Kenneth Mashinchi

Growing up in San Juan Bautista, Vanessa Andrade loved hanging out with her father and his collection of cars and tractors.

She spent hours in the “barn” or shop, helping change the oil in cars, playing with tools and tinkering with her grandfather’s old Allis-Chalmers tractor. So perhaps it’s no surprise that this UC Merced senior — and Chancellor’s Scholar — found her academic calling in mechanical engineering.

On Dec. 15, Andrade will participate in the university’s fall commencement ceremony. She next plans to pursue a master’s degree in mechanical engineering.

Professor ShiPu Wang has been named the Coats Family Chair in the Arts. Wang plans to use funding from the endowment to not only supplement his research, but also to provide a broader experience and education in the arts.

The Beginnings sculpture serves as the focal point of UC Merced’s campus, and starting this week, it will also be a beacon of light for the holiday season.

Chancellor Dorothy Leland and Staff Assembly are hosting the second annual Beginnings Lighting on Tuesday, Dec. 4, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at Carol Tomlinson-Keasey Quad.

UC Merced’s commitment to sustainability has been at the forefront of university decisions since the campus’s inception. This week, the university will welcome one of the nation’s leaders in public health to campus to discuss how to continue to keep sustainability as a top priority.

Dr. Richard Jackson, professor emeritus at the Fielding School of Public Health at UCLA, has extensive background in sustainability’s impact on communities through his role as director of the CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health.

UC Merced is no stranger to innovation and disrupting traditional modes in higher education.

Whether it is funding the university’s Merced 2020 Project through an unprecedented, award-winning public-private partnership or making a University of California education accessible to first-generation and underrepresented students, UC Merced has established itself as a top-notch university.

For the second straight year, UC Merced surpassed its goal of 1,000 donors in a single day for the Give Tue UC Merced campaign.

Over $170,000 was raised — with the help of a generous matching gift from Foster Poultry Farms — for the Build the Future Scholarship Fund. In five years of the university’s annual day of giving, over $1.5 million has been raised through donations and matching gifts, including a previous gift from the Wells Fargo Foundation.

When UC Merced senior Kevin Citalan thought about what he was thankful for as the Thanksgiving holiday grew near, he instantly thought of a turbulent time during the summer.

In August, Citalan, a Los Angeles native, was trying to complete paperwork to apply for a double major in cognitive science and management and business economics. Citalan, a former foster youth who is part of the university’s Guardian Scholars program, says it was the hardest three weeks of his academic career.

Before David Do earned his bachelor’s degree in economics from UC Merced, he helped spearhead a Valentine’s Day card campaign that convinced First Lady Michelle Obama to give the commencement address to the first graduating class.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú Tum was honored Monday as the 12th distinguished recipient of the Alice and Clifford Spendlove Prize in Social Justice, Diplomacy and Tolerance at the Art Kamangar Center at Merced Theater in downtown Merced.

Menchú Tum discussed her life in front of a full house at the theater, highlighting her continued battle for social justice in her home country of Guatemala. Menchú Tum signed copies of her autobiography “Crossing Borders” at the end of the event.

It’s the crown jewel of sustainability — a platinum certification signifying all the steps to making a space sustainable have been met.

For UC Merced, platinum certification had eluded the Green Labs and Green Offices programs. That changed recently when the Office of the Chancellor achieved platinum Green Offices status and biology labs directed by School of Natural Sciences instructional lab coordinator Jim Whalen secured platinum Green Labs certification.