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.
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.
A UC Merced professor entered the bleak world of a fading, 64-year-old man in a Virginia state prison to illustrate the challenges of being elderly and incarcerated.
“Where’s My Coffee Cup?” is a half-hour documentary by media and performance studies Professor Yehuda Sharim. It premieres April 18 at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture. Plans are underway to present the film worldwide, including a possible screening at UC Merced this fall.
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.
The Huntington Library in San Marino is one of the world’s greatest sources for independent research in the humanities, with documents and artifacts that span 11 centuries. Scholars from more than 30 nations visit its reading rooms or tap into its digital services.
Each year, the library awards 15 long-term fellowships for high-quality research. Of those, six are named distinguished fellows, an honor for exceptional work in their field of study.
Among the UC Merced students’ impressive creations in the dimly lighted room — dioramas, poems, photo collages, paintings in bold colors — Derek Miller’s creation attracted attention.
Because it gurgled.
It was a tall box open on one side. Balanced on top was a miniature footbridge made of red Popsicle sticks. Through the open side you could see clear beads dangling from the lid. At the bottom of the box, water trickled noisily into a tray glowing in sky-blue light.
Todo Cambia, UC Merced’s annual Human Rights Film Festival, is about more than film this year.
Deborah Taffa, an Indigenous author and educator whose book about growing up in a mixed-race home and struggling with social acceptance was hailed as one the best memoirs of 2024, will make a special visit to Merced this month.
An exhibition that collects artistic visions from five continents and weaves them into a compelling plea to protect our planet has found the perfect home for the first few months of 2025.
At least that’s how Grace Garnica, manager of UC Merced’s La Galería, sees it. And she has a point: The Central Valley and a university committed to environmental research are ideal for “Actions for the Earth: Art, Care & Ecology.”*
