Mariel Garcia accepted a welcoming handshake from the chief of staff for state Sen. Tim Grayson. A large photograph of rolling hills at sunset near Walnut Creek, a city in Grayson’s district, dominated a wall in the compact reception room.
“Good to meet you,” said the chief of staff, Aaron Moreno. “We’ll make sure to get whatever you need.”
With cheers, hugs and leis, more than 1,500 UC Merced graduates received a celebratory sendoff to their bright futures as a prominent keynote speaker told them to make the most of the here and now.
Hundreds of families and friends joined the graduates in three days of commencement ceremonies at the university’s Recreation Field. White picket fences lined the processional path for graduates, faculty and campus leaders of the San Joaquin Valley’s only research institution.
In California’s Kern County, nearly 925,000 people live in oppressive heat 125 days per year.
Several types of relief are offered. Residents can get breaks on energy bills bloated by air conditioning costs. Triple-digit temperatures trigger the opening of public buildings labeled “cooling centers.” Schools and businesses get tips about preventing heat-related illness.
Through the lens of Veronica Adrover we have seen buildings rise, graduates cheer and lasers glow. We’ve seen governors, a First Lady and a former U.S. president. We’ve glimpsed a young bobcat in tall grass and celebrated young Bobcats in labs, corridors and classrooms.
Zachary Silva’s camera escorts us to extraordinary places. We see UC Merced from high above, the land around the campus warped by a fisheye lens. We look straight down a pole at a fluttering U.S. flag and two lonely tractors.
These eye-popping points of view are among other photographs by Silva on display at Carnegie Arts Center in Turlock. The UC Merced student is one of a dozen artists in an exhibition called “Valley Focus: Growing Talent.”
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.
