Re: Welcome to the Fall Semester
To: All campus
Dear campus community,
Welcome to an exciting new academic year at UC Merced, one in which our momentum and reputation will continue to increase and our light to shine more brightly for more students and their families.
We begin the semester today with the largest first-year class and largest overall enrollment in school history, totaling nearly 9,200. We welcome the new students who have chosen our university to further their academic journeys and build the personal and social capital to effect positive change — and whose passion and perseverance will bring new energies to our campus community and new knowledge to the world.
We also welcome brilliant new faculty and staff colleagues who will add their intellect, professionalism, and innovation to our mission of teaching, research and critical public service.
This year we will produce ever more groundbreaking research and will continue to craft new academic offerings for current and future students that will culminate in tremendous degrees of impact. We will celebrate new public art displays, making our campus even more inviting to those who visit and inspiring to those who stay.
And we will break ground on our first post-2020 Project facility — the Medical Education Building, advancing our promise to our community of creating a healthier San Joaquin Valley, while also developing additional campus housing, research and classroom facilities.
We will also begin marking important 20th anniversary milestones, commemorating those early days in 2003 when our first faculty, staff, and graduate students began work on what would become the University of California’s newest campus here in Merced. Over the coming years we will shine a most deserving light on those early “pioneers” who helped build this university into a world-class research and teaching institution.
Today, your passion and commitment are what make UC Merced a beacon of light and hope for all of our students, from the Valley, California and beyond. I am thankful to work and learn alongside each of you, and I wish you and our community all the success that a new year can offer.
Go Cats and Paws Up,
Juan Sánchez Muñoz, Ph.D.
Chancellor
