Mariel Garcia accepted a welcoming handshake from the chief of staff for state Sen. Tim Grayson. A large photograph of rolling hills at sunset near Walnut Creek, a city in Grayson’s district, dominated a wall in the compact reception room.
“Good to meet you,” said the chief of staff, Aaron Moreno. “We’ll make sure to get whatever you need.”
Temnee Wright (’08) has realized a successful career as legal counsel at several Silicon Valley companies. Her interest in law was forged at UC Merced, where she made the most out of being a student in the university’s first undergraduate class.
Wright is the senior commercial counsel for San Jose-based Astera Labs, a semiconductor company that develops connectivity solutions for AI and cloud infrastructures. She negotiates details of and drafts documents for things like software licenses, vendor contracts, real estate leases and strategic partnerships.
With cheers, hugs and leis, more than 1,500 UC Merced graduates received a celebratory sendoff to their bright futures as a prominent keynote speaker told them to make the most of the here and now.
Hundreds of families and friends joined the graduates in three days of commencement ceremonies at the university’s Recreation Field. White picket fences lined the processional path for graduates, faculty and campus leaders of the San Joaquin Valley’s only research institution.
Through the lens of Veronica Adrover we have seen buildings rise, graduates cheer and lasers glow. We’ve seen governors, a First Lady and a former U.S. president. We’ve glimpsed a young bobcat in tall grass and celebrated young Bobcats in labs, corridors and classrooms.
Only 10 years after it began, the Ph.D. program in UC Merced’s Department of Sociology made an impressive debut in U.S. News & World Report’s latest rankings of graduate-level offerings.
The Sociology graduate program tied for No. 64 nationally, sharing the position with UC Riverside, Temple University, the University of Florida and Washington State University.
UC Merced is only two decades into its mission of shaping the next generation of trailblazers. But that’s more than enough time for multiple Bobcats to come from the same family.
Dawit Gemeda’s sister attended the university about eight years ago, so the surroundings felt comfortably familiar when he and his folks joined thousands of others at Bobcat Day, the annual open house for the San Joaquin Valley’s only research university.
UC Merced students are getting first-hand experience in providing mental health care to the most vulnerable and needful among us, thanks to a partnership between the university and Merced County.
Undergraduate psychology majors are serving as interns at the county’s Department of Behavioral Health and Recovery Services, which works with other agencies to offer a system of care for people living with mental illness or substance abuse disorders.
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 fit for the annual UC Merced theater project that weaves modern issues of environmental stewardship into the 16th-century playwright’s words.
UC Merced’s School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts made a splash in the latest rankings of university graduate programs compiled by U.S. News and World Report.
The university’s Political Science program ranked 52nd in the nation, tied with UC Riverside, Purdue University-West Lafayette, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and Arizona State University.
Sometimes you meet a young person who makes such a powerful impression that you want to vault forward a few decades to see how much they lifted others and elevated our world.
Maddison Crump is one of those people. At age 21 she has logged over a dozen years of making a difference. A self-described “firecracker” as a child, she stood up to schoolyard bullies and peppered her teachers with questions. Her grades were good and her ability to listen to others was exceptional.
“I always had this sense of knowing when something was off with people,” she said.
