Elizabeth Arakelian

When Alyssa Young returned to Long Beach after earning her bachelor’s degree in psychology from UC Merced in 2017, she didn’t imagine she would be back in Merced just one year later.

It’s a new school year, which also happens to be a new chapter of the UC Merced Writing Project.

The UC Merced Writing Project is a local affiliation of the National Writing Project, which aims to improve writing skills among students as well as the art of teaching writing among educators.

The National Writing Project’s mission is to enhance student achievement by improving the teaching of writing, and therefore learning, in the nation’s schools.

California’s drought was hard not to notice — the dry lawns, fallowed fields and hot temperatures were evident across the state. To better understand how the drought affected the natural ecosystem in which we live, biology Professor Jason Sexton and his graduate students conducted a study on a California plant known only from the Sierra Nevada — the cut-leaf monkey flower.

Harrison Duran has always wanted to discover ‘the land before time,’ and his desire to dig up dinosaur bones led him to the Badlands of North Dakota, where Alice the Triceratops was waiting for him.

A decade has passed since Sam Fong (’09) crossed the stage to get his diploma and walked through Beginnings for the first time as part of UC Merced’s inaugural graduating class, and a lot has changed.

For one, the student population has quadrupled to nearly 8,000. The campus is in the midst of a massive expansion. But the 2019 commencement ceremonies provided a pause and a perfect opportunity for Fong and other first graduates to reflect on the university’s early days.

Parents don’t have to venture to San Francisco to give their children a taste of opera. With UC Merced’s Children’s Opera, little ones can have a unique cultural experience without straying outside city limits.

The Children’s Opera is geared toward children ages 3 and older. Just like the audience members, the performance is mini in size — just 45-minutes long — and features classical music coupled with an engaging story.

When Anna Ocegueda walks across the stage at UC Merced’s 2019 commencement, it will be not only a powerful moment for her, but for her family, too — and for the thousands of people who identify with her story.

Ocegueda is the daughter of migrant farm workers from Mexico and as one of five children, is the first in her family to graduate from a four-year university. This weekend, she receives her bachelor’s degree in psychology and a minor in Spanish.

Unlike traditional theater productions, there was no red curtain, special lighting, microphone feedback or elaborate stage makeup at Shakespeare in Yosemite.

Instead, squirrels scurried across the stone stage and among the audience members’ feet. Birds cawed in the nearby trees, as the last of the winter leaves fell between the wooden bench seats of Lower River Amphitheater near Yosemite Falls.

It really feels like you’re a world away, but that’s the goal.

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.

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.