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.
LGBTQ2S+ individuals use tobacco and nicotine products at significantly higher rates than straight and cisgender people, research shows. Reasons can include stress and other health problems brought on by systemic and social prejudice, along with barriers to support for breaking the habit.
UC Merced and CalPride Valle Central have partnered with the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences and advocates from across the nation to develop a program to support efforts by LGBTQ2S+ people to quit smoking.
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.
UC Merced's Nicotine and Cannabis Policy Center has embarked on an innovative partnership with university researchers who can track an entire community’s health and habits with samples of human sewage.
The project aims to determine trends and levels of nicotine use in San Joaquin Valley communities through chemicals in wastewater. Collecting hard data on smoking and vaping can aid NCPC’s mission to help local public health agencies, community organizations and tobacco-control researchers give informed responses to the problem.
The significance of soccer in the San Joaquin Valley cannot be overstated. It’s a sport that connects communities, bridges borders and stretches across generations of fathers and mothers and daughters and sons.
So it is fitting that the Valley’s youngest university has already established a strong presence in collegiate soccer at a coast-to-coast level. Both of UC Merced’s intercollegiate soccer teams are making return trips to national championship tournaments after stellar regular seasons.
Solid and sharable research data must go hand in hand with collaboration and caring to tackle the health gaps that trouble minoritized and underserved populations in the San Joaquin Valley and elsewhere.
That was the main message from a national leader in minority health care disparities during a presentation Oct. 29 at UC Merced. Dr. Eliseo Pérez-Stable, director of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), spoke to students and faculty at the invitation of the university’s Public Health Department.
Information – how it is shaped, delivered and received – is a thread that runs through three dynamic new majors at UC Merced.
Communication and media; neuroscience; and science, technology and ethics will be available to undergraduate students in the fall semester 2025. The majors are centered in the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts but tap into knowledge from the School of Natural Sciences and School of Engineering.
Here’s a rundown:
Tsitsi Dangarembga, a renowned Zimbabwean filmmaker, novelist and cultural activist, was selected as the 16th recipient of the Alice and Clifford Spendlove Prize in Social Justice, Diplomacy and Tolerance.
Tsitsi Dangarembga is best known for her critically acclaimed 1988 debut novel, “Nervous Conditions.” The first book by a Black Zimbabwean woman to be published in English, it won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and is celebrated for its incisive portrayal of colonialism, gender and identity in postcolonial Africa.
Scientists, policymakers and concerned community members will gather at UC Merced this week to compare notes and chart new directions to improve air quality and public health in the San Joaquin Valley.
UC Merced is being recognized from coast to coast as an institution that “redefines academic excellence, Chancellor Juan Sánchez Muñoz said Wednesday in the annual State of the University address.
“As chancellor of this magnificent institution, I tell you that the state of our university is strong, and growing stronger year after year,” Muñoz said.
