RIVERSIDE: UC Riverside will become only the third university in the nation to offer a Ph.D. in ethnic studies when the doctoral program launches in fall 2009. The Department of Ethnic Studies will begin accepting applications for the Ph.D. program on September 1.

The program will allow students to focus on one or more of three distinct areas of specialization: theories of race and power, cultural politics and production, and the state, law and social transformation. "Given the increased diversity of the state population there in a growing need and demand in both the private and public sector for researchers and policy experts who can address pressing social problems and contemporary issues surrounding race, ethnicity, and democracy not only in the Inland region but in California and the nation at large," said Alfredo Mirandé, chair of the Department of Ethnic Studies.

The comprehensive Ph.D. program will prepare students to work for public agencies and educational institutions or the private sector as applied researchers and policy experts, or to pursue careers in academia as researchers and university professors, he said. The Department of Ethnic Studies has 12 permanent faculty and is conducting a national search for an additional senior tenure professor in the area of critical race studies and theory.