College and K-12 Faculty Strengthen Collaboration for Central Valley Students
More than two dozen educators from kindergarten through college converged at UC Merced to discuss the challenges they're facing and the opportunities ahead.
More than two dozen educators from kindergarten through college converged at UC Merced to discuss the challenges they're facing and the opportunities ahead.
Fifteen years ago, UC Merced was designated as a Hispanic-serving institution. And though recent developments at the federal government have left what that designation means in limbo, the mission of serving the university’s largest demographic has remained unchanged.
More than 53 percent of undergraduate students are Hispanic, and 71 percent of enrolled students identify as first-generation (a student whose parents did not complete four-year college degrees).
Three professors are joining UC Merced’s Agricultural Experiment Station this fall, bringing more expertise and resources to the 3-year-old research center.
Pictures accompanying Professor John Abatzoglou's presentation on the 2025 fire season were blurry. That was intentional, he said, because so much about wildfire is unpredictable.
"There's a lot that we know, and a lot we don't know," he said.
What will California's fire season look like in 2025?
A panel of UC Merced experts, joined by the founder of a public safety information nonprofit organization, will conduct an in-depth discussion of the risks, repercussions and forecasts, and what communities can do to be prepared.
The Fire Resilience Seminar and 2025 Wildfire Outlook will take place from 1 to 3 p.m. April 17 in the UC Merced Conference Center. It is free and open to the public.
Helping diplomats navigate new cultures, removing mircroplastics from stormwater and automating raisin processing: These are some of the projects awarded winning scores at UC Merced's fall Innovate to Grow event.
Innovate to Grow, or I2G as it's known on campus, is a twice-a-year showcase for UC Merced engineering and computer science students to demonstrate projects they have been developing.
Teams of students work to address challenges presented to them by clients, then present their results to judges who are experts from around California.
It took Lilly Uvalle a few tries to complete her education at UC Merced.
Uvalle started her collegiate career in the fall of 2010 after graduating from Buhach Colony High School in Atwater.
"I did two years, my freshman and sophomore years," she said. "Then I withdrew. I tried coming back once in 2013 and withdrew again. Then I tried coming back in 2017."
Family obligations, mental health concerns and feeling overwhelmed by what it would take to get back to school got in the way. Then, in 2022, something changed.
Innovate to Grow, or I2G as it’s known on campus, is a twice-a-year showcase for UC Merced engineering and computer science students demonstrating projects they have been developing.
Students compete on teams that are judged by experts from around California. People can see the fall showcase Dec. 19, when teams display the results of their work.
These capstone projects are the culmination of students’ undergraduate careers, but the impacts are far more than academic: Teams work together to tackle real-world problems brought to them by clients.
A new program aimed at training people to be community health workers has already gotten an important boost: a grant to cover scholarships for some attendees.
Coming out of high school in San Jose, Josh Ren found himself with limited options for college. He wasn't sold on UC Merced at first, but eventually jumped at the opportunity to attend a University of California campus.
And now?
"I would definitely recommend it, especially to first-generation students," said Ren, 20, who is in his second year at UC Merced. "They offer great financial aid and have more resources compared to other schools."
