March 6, 2024
To the campus community,
UC Merced has become a destination of choice.
When Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory began its national rollout of a study on mitigating climate change by capturing carbon dioxide, titled Roads to Removal, our campus was the first stop. A conference of scientists, government officials and students joined last Friday to discuss, debate and define future actions that can accelerate this important effort.
On Saturday, UC Merced hosted more than 500 African American students from across California for the Black Students of California United leadership conference. The daylong gathering featured a powerful keynote address by civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who leads George Floyd’s family legal team.
Throughout the weekend, we hosted the men’s basketball semifinals for the California Pacific Conference. Our team played valiantly, falling short only in the final round, while our campus hosted hundreds of visitors from across the state.
As all this happened, UC Merced delivered admission letters to many of the 29,000-plus applicants for first-year places — and in a university record, received our first acceptance within 21 minutes, from a student in Los Angeles.
This week we showcase our faculty and student strengths during Research Week — another draw for many hundreds of folks from across and outside campus to see precisely what it is we do so well here.
On Monday I had the honor of accepting the American Council on Education/Fidelity Investments Institutional Transformation Award. The award presentation cited the unprecedented progress this young university has made on every front — enrollment, research, fundraising, strategic planning and more. In short, they identified precisely UC Merced is a place people want to be, and a name with which people want to affiliate.
We have every reason to be proud of this university — of our people, our momentum and our growing reputation in the world. I thank you all for your role in building up UC Merced, and for your work in what is yet to come — because our best days are always ahead of us.
Fiat Lux,
Juan Sánchez Muñoz
Chancellor
