About
CREATE works with partners to #CREATEequity in San Diego's educational opportunities.
UC San Diego CREATE (Center for Research on Educational Equity, Assessment & Teaching Excellence) is an equity-focused, community-facing research-practice-partnership center committed to supporting equitable educational opportunities for San Diego's students, K-12 and beyond (K-20).
Together, we are laser focused on increasing opportunity for low-income, first-generation students underrepresented in college. Through efforts to support more local youth to prepare for success at universities like ours, we help strengthen the college-going foundation for all across our region– and hone insights improving education overall, K-12 and K-20.
CREATE houses an innovative team of researchers, youth mentors, and professional development experts working with the region's K-12 teachers. Every day, we ask ourselves this question: what could we do with others to help get all groups of the region's young people ready for college and fulfilling careers, contributing their ideas and energy to the future of San Diego and beyond?
We focus on supporting K-12 students and their teachers, families, schools, districts, and community organizations in the San Diego and Imperial Valley regions, while also supporting community college students and UC San Diego student success. We help UC San Diego faculty and students to design and execute funded programming to help meet key local K-12 education needs.
We also research and evaluate K-12 and K-20 education efforts so they #CREATEequity.
History
CREATE was established in 1997 as Proposition 209 ended affirmative action in California. We became UC San Diego's entity supporting local K-12 college preparation and academic outreach efforts, specifically for students underrepresented in college due to unequal opportunity.
Our charge was to marshal campus resources towards support of under-resourced K-12 students in the San Diego region and to support students by investing in their teachers, schools, and districts.
Through college-focused student-facing programs like the UC Early Academic Outreach Program and federally-funded TRIO, through our large K12/K14/K20 education research projects, grants, and equity programming, through our intensive professional development work for local teachers (led by the California Subject Matter Projects), and through our broad community outreach, we support and prepare low-income, first-generation-college youth directly and support the region’s teachers and schools to better serve all youth toward college and career.
Over the decades, we have catalyzed and supported thousands of campus-community partnerships increasing education opportunity regionally.
We call this leveraging a university to create local opportunity to learn.
Want to work with CREATE?
Check out our People page to contact program directors and CREATE leadership!
