Campus

Most UC Merced students have the desire to help shape the university — whether it’s the culture or the curriculum. Rocco Bowman was no different.

UC Merced’s Small Business Development Center Regional Network is the only entity in the state, and only one of 22 in the nation, to win a Federal and State Technology (FAST) grant from the U.S. Small Business Administration.

The University of California, Merced, has directly invested more than $1.1 billion into the San Joaquin Valley economy since the newest UC campus began start-up operations in July 2000, according to the campus’s Division of Business and Administrative Services.

The investment total represents an increase of $155 million over the past 12 months, the university reported. It includes the cumulative value of all wages and benefits paid, construction contracts awarded, and goods and services purchased within the San Joaquin Valley through August 2014.

Eleventh and 12^th graders and their parents filled the gymnasium bleachers at McLane High School in Fresno on Thursday (Oct. 9) eager to find out what it takes — academically and financially — to access higher education.

With psychiatrists in short supply throughout the community, UC Merced is leveraging modern technology to expand that service to students.

Viola Gregg Liuzzo, a civil rights activist who was killed by the Ku Klux Klan while driving another activist home from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in March 1965, has been named the 2014 recipient of the Alice and Clifford Spendlove Prize in Social Justice, Diplomacy and Tolerance.

UC Merced today launched a redesigned website that features a responsive layout that looks great on phones, tablets and laptops, new and expanded information, a new color palette and wide photo rotators that showcase the campus.

"UC Merced's new website reflects the campus's dynamic and welcoming environment," Assistant Vice Chancellor for Communications Patti Waid said. "Most people's first impressions of UC Merced come from its Web presence, and that presence shines even brighter today."

Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, an author, UC Berkeley professor of public policy and economic expert is coming to Merced to show the film “Inequality for All” and engage with the audience afterward.

The event is sponsored by the University of California, Merced’s Office of the Chancellor and the campus’s Blum Center for Developing Economies.

Shy in high school, Rachel Fang didn’t want to follow the same pattern as a UC Merced student.

“I decided that I was going to change,” Fang said. “I wanted to be more outspoken.”