Commencement

For Xiaolong “Harry” Chen, UC Merced is more than a university. “It is a friend and a companion,” he wrote in his application to be student speaker at Fall Commencement. Together, they experienced pre-dawn hours at Lantern Café, early evening discourses with friends, and 11 p.m. sprints to complete homework.

UC Merced will host its second virtual ceremony for the Fall 2020 Commencement on Dec. 19, with a host of changes meant to confer upon students the distinct importance of the achievement.

5:15 a.m.: Wake up. My phone is my alarm, placed under my bed so I must get up to turn it off. Make my bed. Stretch.

Ish Verduzco has a weekday routine. It rarely varies more than 20 to 30 minutes a day.

5:20 a.m.: Listen to an audiobook while I brush my teeth and prep for my morning workout.

The Class of 2020 has officially graduated and while students didn’t cross the stage in typical commencement fashion, the celebration was memorable.

In the first virtual commencement for a University of California campus, UC Merced honored its more than 1,500 bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral graduates with traditional commencement festivities.

While the COVID-19 pandemic has altered many things this spring on the UC Merced campus — from classes and research to events — UC Merced is making sure the Class of 2020 has a forum to commemorate students’ achievements and successes.

UC Merced will host the University of California’s first-ever virtual commencement ceremony Saturday, May 16, to recognize the more than 1,500 candidates who have registered to participate.

Kathryn “Katie” Daniels was a teen when she attended the celebration of the opening of UC Merced. As a child growing up in Merced, Daniels had heard her parents stress the importance of education.

“My mom always talked about the University of California coming to Merced and how that was going to help us,” she said.

Daniels is the first member of her family to have earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Soon, she’ll add her doctorate in Sociology.

Nearly 200 students took part in the campus’s Fall Commencement exercise Sunday at the Joseph Edward Gallo Recreation and Wellness Center as friends and family cheered them on.

Jessica Anderson ’10 served as the commencement speaker, continuing the tradition of having alumni speak at fall commencement. Shavone Charles ’12 and David Do ’09 were the speakers at the previous two fall commencement ceremonies.

Anderson encouraged students to discover what they are passionate about and to take their pioneering spirit with them as they enter the workforce.

The Class of 2009 were pioneers of the Bobcat spirit, overcoming obstacles and defying the odds. Ten years later, we look back at UC Merced’s formative beginnings from the perspectives of those who lived the journey. 

Click the link below to read the story.

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.

Clouds loomed over the Carol Tomlinson-Keasey Quad last weekend, but nothing was going to rain on the parade of the more than 1,300 Bobcats who walked the stage at UC Merced’s commencement.