Events

Twelve years ago, Cassie Gunter was fighting for her life. Now she wants to give back to the group that helped her survive.

At age 22, she went to the emergency room with what she thought was bronchitis. She was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) — an uncommon blood cancer for her age — and rushed to Stanford Hospital.

Growing up in San Juan Bautista, Vanessa Andrade loved hanging out with her father and his collection of cars and tractors.

She spent hours in the “barn” or shop, helping change the oil in cars, playing with tools and tinkering with her grandfather’s old Allis-Chalmers tractor. So perhaps it’s no surprise that this UC Merced senior — and Chancellor’s Scholar — found her academic calling in mechanical engineering.

On Dec. 15, Andrade will participate in the university’s fall commencement ceremony. She next plans to pursue a master’s degree in mechanical engineering.

For the second straight year, UC Merced surpassed its goal of 1,000 donors in a single day for the Give Tue UC Merced campaign.

Over $170,000 was raised — with the help of a generous matching gift from Foster Poultry Farms — for the Build the Future Scholarship Fund. In five years of the university’s annual day of giving, over $1.5 million has been raised through donations and matching gifts, including a previous gift from the Wells Fargo Foundation.

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.

Less than two years after breaking ground on its unprecedented campus expansion, the University of California, Merced, last week celebrated the opening of the first three buildings of the Merced 2020 Project.

More than 400 people were on hand for an opening celebration Thursday, including UC Merced Chancellor Dorothy Leland and UC President Janet Napolitano. Leland and Napolitano also met with students Friday, and visited with more students and their families during move-in.

In creating scholarships to help future generations of Bobcats succeed, UC Merced staff members and alumnae Monique de Villa (’16) and Danielle Armedilla (’12) are cementing the legacy they are leaving for campus.  

De Villa and Armedilla were honored for their generous contributions at last month’s scholarship signing ceremony on Bobcat Day — a thank-you tradition that began a few years ago.

UC Merced’s exuberant spring graduates got the chance to demonstrate their gratitude during the 13th Spring Commencement ceremonies this weekend as many of them paused to thank the faculty members and loved ones who helped them through their college journeys.

During the two ceremonies, UC Merced graduated more than 1,200 students, conferring 1,151 bachelor’s degrees, 18 master’s degrees and a record 49 doctoral degrees.

The dynamics of blood coagulation, evolution of language and carnivore foraging strategies were just a few of the many topics discussed at the third annual Central Valley Regional Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) Student Chapter Conference held on the UC Merced campus April 27.

This weekend, 1,250 UC Merced undergraduate and graduate students, including 52 doctoral candidates — the most in the campus’s 12-year history — are expected to cross the commencement stage and embark on the next chapter of their lives.

“Commencement is the culmination of years of determination and is an exciting time for graduates and their families,” Chancellor Dorothy Leland said. “We are thrilled to celebrate the courage, commitment and spirit of UC Merced students.”

The odds of Tomanik’e Banks graduating from college were slim — only slightly lower than the odds she’d go to college at all.

But Banks had one thing going for her that many others don’t. Determination.

When Banks crosses the commencement stage May 12, she’ll be one of only about 3 percent of foster youth to graduate from college.