History Mission

CEED’s History and Mission

The UCLA Center for Excellence in Engineering and Diversity (CEED) is committed to the development, recruitment, retention, and graduation of underrepresented engineering and computing students. The CEED Mission is to work with a community of partners to ensure equity and parity in the K-20 pathways that lead to engineering and computing degrees. CEED’s undergraduate retention approach offers numerous programs and services focused on the personal, academic, and career development of economically disadvantaged and underrepresented engineering and computing students at UCLA.

The services provided by CEED include: academic and professional workshops; access to financial support and internships; research programs; clustering of students into the same sections of classes to support academic collaboration and high performance; academic enrichment programs; academic advisement; and support of three outstanding student organizations: American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES), National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), and Society of Latino Engineers and Scientists (SOLES). CEED’s undergraduate program currently supports about 280 economically disadvantaged, undergraduate engineering and computing majors of all backgrounds—89% underrepresented (African-American, Latino, American Indian) and 11% other. Twenty-two percent (22%) of CEED students are female.

CEED has a 28-year history of commitment to diversity in the engineering and hi-tech workforce. Since 1983, CEED has developed a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) K-20 pipeline strategy which supports university and local school communities. A hallmark of the center’s success is its undergraduate retention system, which has resulted in an average percent retention to graduation for underrepresented students (URES) of 55%. This compares with the national retention for URES of 38% and the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering’s overall retention percentage of 65%. To be precise, CEED’s freshmen cohort retention to graduation percentage is actually 75%. An additional 20% of CEED freshmen change majors and go on to graduate from UCLA.