2026
UCR wins a $4 million grant from the Department of Education for the Civic Openness, Reasoning, and Engagement (CORE) Incubator.
The grant program will provide training that equips students with communication, facilitation, and broadly applicable leadership skills.
UCR hosts their second Public Speaking Initiative Symposium
Participants included faculty and staff specializing in public speaking from UCR, UCLA, UC Berkeley, UCSB, UCM, UCI, Riverside City College, Norco College, and Babson College. The symposium featured a keynote from Dr. E. Patrick Johnson, Dean of the School of Communication at Northwestern University and a presentation by Lily Eskelsen Garcia, the former president of America’s largest professional union, the 3-million-member National Education Association.
2024
UCR hosts their first Public Speaking Initiative Symposium
Participants included faculty and staff specializing in public speaking from UCR, UCLA, UCSB, UCSD, UCM, UCI, Riverside City College, Norco College, Moreno Valley College, and CSU San Bernardino.
NSF grant supports science to policy program
UCR won a $498,498 NSF grant for their “Science to Policy: Operationalizing Knowledge from Education to Society,” or SPOKES project which expands on SPEAKS to build communication training into the Science to Policy curriculum.
2022
UCR wins a $3 million NSF grant to train STEM graduate students to translate their knowledge to policymakers.
The project “Science Policy Education: Activating Knowledge for Sustainable Transportation,” or SPEAKS, focuses on communication in and beyond disciplines.
2020
The PSI Goes to Washington
“Magnifying the Value of the Humanities Through Collaboration”