Ensuring non-traditional students excel at Berkeley

For many students, gaining admission to UC Berkeley is only half the battle — once they are on campus, they face other challenges. It is critical to have in place resources necessary to help students succeed — particularly historically marginalized students. The Centers for Educational Equity and Excellence (CE3) respects every member of our community as a unique individual, and works to ensure equity of experience so that all UC Berkeley students can thrive.

Graduate Assembly

The mission of the Graduate Assembly is to improve the lives of University of California, Berkeley graduate students and to foster a vibrant, inclusive graduate student community.The Graduate Assembly is the official representative body of the graduate and professional students at the University of California, Berkeley. The fundamental principles of the Graduate Assembly are the promotion of a vibrant student social life, inclusiveness, activism, community service, educational improvement, and professional development. In service to these principles the Graduate Assembly advocates for students, funds student groups on campus, and directly manages a variety of projects.

Berkeley Underground Scholars

Berkeley Underground Scholars (BUS) creates a pathway for incarcerated, formerly incarcerated and system impacted individuals into higher education. We are building a prison-to-school pipeline through recruitment, retention, and advocacy. BUS is an academic support program housed within the Division of Equity and Inclusion at UC Berkeley.

Underground Scholars Initiative (USI) is the student org that works in partnership with BUS. USI is completely student-run. The two organizations, BUS & USI, are separate and aligned. For UC Students who would like more information on USI Chapters on each campus and how to join please see USI Chapters section below.

We prioritize our services for formerly incarcerated students. We define system-impacted as a person who is legally, economically, or familially affected in a negative way by the incarcerated of a close relative. System-impacted also includes people who have been arrested and/or convicted without incarceration.