School of Social Sciences Humanities and Arts

Katherine Cai is on stage, reminiscing about high school.

“My dad tried to teach me geometry. You know how that goes. The questions get more and more difficult and Dad gets more and more frustrated, which leads to both of us having a crisis.”

“We’re all just victims of word problems.”

Laughs ripple through the 100 or so students, faculty and friends in the audience. They can relate.

Cai, a UC Merced psychology major, is halfway through her standup comedy routine, a final performance for Writing 122. And she’s crushing it.

Tsitsi Dangarembga spread the spirit of ubuntu over UC Merced on Wednesday night, imparting its message of “how we can be good people who live well together.”

As one of UC Merced’s first students, Josue “Josh” Franco seized the chance to help shape student government for future scholars on campus; now he has grasped a new opportunity on Capitol Hill.

The three-time alumnus (B.A. ’09, M.A. ’16, Ph.D. ’18) has been awarded the American Political Science Association’s Congressional Fellowship for 2024-25.

A groundbreaking database that tracks 13 decades of annual changes in U.S. home sales and rental prices provides a clearer picture of economic shifts through the 20th century and will be a valuable resource for homebuyers, housing policymakers and the real estate industry, a UC Merced researcher said.

He studied in hallowed halls of academia. His highly respected research takes him halfway around the globe into societies both foreign and familiar. In his newest role, he leads the largest school of a research university less than two decades old but soaring in reputation and influence.

Yet if you ask Leo Arriola about his journey, he uses a surprising word.

“I’m accidental in every possible way,” he said. “Professor. Administrator. Statistically, I shouldn’t be in this position.”

A three-site exhibit is celebrating Chicano art in a collaboration between a university and a community - the culmination of a professor's nine years of effort.

"Alma, Corazón, y Vida: Latino Art Legends from the Mike 'Surrito' Echeverría Collection" will be exhibited starting next month at the UC Merced Art Gallery, La Galería and the Merced Multicultural Arts Center (MAC).

A celebration of stories and a concert highlighting the history of San Joaquin Valley’s railroads are the opening acts of the 2024-25 UC Merced Arts season .

Merced LitFest and Train Station Trios reflect the season’s varied offerings. Gallery exhibitions, concerts, theater performances and a film festival are scheduled on and off campus through May 2025. The creators and their work provide a multilayered experience of the Valley’s people, culture and landscape.

UC Merced political science students returned to Sacramento to get first-hand experience at California’s Capitol with internships.

Experiments conducted by UC Merced researchers find that people who perform good deeds are far more likely to be thought of as religious believers than atheists. Moreover, the psychological bias linking kindness and helpfulness with faith appears to be global in scale.