Art & Culture

UC Merced Aerial Picture
Writer-in-Residence Mark Arax Chronicles California's Lifeblood: Water
September 18, 2025
UC Merced has debuted a writer-in-residence program with one of California’s premier chroniclers of its history, especially the titanic power plays for land and water that have shaped the state’s growth and loom over its future. Mark Arax... Read More
Humanities Grad Student Advocates for Student Parents
July 24, 2025
When Nicolette Lecy began her graduate studies at UC Merced, life was anything but typical. It was August 2020, in the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lecy’s classes were held remotely, and she had limited access to campus. Another... Read More
New Dining Space Mural Honors Native Heritage, Student Perseverance
June 6, 2025
Hidden for a year behind two large barn-style doors, a powerful new mural now adorns the walls of the Yablokoff-Wallace Dining Center. The latest piece of public art on the UC Merced campus explores Native past and future with themes of... Read More
Into the Woods: Nature Works its Magic in Shakespeare in Yosemite
April 15, 2025
If Arden, the sprawling, wild forest in William Shakespeare’s “As You Like It,” were in the United States instead of the Bard’s imagination, it would certainly be a national park. Like Yosemite. That is why this light comedy is an ideal... Read More
Central Valley Stories Seminar Connects Students to Community
March 18, 2025
Among the UC Merced students’ impressive creations in the dimly lighted room — dioramas, poems, photo collages, paintings in bold colors — Derek Miller’s creation attracted attention. Because it gurgled. It was a tall box open on one side... Read More
Stargazing and Lecture Offer Unique Perspectives on Stars and Exoplanets
February 27, 2025
The night sky is filled with countless mysteries and worlds yet to be explored but that someday might be visited by spacecraft. In a free event titled “Celestial Tales: Stars, Exoplanets and the Myths That Connect Us,” on March 6, the... Read More
Center Engages Campus, Community with Africa and its Diaspora
February 27, 2025
This story is part of a series for Black History Month. Read more stories highlighting Black excellence at UC Merced. The brutal deaths of African Americans George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and others at the hands of police officers five years... Read More
New Hmong School Curriculum in Spotlight at UC Merced Conference
February 26, 2025
Educators from across California will gather at UC Merced for an up-close look at a curriculum that teaches schoolchildren about Hmong Americans — their history in Southeast Asia, their cultural traditions, and their journeys to the United... Read More
Todo Cambia Festival Takes New Artistic Directions
February 24, 2025
Todo Cambia, UC Merced’s annual Human Rights Film Festival, is about more than film this year. The seven-day festival kicks off Saturday, March 1 with a talk and readings by a former Texas state poet laureate. Days later, a UC Santa... Read More
5 Questions for Indigenous Author of Acclaimed Memoir Coming to UC Merced
February 11, 2025
Deborah Taffa, an Indigenous author and educator whose book about growing up in a mixed-race home and struggling with social acceptance was hailed as one the best memoirs of 2024, will make a special visit to Merced this month. Taffa will... Read More