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Remarks and Writings

September 9, 2021
To: All Campus Saturday, Sept. 11, is the 20th anniversary of a day of profound national grief: the day terrorists attacked New York and Washington, in which thousands of people died. Two decades later, our war in Afghanistan — the longest in this nation’s history — has just been brought to its conclusion. For many of us, that Tuesday... Read More
June 15, 2021
Re: A Record-Breaking Gift To: All faculty and staff June 15, 2021   Dear Colleagues,   This has been a record-breaking year in so many ways.   Despite the pandemic, we have the largest enrollment in our history and the largest number of first-year applications for fall, the integration of the magnificent... Read More
June 4, 2021
Re: Celebrating Pride Month To: All Campus  June 4, 2021   Dear Campus Community,   One year after the start of the Stonewall Uprising, on June 28, 1970, the first Pride parades and marches were organized. Pride Month now takes place annually in June as a month of remembrance and celebration, and to renew our... Read More
May 12, 2021
Re: Reflecting on the Semester To: All campus May 12, 2021   Dear Campus Community,   This has been a momentous academic year, for our campus, our country and our world, with major events whose effects remain with us.   For more than a year we have coped with the COVID-19 pandemic, while remaining committed... Read More
April 21, 2021
Re: Interview - Breaking Barriers in Higher Education To: All campus April 21, 2021   In this podcast interview with Diverse: In the Margins, Chancellor Juan Sánchez Muñoz, a first-generation college student who became a lifelong advocate for providing education and social mobility for students from underrepresented backgrounds,... Read More
April 20, 2021
Re: On the Chauvin Trial Verdict To: All campus April 20, 2021   Dear Campus Community,   The killing of George Floyd was a tragedy that drew international attention to problems within American policing — attention that was overdue, and problems that have long been a stain on our nation.  ... Read More
March 24, 2021
  Re: Honoring Cesar Chavez To: All campus March 24, 2021   Dear Campus Colleagues,   Fifty-five years ago this week, a major movement in US civil rights history spent the night in Merced on its march from Delano to Sacramento to fight for the basic dignity of California farm workers.   Cesar... Read More
March 19, 2021
Re: We Stand With Our AAPI Community and Against Hate To: All campus March 19, 2021   Dear Campus Community,   We have witnessed a recent, disturbing rise in unprovoked violence and harassment toward Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) across the nation — including the homicides in Georgia this week of... Read More
March 18, 2021
RE: A Different Sort of Pandemic To: All campus March 18, 2021   Dear Campus Community:   It has been a year since California issued the emergency shelter-in-place order that officially confirmed that COVID-19 was upending our world. Even as decreasing infection rates and increasing vaccination rates give us hope, it is... Read More
March 10, 2021
Re: UC Merced's First Rhodes Scholar To: All faculty and staff March 10, 2021   Dear Campus Community,   It gives me great pleasure to announce to our community the naming of UC Merced’s first Rhodes Scholar — Selina Brinkmann, a mechanical engineering master's student who will go on to study... Read More

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