After such a hot summer, a cool campus will be a welcome change this fall.

Albert Vasquez is putting to use his more than 30 years of experience in law enforcement and administration as UC Merced’s first assistant vice chancellor for campus and public safety and second police chief.

Note: This story originally ran in the Fall 2015 issue of UC Merced Magazine.

By Joel Patenaude

California, long envied by the rest of the country for its climate, beauty and natural resources, is four years into a drought and in the midst of a water crisis a century in the making.

With Gov. Jerry Brown imposing mandatory water restrictions on residents, the state’s staggeringly complex water woes have taken the sheen off at least some of the California dream.

UC Merced has been identified by Best Colleges as one of the country’s top 50 campuses where students have the most opportunity to interact with different ethnicities, ranking No. 12.

UC Merced is the most ethnically and culturally diverse student body among all University of California campuses.

Enrollment at the University of California, Merced, this fall has climbed to another all-time high of 6,685 students — an increase of 6.7 percent over Fall 2014, according to headcount figures compiled during the third week of instruction.

Professor Marilyn Fogel went from the heat of Africa to the chilly fjords of Norway this summer to lend her biogeochemical perspective to two international, interdisciplinary, intercollegiate research projects.

New School of Engineering Dean Mark Matsumoto is not new to UC Merced. In fact, he’s not even new as the engineering dean, having served in the interim between founding Dean Jeff Wright and Dean Daniel Hirleman.

The UC Merced Police Department will host its annual Light Up the Lantern event on Sept. 19 to support the campus’s Police Mentor Program.

In 2006, UC Merced police officers formed a partnership with UC Merced students with the mission of positively impacting the lives of at-risk students in the local community through mentorship and education. The program, which benefits 200 Merced fourth-grade students annually, operates solely on grant and private funding.