Jody Murray

Taliyah Miller would be the first to tell you she arrived at UC Merced with an unwavering, long-range goal: become an anesthesiologist. What she could not have predicted was that a difficult roommate, a therapist’s question and a job she forgot she applied for would upend that goal and leave her better for it.

Miller was raised in Stockton, the third-largest city in the San Joaquin Valley. As the youngest of three with siblings several years older, it was like being an only child. She developed an independent personality early on.

As a child of the Central Valley and a member of a Native tribe, Grace Grinder developed an early awareness of health care disparities affecting rural regions and underserved communities.

While in third grade, Grinder lost her grandmother to what she described as too few physicians nearby to provide timely, quality care. That loss planted a seed.

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. A few more taps and Nayelyi Salazar would be a community college student — a big step for the high-schooler from Delhi, a town of 10,000 that hugs California’s Highway 99.

She hesitated. Days earlier, she received an acceptance letter from a University of California campus. Awesome news, but she couldn’t shake doubts about being UC-worthy. What to do? She leaned back from the laptop. It was a Friday. She would take the weekend to think it over.

Should she go straight to UC Merced?

em·pa·thy (noun): the ability to recognize, understand and share the thoughts, emotions and perspectives of another person.

It is a means of connection, a path to understanding. Can you see where I’m coming from? Walk a mile in my shoes.

UC Merced, a beacon of academic achievement in the San Joaquin Valley, is also a powerful driver of economic growth and prosperity in the region it was created to serve. 

More than a dozen undergraduate students in UC Merced’s Sociology Club were immersed in the discipline’s breadth of research and professional possibilities during the California Sociological Association’s annual conference.

More than six in 10 UC Merced undergraduates are the first in their families to attend a university. The national average for four-year universities is about two in 10.

Opening doors to opportunity for first-generation students is infused into UC Merced’s DNA. Young people who had little to no information at home on how to be a young scholar find solid support, a welcoming campus and kindred spirits.

Only 20 years since undergraduate instruction began, UC Merced is a recognized leader in conducting academic research, developing young minds for career success and driving economic growth, the university’s chancellor said Wednesday.

UC Merced, recognized nationwide for providing access to a world-class education and transforming young scholars’ lives, is a finalist for the inaugural Excellence in Student Success Award offered by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities.

UC Merced is among five universities nominated for the award. APLU, with more than 250 member institutions, advocates efforts to increase student success and workforce readiness; promote research; and bolster community engagement. 

Several points support UC Merced’s nomination:

Spirits were high and futures bright while all else was soaked in a summer storm that made Tuesday morning’s Scholars Bridge Crossing, UC Merced’s traditional greeting to new students, a welcome unlike any before.

Call them Thunder ‘Cats.

The ceremony embraced about 2,000 first-year and transfer students to a campus that this fall semester marks 20 years since the first undergraduate class began at the newly built institution, bringing the power of a University of California education to the Central Valley.