Diversity & Inclusion

UC Merced has long served as an educational opportunity for undocumented students and their families. A new grant will ensure the university can help more scholars realize their academic, career and personal goals.

UC Merced is one of 32 campuses that will receive support this academic year from the new California Campus Catalyst Fund. To date, the Catalyst Fund has raised nearly $10 million for a three-year initiative founded by educators, funders and advocates.

UC Merced is part of a concerted effort to dramatically increase diversity in physics and astronomy over the next five years.

The campus is one of nine University of California campuses and 15 California State University campuses awarded a $5 million grant from the National Science Foundation through the Cal-Bridge North program.

A new grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will help UC Merced further diversify its community of graduate students and faculty, beginning with the humanities and humanistic social sciences.

UC Merced is uniquely positioned to be a change agent in how the academy addresses diversity in STEM, said Professor Donna Riley, the Kamyar Haghighi Head of Purdue’s School of Engineering Education.

Despite efforts to increase diversity among science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines, inclusion continues to be a struggle, said Donna Riley, professor of engineering education at Purdue University.

Riley, the Kamyar Haghighi Head of Purdue’s School of Engineering Education, will discuss how and why equity and inclusion in STEM have defied decades of research and educational innovation during the Chancellor’s Dialogue on Diversity and Interdisciplinarity lecture on Sept. 13 at UC Merced.

It’s a startling statistic: Nearly 30 percent of UC Merced students who start their college careers in the School of Natural Sciences (SNS) switch to majors outside the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields by their second year.

Nobel laureate Rigoberta Menchú Tum, recognized for her work in social and ethno-cultural reform, has been selected to receive the 2018 Alice and Clifford Spendlove Prize in Social Justice, Diplomacy and Tolerance at UC Merced.

People on college campuses hold a wide range of views, and the First Amendment gives everyone the right to express their opinions. But restricting speech at a public institution — even when what’s said is unpopular, offensive or even hateful — is against the law.

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law, shared that and other messages with students, faculty, staff and administrators at UC Merced this week as part of the Chancellor’s Dialogue on Diversity and Interdisciplinarity lecture series.

When does freedom of speech cross the line and become hate speech? What’s considered protected speech? And, how do universities strike the delicate balance between allowing individuals or groups the right to free speech while protecting those who may be harmed or offended by that speech or the way it is expressed?

These are some of the complex issues that will be discussed Tuesday, Feb. 13, in the Chancellor’s Dialogue on Diversity and Interdisciplinarity speaker series.

UC Merced Chancellor Dorothy Leland united with members of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration in Washington, D.C., earlier this week to call on Congress to pass a permanent legislative solution to protect young immigrants known as Dreamers.