School of Social Sciences Humanities and Arts

An online workshop this week aims to deconstruct one of humanity’s most destructive traits: genocide.

UC Merced’s Department of Cognitive and Information Sciences is bringing together an interdisciplinary panel of scholars for “Understanding Genocide: Neural, Psychological and Political Science Perspectives.” The workshop will be shown live on YouTube from 9 a.m. to noon Friday, May 17.

It was a groundbreaking Tuesday night so there were shovels. Many shovels. Full sized, posterized, miniaturized (in a gift box). All to mark a symbolic turning of earth for UC Merced’s Medical Education Center.

The tools also evoke something Dr. Kenny Banh said nearly a year ago. A top administrator at UC San Francisco's Fresno campus, he was talking about San Joaquin Valley PRIME, a program that prepared students from the Valley for a medical career. Training included at least a year in the Bay Area.

More than 1,300 students plan to participate in UC Merced's Spring 2024 Commencement, celebrated with three distinct ceremonies on the campus's Recreation Field.

The first ceremony honors Graduate Division students and will begin at 6 p.m. Friday, May 10. There will be 27 master's candidates recognized and 67 Ph.D. candidates hooded.

There are 693 undergraduate students set to cross the stage during the ceremony for the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts at 9 a.m. Saturday, May 11.

It’s a pair of special birthdays for UC Merced’s two student-run journals for undergraduates. The Vernal Pool , which publishes creative stories, poems and images, turned 10 this academic year. Meanwhile, it’s the sweet 16th for the Undergraduate Research Journal , which provides an early taste of the lifeblood of graduate and post-grad research — peer-reviewed publication.

Fernando Malagon and his mom stood at the head of a line for guided tours of the university he plans to attend this fall. The informational stroll around UC Merced would be more for her than for him; he visited the campus five years ago on a seventh-grade field trip from Modesto.

Of course, the university has grown since then, not just in square footage but in opportunity and possibility.

Who will UC Merced’s Grad Slam champion be?

Cheer on the finalists on April 8 and find out.

Graduate students from UC Merced’s three schools will take the stage to compete in the Graduate Division’s 10th Grad Slam finals.

The unflinching demand for justice drives the moving images and impassioned ideas packed into the agenda of this year’s UC Merced Human Rights Film Festival, presented by the university’s Global Arts, Media & Writing Studies department.

Editor's note: In honor of Black History Month, the UC Merced newsroom is highlighting some of the organizations, services and people who serve or represent the Black community on campus.

We all need heroes.

Perhaps that was on Roy Wilkins’ mind as he faced the sea of humanity – 250,000 strong – on a warm August afternoon in 1963. At the podium on the Lincoln Memorial, the executive secretary of the NAACP stood to inspire the throng gathered for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

A study conducted by a UC Merced researcher found that people injured through violent acts have a substantially higher risk to die by or attempt suicide.

A new art exhibition curated by Professor ShiPu Wang is reintroducing the diverse art of three California painters to a national audience by bringing representative works from each together for the first time.

“Pictures of Belonging: Miki Hayakawa, Hisako Hibi, and Miné Okubo” will travel to five museums across the country, including a nine-month display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.