There was an undeniable feeling of optimism and excitement in January 2020, as the calendar turned to a new year at the University of California, Merced. The university would be welcoming its fourth chancellor in the summer, and celebrating its 15th anniversary and the opening of a slew of shiny new buildings in the fall. By any measure, it was to be a momentous year for UC Merced.
There was an undeniable feeling of optimism and excitement in January 2020, as the calendar turned to a new year at the University of California, Merced. The university would be welcoming its fourth chancellor in the summer, and celebrating its 15th anniversary and the opening of a slew of shiny new buildings in the fall. By any measure, it was to be a momentous year for UC Merced.
As a child, Kevin Dawson traveled from California to visit his grandmother in Harlem, where he recalls playing in Jackie Robinson Park. Dawson, an avid swimmer and surfer, would peer through a fence with his cousins to check out the park’s large swimming pool.
“I remember thinking how fun it’d be to go in the pool. But there was never any water,” he said. “It was a disadvantaged and underfunded community.”
A generous gift from the grandmother of a UC Merced alumna and current staff member is benefitting two undergraduate students who put the UC Merced Library to good use.
Melissa Becerra, a third-year psychology student, and Nathan Parmeter, who graduates this week, are the first recipients of the Carter Joseph Abrescy and Larry Kranich Library Award for Student Research Excellence.
Driving past Merced Falls on the way to Lake McClure doesn’t usually inspire thoughts of a bustling mini-metropolis with its own movie theater.
But a new exhibit opening at the Merced County Courthouse Museum highlights a slice of Merced County’s past as an industrial center and showcases a new collaboration between the museum and the UC Merced Library and a graduate student.
Professor Nicola Lercari is leading his students on a tour of Palenque, the ancient Mesoamerican city that flourished at the peak of Maya civilization. They’re exploring the altar atop the Temple of the Cross, inspecting it from all angles and scrutinizing every detail.
Topics ranging from ethnobotany, public health and feminism to agriculture, urban growth and social movements are among the highlights of the Mesoamerican Studies Center’s upcoming conference at UC Merced.
Examining the power of gender seems like a topic built for today.
But UC Merced history Professor Susan Dwyer Amussen’s new book, “Gender, Culture and Politics in England, 1560-1640: Turning the World Upside Down” examines the cultural, social and political history of England and the ways the image of an upside-down world was used to convey the “proper” roles for men and women during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.
Ibram X. Kendi, one of the nation’s most prolific and accomplished young professors of race, is this spring’s guest speaker as part of the Chancellor’s Dialogue on Diversity and Interdisciplinarity lecture series.
Ibram X. Kendi, one of the nation’s most prolific and accomplished young professors of race, is this spring’s guest speaker as part of the Chancellor’s Dialogue on Diversity and Interdisciplinarity lecture series.