More than six in 10 UC Merced undergraduates are the first in their families to attend a university. The national average for four-year universities is about two in 10.
Opening doors to opportunity for first-generation students is infused into UC Merced’s DNA. Young people who had little to no information at home on how to be a young scholar find solid support, a welcoming campus and kindred spirits.
They are longtime friends, united by a passion for art and a stubborn determination not to compromise their unconventional styles. Their brushes paint scenes of fieldhands and crops coalescing in blues and reds, of a rural street splashed in watercolor or of shark fins cutting through a beach as a sandcastle rises in the surf.
Ruben Aguilera Sanchez, Frank Ayala and Abel Corchado have known each other for more than four decades. Over the years, the Merced-area men have supported each other’s work, mentored others and pushed back against expectations.
Only 20 years since undergraduate instruction began, UC Merced is a recognized leader in conducting academic research, developing young minds for career success and driving economic growth, the university’s chancellor said Wednesday.
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 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.”
