platform and professional coaching.

This is a different program from the UC-CORO Systemwide Leadership Collaborative and the UCSF-CORO Faculty Leadership Collaborative.

2024-2025 Program

  • Who: The program is open to all UC employees - including faculty, academic personnel and staff, people managers and non-people managers - to foster professional development, strategic networking and skill-building across the UC system. UCSF has been allocated 18 spaces for the academic/fiscal year; alternates from the prior year's program are offered spaces first.
  • Applications: are now closed for the 2024-2025 program. Applicants will be informed of their acceptance status by April 19, 2024.

    The application asks for:
Departmental and supervisory commitment
  • Supervisor approval for program time and funding.
  • Department chartstring(s) for the $1,287.50 per-participant cost.
Applicant Letter of Interest
  • Why is this the right time for you to participate in UC WI?
  • What experiences as a woman-identified professional or as someone who supports women-identified professionals have influenced your career?
  • What other development programs have you attended in the past 1-2 years?
  • What do you hope to get out of this program?
Letter of Support from a supervisor or chair/division chief
  • How the UC WI program will support the nominee's professional career development and how the nominee will contribute as a cohort member.
  • Specific examples showing why the nominee is a good candidate for the program, including key accomplishments.
  • How the nominee's participation will support broader departmental or organizational goals.

Cost & Location

  • The $1,287.50 per-participant fee covers program delivery, resources, tools and support. Department chartstring(s) is requested in the application to cover this fee.
  • The program will be offered virtually via Zoom.

Schedule

Each 30-person cohort is made up of 4 virtual sessions, plus up to 2 hours of additional work assigned between sessions. The schedule coincides with UC’s academic/fiscal calendar:

  • Cohort 1: September to November, 2024
  • Cohort 2: January to March, 2025
  • Cohort 3: April to June, 2025

Participants must fully attend all sessions, as well as complete pre-work and a pre-program survey before the first day of their assigned cohort.

Contact

Sponsored by the President's Office and the Systemwide Advisory Committee on the Status of Women (SACSW)

Offered by Systemwide Human Resources in partnership with Coro Northern California and SACSW

Questions? Contact [email protected]

Nominations for the UC WI Professional Development program are currently paused pending a full program review to ensure ongoing alignment with UC employee professional and leadership development goals, as well as inclusive workplace goals. Nominations are not being accepted at this time.