California Economics Collective

Ian Baran
Urban and Environmental Planning & Policy
UC Irvine

Grecia Perez
Anthropology
UC Riverside

The California Economists Collective (CEC) is a multidisciplinary graduate student network from across seven UCs founded in 2019. The primary vision of CEC is to transform the institutions that we interact with every day. The widespread campus sustainability and divest-invest movements occurring on campuses across the nation have done excellent work articulating what higher education should move away from. We want to define and create projects that model what colleges and universities should strive for. Moving the UC toward sustainable, community-centered wealth building requires a way to share information, innovation, and experiences across the system. It requires coordinated advocacy. It requires a network of individuals and organizations who share a set of values and a vision for the state’s future. Our group continues collaborations across campuses by creating space for conversations and for popular education deliverables that address possibilities for alternative and community economies. We draw on interdisciplinary methods that range from the humanities, social sciences, and arts to digital media and policy. Through meetings, conferences, and collaborative projects, our ongoing work contributes to the goal of transforming the UC system into a collective economy that is inclusive of the spatial geography surrounding the UC system and resilient to upheaval.