Campus Community

The number of people being deported from the United States is at a historic high and one UC Merced professor is on the ground-level, meeting with family members of those affected to better understand the traumatic consequences of deportation.

Graduate student Vicky Espinoza shared the plight of some San Joaquin Valley families with a wide audience this spring in her role as a Next Generation delegate to this year’s Chicago Council on Global Affairs Global Food Security Symposium, entitled “From Scarcity to Security: Managing Water for a Nutritious Food Future.”

It’s before dawn on a Saturday morning in mid-May — not a time anyone would expect the UC Merced campus to be busy. But it is.

This is Spring Commencement, and there is much work to do.

Parking and transportation staff are placing signage and temporary fencing. In the kitchens, dozens of dining and catering workers are preparing breakfast for thousands of people, including the police officers and transportation employees who will spend the morning guiding traffic, answering questions and maintaining order.

In what world are Shakespeare and hip-hop related? Ask Devon Glover.

Glover is The Sonnet Man, a Shakespeare-loving rapper who sets The Bard’s famous sonnets to hip-hop instrumentals. Using iambic pentameter to his advantage, Glover turns 16^th century English writings into 21^st century educational material for students.

UC Merced’s Graduate Division will host its Grad Slam competition on April 18 with graduate scholars presenting on topics ranging from Valley Fever immune response and antibiotic resistance to computer vision and mathematical methods for thermal collection. This year’s competition started in March with 30 graduate students in the qualifying round, from which the judges narrowed the field to the top 12.

The campus’s 2019 Grad Slam semi-finalists are:

The University of California, Merced, today announced the appointment of Dania Matos as Associate Chancellor of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. 

Matos is the first appointment to the new position, which will serve on Chancellor Dorothy Leland’s senior leadership team and is charged with advising the team on issues of diversity, equity and inclusion and overseeing campus diversity initiatives. Her appointment, which begins in July,  follows a nationwide search that included input from throughout the campus community.

Two of the state’s leading political figures will make their return to UC Merced to serve as keynote speakers at the university’s 14^th commencement exercises in May.

Jennifer Siebel Newsom, California’s First Partner, and Eleni Kounalakis, the state’s first female Lieutenant Governor, will address more than 1,300 graduates and their families over two ceremonies May 18-19. The Class of 2019 will be the largest in UC Merced’s history.

William Shakespeare’s plays are meant to be enjoyed by a live, theater audience and there is no better place to experience The Bard than Yosemite National Park.

For the third year, UC Merced is bringing Shakespeare’s wit and wisdom to audiences in a natural setting, similar to the forest that inspired the playwright’s own writings. Yosemite National Park will be transformed into the Forest of Arden where students, faculty, park rangers and community members will perform “As You Like It” -- one of Shakespeare’s pastoral comedies -- with a twist.

UC Merced staff members, students and alumni participated in an experiment to help people gain a better understanding of others’ opinions without abandoning their own viewpoint or values.

Getting people to talk about polarizing topics while remaining respectful was the goal behind last week’s “3 Practices for Crossing the Difference Divide,” a two-day workshop series designed to expose campus and community members to a structured and thoughtful way of talking about differences of opinion.

UC Merced’s Vice Provost and Graduate Dean Marjorie S. Zatz was selected as one of the Top 35 Women in Higher Education in Diverse: Issues In Higher Education’s eighth annual special report recognizing the contributions of women to higher education.

The edition, in honor of Women’s History Month, marks the publication’s 35th anniversary by highlighting 35 women who are tackling some of higher education’s toughest challenges, exhibiting extraordinary leadership skills and making a difference in their respective communities.