UC Merced Children’s Opera, a performance that delights and enlightens thousands of schoolchildren a year while giving Bobcat students experience in theater, has received support from a generous grant from the Central Valley Opportunity Fund.
UC Merced, recognized nationwide for providing access to a world-class education and transforming young scholars’ lives, is a finalist for the inaugural Excellence in Student Success Award offered by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities.
UC Merced is among five universities nominated for the award. APLU, with more than 250 member institutions, advocates efforts to increase student success and workforce readiness; promote research; and bolster community engagement.
Several points support UC Merced’s nomination:
UC Merced has debuted a writer-in-residence program with one of California’s premier chroniclers of its history, especially the titanic power plays for land and water that have shaped the state’s growth and loom over its future.
Mark Arax, a Fresno native, author and former Los Angeles Times journalist, will host workshops about his craft throughout the academic year. His presence on campus also will offer inside access to a working author.
Spirits were high and futures bright while all else was soaked in a summer storm that made Tuesday morning’s Scholars Bridge Crossing, UC Merced’s traditional greeting to new students, a welcome unlike any before.
Call them Thunder ‘Cats.
The ceremony embraced about 2,000 first-year and transfer students to a campus that this fall semester marks 20 years since the first undergraduate class began at the newly built institution, bringing the power of a University of California education to the Central Valley.
A daughter of San Joaquin Valley immigrant farmworkers has earned the opportunity to study alongside a nationally prominent health researcher and energize her mission to improve the well-being of agricultural laborers.
As wind-whipped walls of flame destroyed hundreds of Los Angeles-area residences last January, one media report framed the disastrous wildfires in beastly terms, saying they were “ripping through homes.” The report then shifted to militaristic imagery: “Firefighters here have an uphill battle.”
A day later, a journalist from a national newspaper rode in a helicopter over the blackened devastation. Earlier, an evacuee had told him a stricken neighborhood looked like a war zone.
“I wondered if that was an exaggeration,” the reporter wrote, “until I saw it myself.”
On laptop screens, televisions and social media feeds across the nation, images and words fueled by a fractured political landscape spout anger, frustration and resentment. Clashing ideologies burst forth in public demonstrations, family gatherings and digital echo chambers.
Red-hot rhetoric and finger-pointing memes are open expressions of emotions generated by engaging in politics. But there is another set of emotions far less incendiary but just as damaging to democracy. These feelings can push people to the sidelines and drive them to silence.
Mariel Garcia accepted a welcoming handshake from the chief of staff for state Sen. Tim Grayson. A large photograph of rolling hills at sunset near Walnut Creek, a city in Grayson’s district, dominated a wall in the compact reception room.
“Good to meet you,” said the chief of staff, Aaron Moreno. “We’ll make sure to get whatever you need.”
Temnee Wright (’08) has realized a successful career as legal counsel at several Silicon Valley companies. Her interest in law was forged at UC Merced, where she made the most out of being a student in the university’s first undergraduate class.
Wright is the senior commercial counsel for San Jose-based Astera Labs, a semiconductor company that develops connectivity solutions for AI and cloud infrastructures. She negotiates details of and drafts documents for things like software licenses, vendor contracts, real estate leases and strategic partnerships.
With cheers, hugs and leis, more than 1,500 UC Merced graduates received a celebratory sendoff to their bright futures as a prominent keynote speaker told them to make the most of the here and now.
Hundreds of families and friends joined the graduates in three days of commencement ceremonies at the university’s Recreation Field. White picket fences lined the processional path for graduates, faculty and campus leaders of the San Joaquin Valley’s only research institution.
