Campus supporters, administrative and academic leadership, faculty members, students and alumni gathered for UC Merced’s Celebration of Philanthropic Leaders event, held March 19 to recognize the campus’s annual giving and leadership donors.

“From student scholarships and fellowships to research and athletics support, every part of the UC Merced community benefits from the generosity of our esteemed supporters,” Chancellor Dorothy Leland said. “Over the past decade, our donors’ philanthropy has helped further the mission of this campus, and it will continue to be essential for the next phase of growth and development.”

Leland thanked campus supporters in attendance and highlighted the generosity of six benefactors for their lifetime giving to UC Merced.

Longtime campus supporters Bob and Marie Gallo were honored on behalf of E. & J. Gallo Winery with the Laureate distinction, signifying the highest level of philanthropy. Their contributions to UC Merced, which include funding for the planned Ernest and Julio Gallo School of Management, scholarships and service learning projects, have already had a lasting effect on the campus.

Two couples were recognized at the Visionary level for their generous support.

UC Regent Emeritus and UC Merced Foundation Trustee Fred Ruiz and his wife, Mitzie, have supported the campus by establishing the Ruiz Family Chair in Entrepreneurship and serving as the lead donor to the UC Merced Foundation Board of Trustees Chair. In addition, they have established the Rose R. Ruiz Endowed Scholarship and Fellowship Fund and the Fred and Mitzie Ruiz Endowed Fellowship Fund to support students in their academic pursuits while at UC Merced.  

Dr. Madhu Kris and Dr. Vijaya Tangella were honored for their commitment to students. They named the Kris-Tangella Lecture Hall and founded the Kris-Tangella Academic Excellence Endowed Scholarship Fund, which may be awarded to students with an interest in pursuing a career in the health care industry.

Other invited guests included UC Merced Foundation Board of Trustees, Legacy Circle members, Chancellor’s Associates and annual giving donors.

One of the evening’s highlights was a special performance of the campus’s official alma mater, written by award-winning composer Jimmy Dunne. “My Merced” was performed by recording artist Samantha Schultz.

Another highlight occurred during the chancellor’s closing remarks. In keeping with the evening’s theme of celebrating the campus’s philanthropic leaders, Dr. Hanimireddy Lakireddy, a UC Merced Foundation Trustee and 2015 honoree, announced that he would provide additional support to ensure the establishment of the UC Merced Foundation Board of Trustees Chair. 

The evening included a video showcasing the impact of philanthropy across the campus through the eyes of its alumni. 

Doctoral student Patricia Cabral, who studies adolescent health risk behaviors in the Psychological Sciences graduate group, recently won a highly-competitive Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship — the first of its kind awarded to a UC Merced graduate student.

The $72,000 fellowship will fund three years of research that could eventually have direct effects on the Latino youth of the San Joaquin Valley and beyond.

Cabral researches sexual activity and drug, alcohol and tobacco use in first-, second- and third-generation Latino youth. She’s specifically interested in how factors such as gender norms, parental monitoring, neighborhood quality and traditional Latino cultural values like familismo — which emphasizes family unity — influence the likelihood that youth will engage in these health risk behaviors (HRBs).

“Patty’s research is particularly timely and significant in California, where 50 percent of all children are Latino,” said Professor Jan Wallander, Cabral’s advisor. “Though youth of all different backgrounds may behave in ways that can have impacts on their health — such as engaging in early, unprotected sex — it is especially important for Latino youth to understand how their heritage influences such behavior.”

Cabral also recently won a competitive $3,000 One Health Student Summer Research fellowship from the UC Global Health Institute Center of Expertise for Migration and Health — one of only four such fellowships awarded among all 10 campuses.

She was presenting a paper on similar research at the annual meeting of the Society of Behavioral Medicine when she got the news about the Ford fellowship. Cabral — herself a second-generation Latina and a first-generation student — appreciates that her work is garnering this kind of attention.

“I am honored to be the recipient of these awards, but equally thrilled that these fine institutions are funding such important research,” Cabral said.

Chess players from across the UC system— ranging from beginners to international masters — convened for the 2016 UC Chess Championship held April 23 at the Joseph Edward Gallo Recreation Center gymnasium.

The UC Merced Chess Club played host to the first UC-wide chess tournament, which was sponsored by the Blum Center for Developing Economies and the Associated Students at UC Merced.

“Bringing the campuses together offers incredible competition and challenges that wouldn’t otherwise be possible,” said Electrical Engineering and Computer Science graduate student Michael Sanfilippo, who helped organize the tournament. “It provides an excellent opportunity for us to learn and grow so we can perform better in our future matches.”

Competitors from UC campuses in Berkeley, Davis and Riverside joined UC Merced's contingent of faculty, staff, students and alumni for a total of 35 participants.

Players competed in six matches each and earned a single point for a win and a half-point for a draw. Prizes of trophies and gift cards, donated by the Blum Center, were awarded to the top campus, the top three players and the most promising beginner player.  

UC Davis earned the campus prize. Individual winners were: 

• First place: Maximilian Meinhardt from UC Davis, who is ranked as an international master.
• Second place: Karl Tolentino from UC Davis, who is ranked as a national master.
• Third place: Max Fitton from UC Berkeley.
• Promising beginner: Fatin Nabilah Binti Zainal Abidin from UC Davis.

Director of UC Merced’s bookstore and chess club adviser Kevin Storms placed fifth in the tournament, and UC Merced graduate student Abdur Rafay took sixth place.

“The great thing about chess is that we can all play together — young or old, male or female,” Storms said. “Your imagination and desire to win is all that is required.”

The UC Merced Chess Club meets 3 to 6 p.m. Fridays in the Lantern. For information, email chessclub@ucmerced.edu.

Each spring, the Margo F. Souza Student Leadership Center recognizes and celebrates students, staff and faculty members, and student organizations demonstrating outstanding leadership to the campus and the community.

Thirty campus members or student organizations were recognized across 24 categories during the 2016 UC Merced Leadership Awards held April 28 at the Wallace-Dutra Amphitheater.

“The annual UC Merced Leadership Awards program is a wonderful way for our campus to recognize the hard work of students, advisors and students organizations,” Assistant Director of Student Life Steve Lerer said. “I am amazed by the incredible leadership and commitment to the community demonstrated by all the nominees, finalists and award recipients.”

Winners, selected by the 2016 Leadership Awards Committee and a campus-wide application review team, include:

• Carol Tomlinson-Keasey Award: Desiree Mc Clain
• Legacy Award: Thu Tran
• Distinguished Leader Awards: Brenda Yu, Aspen Fernando, Eric Chu and Domonique Jones
• Inspirational Bobcat Award: Savanna Briggs
• Organization President of the Year Award: Mercy Maina
• Outstanding Advisor Award: Ross Avilla
• Outstanding Graduate Student Award: Danielle Bermudez
• Social Justice Leadership Award: Whitney Do
• Fraternity and Sorority Council Outstanding Chapter of the Year: Delta Gamma
• Professional Fraternity Council Outstanding Chapter of the Year: Delta Epsilon Mu
• Fraternity and Sorority Life Outstanding New Member of the Year Award: Andrea Gurrola
• Fraternity and Sorority Life Outstanding Member of the Year: Karen Munoz
• Contribution to Student Affairs Award: Devonyo Bills, Carli Bardier, Michael Pierick and Jason Davis
• Student Organization of the Year: Students Advocating Law and Education
• Outstanding New Student Organization of the Year: Society of Physics Students
• University Friends Circle Distinguished Volunteer Scholarship: Marqose Saephan
• University Friends Circle Community Service Organization Award: Ingenieros Unidos
• Margo F. Souza Entrepreneur in Training Team Scholarship: BLOX
• Margo F. Souza San Joaquin Valley Mentor of the Year: Fabian Filipp
• Program of the Year: “Health Professional Panel” by The American Medical Student Association
• Cobi Jones Male Sport Club Athlete of the Year: Brandyn Ryan
• Sport Club Female Sport Club Athlete of the Year: Ai-Linh Alten
• Intercollegiate Male  Athlete Award: Andy Galvan
• Georgette “Ma” Kelley Intercollegiate Female Athlete Award: Courtney Danna

Get more information about individual awards online.

Anita Hill’s public testimony during the Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas in 1991 raised national awareness of sexual harassment and led to many changes in workplace laws and practices to protect both women and men from harassment.

At a ceremony this fall, 25 years after the hearings that thrust her into the national spotlight, Hill will become the 10th recipient of the Alice and Clifford Spendlove Prize in Social Justice, Diplomacy and Tolerance from the University of California, Merced.

The Spendlove Prize was established at UC Merced’s opening in 2005 through a generous gift to the university from Sherrie Spendlove in honor of her parents, lifelong Merced residents Alice and Clifford Spendlove.

“Anita Hill is a powerful role model for having the courage and the integrity to step up and speak the truth, for her calm dignity in holding to her truth in the face of vicious attacks and for her steadfastness in dedicating her life to teaching, mentoring, educating and enlightening young people in the tenets of social justice,” Sherrie Spendlove said.

The 1991 hearings — portrayed in the recent HBO film “Confirmation,” with Kerry Washington starring as Hill — are considered a watershed moment for women’s rights. Spendlove noted that more women ran for and were voted into legislative office in the years immediately following the hearings.

Hill, who in 1989 became the first African-American tenured professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Law, is now the University Professor of Law in Brandeis University’s Heller Graduate School of Policy and Management. Her latest book, “Reimagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race and Finding Home,” provides an analysis of the housing market collapse of 2008 and its impact on gender and racial equality.

“Dr. Hill gave public voice to the injustice represented by sexual harassment, which women previously suffered in silence, and her courage exemplifies the qualities that the prize honors,” said Jill Robbins, dean of UC Merced’s School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts (SSHA). “As a professor at Brandeis University, with publications addressing inequalities in housing, education and money-lending practices, Dr. Hill remains a role model for women and men concerned with questions of social justice.”

Hill’s selection as this year’s Spendlove Prize recipient provides some symmetry — Charles Ogletree, who was Hill’s legal counsel during the hearings, was named the first Spendlove Prize winner in 2005 and spoke at UC Merced’s opening. Like many of the previous winners, Ogletree will be on hand to honor Hill at this year’s event, scheduled for Oct. 24 at the Merced Theatre.

“My wife and daughter were not with me in Washington during the hearings, but speaking to them every night, I realized that I was on the side of history,” said Ogletree, the Jesse Climenko Professor at Harvard Law School and Founding and Executive Director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice. “I have never been proven wrong in representing Anita Hill.”

The Spendlove Prize Selection Committee is chaired by the dean of SSHA and includes a representative from the Spendlove family or a designee; an undergraduate student; a graduate student; a faculty member; and representatives from the UC Merced community. The Spendlove Prize includes a $10,000 award.

Previous recipients of the award are:

• 2014 — Viola Gregg Liuzzo, a white activist for African-American civil rights who was slain by the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama in March 1965.
• 2013 — Jonathan D. Jansen, South Africa’s first black dean, who is widely known for his policy of “reconciliation over revenge.”
• 2012 — Peter Balakian, an award-winning author and a leading voice of Armenian Genocide recognition, and winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
• 2011 — Cruz Reynoso, a former California Supreme Court Justice and civil rights lawyer who has spent his life fighting for immigrants' rights.
• 2010 — Former President Jimmy Carter, who made the global quest for basic human rights a central part of his work post-presidency.
• 2009 — Faye J. Crosby, a professor of psychology at UC Santa Cruz and expert on affirmative action and inclusiveness.
• 2008 — Sara O'Meara and Yvonne Fedderson, Nobel Peace Prize nominees and founders of Childhelp, a nationwide organization devoted to the prevention and treatment of child abuse.
• 2007 — John Y. Tateishi, a civil rights activist who led the successful redress campaign for Japanese-Americans in the aftermath of World War II internment.
• 2005 — Charles J. Ogletree Jr., a Merced native, professor of law and founding executive director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard University.

The UC Merced campus is getting greener and earning gold as it does — gold ratings, that is.

UC Merced improved its rating through the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education’s Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS), a rigorous review process that takes the better part of a year to complete, but makes the campus eligible for other popular sustainability ranking lists like the Princeton Review’s Green Colleges and Sierra Club’s Cool Schools.

“We improved from silver to gold, and we intend to meet the platinum rating by 2020,” campus Sustainability Director Colleen McCormick said. “We want to be the first UC campus to do so.”

So far, only one university in the country has met the platinum standard —Colorado State University — but UC Merced is only about 19 points away.

STARS provides a framework for understanding sustainability across all sectors of higher education. Detailed reports must be filed for each of four categories: academics, engagement, operations, and planning and administration.

Because the campus has been designed to be sustainable in most every aspect, attaining platinum status is a reasonable goal, McCormick said.

“We embrace sustainability throughout the campus, from curriculum and research to transportation and construction,” Strategic Facilities Planning Senior Analyst Breeana Sylvas said. “By using STARS, we can track all of our sustainable practices.”

UC Merced’s green efforts have earned it more than 25 state and national awards for environmental sustainability and design. Every building project on campus has earned the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification.

STARS enables comparisons over time and across institutions using a common set of measurements. Each documentable component of the review earns points and identifies opportunities for improvement and strategic planning.

For example, McCormick said, the sustainability curriculum could be expanded through the creation of living-laboratory opportunities. There have been new additions, including the LEED Lab class, in which students conduct a sustainability audit of campus buildings operations and maintenance and, through the class, become eligible to sit for the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Green Associate and Accredited Professional credential exams. But more classes and projects help students learn how comprehensive sustainability efforts can be, she said.

More than 750 institutions on six continents use the STARS reporting tool, and the results are available to anyone who wants to see them online.

McCormick and Sylvas are working on a strategic plan for future projects and initiatives the campus can undertake to bring its score up even higher, including developing a campuswide sustainability database for more efficient data collection.

“There are just so many aspects of our sustainability practices, it’s challenging to keep track of everything,” McCormick said. “Perhaps that, too, could be a student project that would earn us more points.”

Eleven UC Merced students were honored during a recent dinner for completing the Margo F. Souza Leadership Center certification program.

“The inaugural graduation dinner was four years in the making, but I'm super excited,” said Steve Lerer, assistant director of Student Life and the center’s coordinator. “These students have completed a minimum of 30 hours of leadership training.”

The center was established in 2014 through a $1 million donation by Souza, a prominent businesswoman. The goal of the center is to train students to be leaders and entrepreneurs.

The following graduated from the program this year:

• Mercy Miana
• Brandon Huber
• Alyssa America
• Reza Jahanbani
• Jannani Krishnan
• Brenda Capurro
• Laura Hernandez-Rodriguez
• Gustavo Razo
• Chhaiyudh Tann
• Faustina Barnard
• Rachel Fang

The certification program is made up of three tiers. The first is the Bobcat Leadership Seminar, with seven hours of training focused on the Social Change Model of Leadership Development. The second tier, the PAWS Leadership Seminar, involves 12 hours of training focused on the topics of passion, action, wellness and servant leadership. The third tier, the Leadership in Action Capstone, provides an opportunity for students to put what they learned into action by planning and implementing six-month community engagement projects and partnering with campus clubs to accomplish their plans.

At the end of the program, each student submits a five-page paper reflecting on what he or she learned and how the growth in leadership knowledge, skills, capacity and self-efficacy will be used to make a positive impact in the world.

“We’ve had tremendous growth in our first and second tiers over this past year, and we are on track to more than double the number of Souza Center graduates in the 2016-17 academic year,” Lerer said.

For information, contact the leadership center at lead@ucmerced.edu or 209-228-4228.

The GoodCall 2016 Best Schools for Scholarships Report has ranked UC Merced No. 8 out of 4,000 U.S. public colleges and universities for earning scholarships.

The report examined the amount of scholarship and fellowship dollars available to students. UC Merced students received an average of $7,944 during the 2014 survey period. 

“As loan debt continues to be a significant concern for students and their families, UC Merced is pleased to be recognized as one of the top universities in the nation in terms of the average scholarship and fellowship dollars awarded per student,” Director of Financial Aid and Scholarships Ron Radney said. “This ranking is reflective of the commitment of our campus, the UC system and our donors to support student access to a world-class education.”

The ranking is based on the average amount of scholarship or fellowship dollars per enrolled student, which was provided by the National Center for Education Statistics. At the time of the report, UC Merced’s enrollment was 6,508.

Read the full report.
  

Harkanwalpreet Sodhi, a third-year bioengineering student, won a $10,000 Donald A. Strauss Foundation scholarship to help visually impaired people in Merced.

The scholarship will help Sodhi start a campus organization titled Engineers for COVE, which will pair a large group of engineering students from UC Merced with the Merced Center of Vision Enhancement (COVE) to develop new assistive technologies based on clients’ needs.

“They’ve never had a group of engineers work with them before, and we can help develop a lot of applications that will help people,” Sodhi said. Examples he offered included engineering 3-D models of objects to help blind children understand what something looks like, or developing a device to help blind people measure foods like sticks of butter.

The Donald A. Strauss Public Service Scholarship Foundation was established as a memorial to the late Don Strauss of Newport Beach and supports the public service projects of as many as 15 California college sophomores and juniors annually.

Sodhi, originally from Half Moon Bay, said he is interested in COVE because of his own experiences having had eye surgery and being visually impaired. He is part of the School of Engineering and works with Professor David Ardell in his computational biology lab. Sodhi will graduate next spring — just three years in — and is applying to Ph.D. programs.

Over the summer, he plans to recruit at least 20 other students who want to join Engineers for COVE so they can start work on projects in the fall. Even though Sodhi will graduate next year, he wants to make sure the group can continue even after he’s gone.

His excellent work as a student made him eligible for the scholarship, and he said it was an honor to learn he’d won.

“I got a call from Duncan Strauss, who’s my Strauss Foundation mentor, telling me they had chosen me,” he said. “That felt really good.”

The American Academy of Arts & Sciences has awarded its prestigious May Sarton Prize for Poetry to Vanesha Pravin, a lecturer in UC Merced’s Merritt Writing Program.

The award, considered one of the top national prizes in this field, recognizes young poets for their achievement and promise. Winners receive $60,000 as part of the prize.

The Academy’s current membership includes more than 250 Nobel laureates and more than 60 Pulitzer Prize winners. All members help in the prize selection.

In its official notification to Pravin, the Academy wrote that she has “remarkable talent and enormous potential to express deeply personal ideas and emotions that connect to us all.” Pravin’s work was selected for its role in advancing the art of poetry through command of language and form, and exploration of sound and rhythm.

Pravin’s work has appeared in Slate and the journals Callaloo and Crab Orchard Review, among others. She published her first collection of poems, “Disorder,” last year through the University of Chicago Press. She has another book in the works.

Pravin’s motivation for the poems that make up the book was the idea of how a person’s worldview is inherited and shaped by environment, lineage and factors independent of background. The end result, she said, is “a sequence of lyric and narrative poems that intersperses the past and present, from rural villages and cities in India and Africa, to England, and then to the U.S.” — all written from the perspective of her mother.

“The same material might have been remembered and interpreted differently by another person,” Pravin said. “The whole idea of ‘Disorder’ includes the disorder of memory and how things shift and distort through remembrance.”

Three grants totaling more than $3.6 million from the U.S. Department of Education will help UC Merced’s Center for Educational Partnerships (CEP) continue its Talent Search program, which helps high school students from disadvantaged backgrounds pursue postsecondary education.

“We are honored to receive additional grant funding, evidence of the great work being done to provide crucial resources and opportunities for San Joaquin Valley high school students,” Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Charles Nies said. “These new grants will enable us to expand our existing support and increase the number of students who are college ready and aware of the greatest number of post-secondary options available to them, both academically and financially.”

The five-year grants will support academic, college preparation and financial counseling for approximately 1,500 high school students from six area high schools: Fresno, Roosevelt, Corcoran, Farmersville, Le Grand and Delhi.

Through the Talent Search program, students learn about financial aid opportunities and are walked through the college application process. Students’ families will also benefit from the Talent Search program, as they will be included in many workshops.

Each program participant must meet federally outlined eligibility guidelines, which include being a citizen or national of the U. S., being a permanent resident of the U. S., and being considered low-income and a potential first-generation college student (neither parent completed a bachelor’s degree).

Approximately 2,100 high school students have benefited from the initial grants CEP received from the Department of Education in 2006 and 2011.

Ana Gonzalez Pena is one such student who graduated Strathmore High School in 2009.

“As a first-generation, low-income student, I never dreamed that I would be able to attend and afford college,” she said. “Talent Search guided me throughout my senior year and exposed me to college campuses I didn’t know existed.”

Gonzalez Pena tapped into the available Talent Search funded resources and was accepted at UC Merced, graduating in 2013 with a degree in psychology. She earned a master’s in counseling from California State University, Bakersfield, and now works for the Center for Educational Partnerships under the Talent Search grant as an academic preparation specialist serving Corcoran, Strathmore and Farmersville.

“I had such a good experience with this program that I decided that I wanted a career in education,” Gonzalez Pena said. “I believe this program is very impactful for students.”

UC Merced will honor Anita Hill as the 10th recipient of the Alice and Clifford Spendlove Prize in Social Justice, Diplomacy and Tolerance in an Oct. 24 ceremony at the Art Kamangar Center at the Merced Theatre.

The ceremony begins at 6 p.m. and is open to the public, but registration is required.

In addition, several other events related to Hill’s visit will be held on campus and in the community in the weeks prior to the Oct. 24 ceremony. A full list of events can be found below.

Hill’s public testimony during the 1991 Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas thrust her into the national spotlight and raised national awareness of sexual harassment. The hearings — portrayed in the 2016 HBO film “Confirmation,” with Kerry Washington starring as Hill — are considered a watershed moment for women’s rights and led to changes in workplace laws and practices to protect women and men from harassment.

Hill has been an advocate for equality and social justice for decades. She is an attorney and professor of social policy, law and women's studies at Brandeis University and a faculty member of Brandeis' Heller School for Social Policy and Management.

The Spendlove Prize was established in 2005 through a gift to the university from Sherrie Spendlove in honor of her parents, lifelong Merced residents Alice and Clifford Spendlove.

Hill’s selection as this year’s Spendlove Prize recipient provides some symmetry — Charles Ogletree, who was Hill’s legal counsel during the hearings, was named the first Spendlove Prize winner in 2005 and spoke at UC Merced’s opening. Like many of the previous winners, Ogletree will be on hand to honor Hill at this year’s event and will hold a book signing the next day.

Schedule of Events

Oct. 13, 1 p.m.
Film screening: “Confirmation”
California Room

Oct. 17, 1 p.m.
Film Screening: “Confirmation”
Bobcat Lair

Oct. 18, noon to 1:15 p.m.
Academic panel: “Anita Hill: History, Gender, Race and the Law”
Student Services Building, Room 120
Note: Panel includes UC Merced faculty members Susan Amussen, Mark Harris, Inga Maples and Nigel Hatton.

Oct. 20, 8 p.m.
Film Screening: “Confirmation”
Hosted by AFRO Hall Living and Learning Community
Location TBD

Oct. 24, 6 p.m.
Spendlove Prize ceremony
Art Kamangar Center at the Merced Theatre
Note: Register to attend.
Contact: 209-228-RSVP or specialevents@ucmerced.edu. 

Oct. 25, 3-4:30 p.m.
Charles Ogletree book signing
Barnes & Noble, 1720 W. Olive Ave., Merced

UC Merced’s H. Rajender Reddy Health Center, Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) and Health Promotion received accreditation from the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC), distinguishing the university from many other facilities.

The campus received its initial three-year accreditation in July after AAAHC completed a two-day, on-site audit of more than 400 different policies and procedures in patient care, administration, facilities, patient privacy, mental health, counseling, health promotions, quality of care, collaboration, quality assurance and other areas.

“This is the gold standard for student health and counseling, and is a great accomplishment,” medical director Dr. Brandon Boggs said. “It shows we are practicing at the highest level of care in student health, student counseling and health promotion.”

It’s also significant for the campus because not all college health centers have obtained accreditation.

“Getting accreditation this early on in the history of the campus is remarkable,” Boggs said. “It demonstrates the great work the health center, health promotion and CAPS are doing for our students.”

The health center offers on-campus primary care services, psychiatry services and a wide range of other health services to enrolled students. CAPS provides counseling and psychological services to help students cope with issues like relationships, stress, anxiety and depression, so they can be successful academically, professionally and personally. Together, the center and CAPS provided more than 13,000 appointments during the 2015-16 academic year.

Trained peer health educators in the Health Promotion office give students the resources, information and skills necessary to make healthy life choices and work to create a healthier campus overall.

The campus’s accreditation team spent the past two years gearing up for accreditation and is already working on the requirements necessary for reaccreditation in three years.

UC Merced Professor Rick Dale is a recipient of the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences (FABBS) Early Career Impact Award from the Society for Computers in Psychology.

Dale, a cognitive scientist in the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts, studies how our bodies reveal clues to our thoughts and social interactions that are otherwise invisible. These cues can be subconscious and subtle — a quick eye movement, a change in the pitch of a voice, the way we hold a computer mouse — but can reveal whether people will work well together on a project, how much we do or don’t agree with a coworker, or how well students understand classroom material.

The FABBS Early Career Impact Awards recognize scientists who are in the early stages of their professional careers and have already shown promise as leading researchers. In selecting honorees, FABBS draws upon the expertise of its member scientific societies to identify early career candidates who have made significant contributions to their areas of science.  

In honor of his recognition, Dale’s work was recently featured on the FAABS website in the article, “Deciphering Clues in Human Behavior.” 

Lambda Alliance, in collaboration with other campus units, offices and departments, will host UC Merced’s annual Pride Week program celebrating LGBTQ+ identity and culture.

From April 3-9, students and staff and faculty members are encouraged to participate in numerous activities taking place across campus that highlight the campus’s LGBTQ+ community and available resources.

This year’s theme, “Waves,” symbolizes characteristics of the LGBTQ+ community.

“The fluidity of an ocean wave illustrates the fluidity of sexuality and gender identity spectrums. The LGBTQ+ rights movement has acted as a wave of change that reclaims human rights for the community,” said student Andre Frise-Valdez, president for Lambda Alliance.  “Additionally, just as smaller waves congregate to form larger and more powerful waves, the LGBTQ+ community bands together in solidarity to embody one powerful and intersectional voice.”

Brandon Baldomero, a third-year cognitive science major, remembers the impact of his first Pride Week on campus.

“Pride Week was one of the first Lambda Alliance events I attended after coming out,” Baldomero said. “Seeing that there is a community of people who accept and support me has since catapulted me into a life of queer activism.

“Pride Week to me means being visible and unapologetically proud of your identity.”

The campus’s LGBTQ+ community and allies can participate through a variety of ways:

April 3

• Pride Parade, 12:45-1 p.m., Cat Quad near dining

Help kick off Pride Week by marching together with LGBTQ+ and ally community.

• Pride Carnival, 1-4 p.m., Scholars Lane

Enjoy carnival food and games while learning about the LGBTQ+ community at resource and activity booths at UC Merced’s annual Pride Carnival.

• “Moonlight” film screening, 6-9 p.m., California Room

A film screening of the Oscars 2017 Best Picture, “Moonlight,” examines queer black self-exploration and romance through an intersectional lens.

April 4

• Debunking Stereotypes, noon-1 p.m., in front of the Kolligian Library

Can you pick out who fits where in the LGBTQQIP2SAA+ acronym? This panel breaks the “gaydar” myth that people can tell someone’s sexual or gender identity simply by looking at them or speaking to them.

• Pride Expression Wall, 2:30-5:30 p.m., Carol Tomlinson-Keasey Quad

Show your artistic side and express encouragement, support and love for the LGBTQ+ community on the communal graffiti wall.

• Gender Inclusive Treasure Hunt, 2:30-5:30 p.m., Carol Tomlinson-Keasey Quad

Explore the campus to locate every gender-inclusive restroom. Take a selfie in front of each one to win a prize.

April 5

• Queer & Religious, 2-3:30 p.m., Crescent Arch Room

Professor Susan Shaw from Oregon State University answers the question “Can you be queer and religious?” followed by a discussion on how culture — not religion — perpetuates queerphobia and transphobia.

• Express Yourself: Art & Open Mic Night, 7-9 p.m., Wallace-Dutra Amphitheater

A night of self-expression through dance, spoken word, poetry, music and other art forms. Guest performers include some of UC Merced’s finest expression groups. 

April 6

• Building Community Awards, 3:30-5 p.m., Elizabeth’s Garden in the Yablokoff-Wallace Dining Center

These awards recognize the contributions of individuals on campus and in the larger Merced community who have shown outstanding service toward concerns affecting the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer+ (LGBTQ+) community at UC Merced.

• Lambda Alliance general meeting: Sex Positivity & Healthy Relationships, 5-6:30 p.m., Bobcat Lair

Join Lambda Alliance’s weekly general meeting and share space with Good Vibrations and UC Merced’s CARE Office in an interactive workshop that explores healthy relationships and sex positivity within the queer and transgender community.

April 7

• Lavender Community Unite, noon-1:30 p.m., Science and Engineering Building 2 Breezeway

A conversational space for building community with LGBTQ+ and ally undergraduate, graduate, postdoc, and staff and faculty members.

April 8

• Queer Picnic, 2-5 p.m., Lake Yosemite

Join us for a day out at beautiful Lake Yosemite with fun games, activities and food.

April 9

• Lube Olympics, 2-5 p.m., Mariposa Hall lawn

Celebrate sex positivity and learn about queer culture via a game of Queer Jeopardy. Don’t get an answer wrong or you might get slimed with lube! If you’re not down with lubing up, try your fashion skills by racing in drag while learning about safe sex practices.

Ten years after receiving its first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), UC Merced has earned platinum certification for Classroom and Office Building 2 (COB2).

UC Merced remains the only campus in the nation with all constructed buildings being LEED certified. This marks the campus’ 17th LEED certification for new construction and its eighth platinum designation.

“From day one, we made a deliberate commitment to build to highest sustainable standards,” Assistant Director of Sustainability Mark Maxwell said. “With each new building, we’re proud to demonstrate that we’re keeping that promise.”

COB2 opened last fall, providing much-needed classrooms, tutorial space, research labs, and academic and administrative offices to support the campus’s projected growth.

Some of COB2’s sustainable features include:

• 93 percent of construction waste was diverted from landfills;
• 51 percent of the building materials are recycled content;
• the building is 43 percent more water efficient than California code requires; and
• energy efficiency is 46 percent greater than California code requires.

Like many of the campus’s other buildings, COB2 pulls chilled and hot water from the Central Plant, which contributes to its high energy efficiency.

Since opening in 2005, UC Merced has earned LEED silver for the Yablokoff-Wallace Dining Center; LEED gold for the Central Plant, Leo and Dottie Kolligian Library, Classroom and Office Building 1, Science and Engineering Building 1, Sierra Terraces residence halls, Joseph Edward Gallo Recreation and Wellness Center, Facilities Complex, and the Early Childhood Education Center; and LEED platinum for the dining expansion, Social Science and Management Building, The Summits residence halls, Half Dome residence hall, Student Activities and Athletic Center, Student Services Building and the Science and Engineering Building 2.

Classroom and Office Building 1 is also expected to achieve the campus’s second LEED Building Operations and Maintenance (LEED O+M) certification shortly. The Leo and Dottie Kolligian Library earned a gold certificate in Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance in 2015.

A building project like COB2 is a collective effort of many talented individuals, including former campus architect Thomas Lollini, former project director Leon Waller, interim director for Construction Services, Design and Construction Fran Telechea and former director Sarah Mitchell, James Brugger, Zuhair Mased and Jonathan Lampman from Facilities Management, Steve Roach and Gini Krippner who inspected the building, and the design team from Solomon Cordwell and Buenz (SCB).

“From planning and design to construction and maintenance of our buildings, there are countless individuals involved in making sure we meet — and often surpass — the USGBC’s rigorous standards,” Maxwell said. “They deserve the credit for their tireless efforts to find innovative ways to make our buildings attractive, functional and environmentally friendly.”

Campus friends and supporters were recognized for their charitable spirit at UC Merced’s third annual Celebration of Philanthropic Leaders event, held on campus March 25.

During a reception on the fourth floor of the east wing of the Leo and Dottie Kolligian Library, guests witnessed the progress taking place as part of the Merced 2020 Project.

“This young campus has thrived — not just survived — during some very difficult times, and we couldn’t have done it without your support,” Chancellor Dorothy Leland said. “I am here to celebrate with you some of the accomplishments you’ve made possible.”

Benefactors who were honored for their lifetime generosity to UC Merced included:

• UC Merced Foundation Trustee Dr. Krishna Thondapu and the Thondapu family have supported UC Merced since its earliest days. The family established the Thondapu Family Endowed Chair in Bioengineering about 15 years ago. This gift supports a critical research area on campus and inspired additional support from other major donors even before the campus opened its doors. 
• Westamerica Bank was recognized for its contributions to establish an endowed chair in economics. The chair was one of the first established at UC Merced and has allowed distinguished faculty members the financial ability to excel in their scholarly field. Regional Vice President and Regional Marketing Manager Robert Baker and Assistant Vice President and Business Banking Officer Dauna Goza accepted on behalf of Westamerica.
• HP Inc. was honored as one of the campus’s first corporate sponsors. The organization has supported the campus since before it opened and continues to bolster campus initiatives including the Graduate Dean’s Advisory Council on Diversity and the National Science Foundation Initiative. Chief Diversity Officer for HP Inc. Lesley Slaton Brown accepted the award.

Leland also highlighted Giving Tuesday, a 24-hour fundraising effort that brought in more than $700,000, surpassing the $500,000 goal. Thirteen undergraduate scholarships and one graduate fellowship were supported through the initiative, now in its third year. The number of individual gifts doubled over the previous year and several donors gave multiple times.

“I am very proud of that fact that many of you in this room, despite the fact that you had stepped up in other ways, helped us with our Giving Tuesday campaign,” Leland said. “Our alums and our students also stepped up in a big way.”

She referred to the extraordinary generosity of alumni such as management and business economics major Christopher Bernal, the first student to establish an endowed scholarship to support other students, and Keith Ellis, ’12, Brandon Ruscoe, ’09, Chris Abrescy, ’09, and Daniel Lobato, ’13, who established endowed scholarships during Giving Tuesday.

A highlight of the evening was a tribute to longtime supporter and enthusiastic friend of the campus Elizabeth Wallace, who died in October.

The Yablokoff-Wallace Dining Center, Elizabeth’s Garden and the Wallace-Dutra Amphitheater all bear the Wallace name and have played significant roles in building a sense of community.

“Elizabeth Wallace was one of UC Merced’s greatest champions,” Vice Chancellor for Development and Alumni Relations Kyle Hoffman said. “Her involvement with our campus from the very beginning has made UC Merced a greater place for all.”

Wallace’s husband Bud, daughter Lillian, son-in-law Mark, and granddaughter Allison attended the event.

At last year’s event, the campus unveiled its official alma mater, “My Merced,” written by award-winning composer Jimmy Dunne. To carry on the tradition this year, UC Merced alumna Brooklyn Edwards, ’09, performed the song for guests.

UC Merced’s Cheer Team traveled to Anaheim last month to compete alongside 11 other teams in the 2017 USA Collegiate Championships, placing second in the Four-Year Large Coed division.            

Overall, 49 colleges were represented at the two-day competition.  

“This is huge for our campus because we didn't have a coach or any official funding like most teams, and we still went to nationals,” cheer team President Victor Bahena said. “We had to push ourselves and each other to fight for something we all love, feel is important for school spirit and represents our school in a positive way.”

Countless hours of learning and perfecting their routine paid off.

“I hope with this win we are able to grow and inspire future cheerleaders of UC Merced,” said Bahena, a senior management and business economics major.

For the fifth consecutive year, the UC Merced Bobcat Dance Team attended nationals. They competed against nine Division II and III schools in the Four-Year Open Dance category.

The student-run dance team has a wide range of skill levels, which challenges the choreographers to be creative in their use of choreography and skill placement that accentuate the best aspects of each dancer.

Although they placed last, the team made an impression on judges with a lyrical dance piece choreographed by team President Roxanne Thomas to Andra Day’s song “Rise Up.”

“Attending this competition is essential to pushing the team to learn advanced skills,” dance team advisor and UC Merced staff member Amber Normann said. “It also provides the team exposure to performing in high-pressure environments and allows them to represent UC Merced in arenas outside the Central Valley.”

The University of California, Merced, announced today (April 12) the appointment of Chou Her to chief of police, effective immediately.

Her, the first person of Hmong descent to lead a UC public safety agency, brings nearly two decades of law enforcement experience and years of demonstrated leadership. He has served the UC Merced community since the campus opened in 2005 and will continue to serve students and staff and faculty members as the campus’s third police chief.

“Chief Her has played a critical role in shaping the department as it and the campus have matured over the past 12 years,” Vice Chancellor for Business and Administrative Services Michael Reese said. “He has helped develop a policing philosophy that is appropriate for a public research university with UC Merced’s unique characteristics.”

Her has served as interim chief twice — after the departure of Associate Vice Chancellor for Campus and Public Safety and Chief of Police Albert Vasquez in September 2016. He also stepped in as interim chief when founding Chief of Police Rita Spaur retired in 2015.

“It’s an honor to be selected to lead UC Merced’s police department,” Her said. “I look forward to continuing and growing our positive engagements with our campus community and the greater Merced community.”

Her has extensive police and emergency management certification and a demonstrated commitment to community involvement. He was promoted to lieutenant in 2011 and captain in 2015.

Her was born in Laos, and his family moved to the United States when he was 3. He has lived in Merced for most of his life and has built a strong connection with the campus and the local community.

Before joining UC Merced in 2005, Her was a deputy sheriff for the Merced County Sheriff’s Department for five years and a probation officer for Stanislaus County for nearly a year.

He earned received an associate’s degree in administration of justice from Merced College and a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and a master’s in public administration from California State University, Stanislaus.

Chris Fradkin, a UC Merced lecturer and alumnus, is heading to Brazil in search of “lost science.”

The term, first coined in 1995 in a Scientific American article by W. Wayt Gibbs, refers to the untold amount of viable scientific research that goes unread and undiscovered due to the struggles and barriers faced by researchers in developing countries around the world.

It’s a subject close to Fradkin’s heart, and he was recently awarded a Fulbright fellowship to continue his research into the many factors preventing Brazilian scientists — and, by extension, those in other “emerging” nations — from successfully disseminating their work to the scientific world at large.

In 2014, after earning his Ph.D. at UC Merced, Fradkin began a 14-month fellowship in Brazil. While there, he had the opportunity to guest edit a special English-language issue of a journal whose articles had been translated from Brazilian Portuguese.

“The articles were supposedly professionally translated to English, but they were almost unreadable to me,” he said. “The intent in Portuguese was completely there, but the translation — to get it not just to English, but English that means something and conveys vision and ideas — fell short in many ways.”

Language alone does not account for the struggles that scientists in the so-called BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, considered by economists as emerging nations that could soon be called “developed” — have faced over the years.

For example, Germany does not use English as a standard language for science or commerce. But it is in close proximity to several European nations that do, so most scientists learn to speak English more or less fluently in order to communicate at conferences and with colleagues.

The same can’t be said for scientists in the more isolated BRICS nations, who must travel great distances to collaborate with English-speaking colleagues. Without those collaborations and the notoriety they could receive among those colleagues, Brazilian scientists struggle to place their work in top-tier journals.

Fradkin has already begun to research the factors that work against Brazilian scientists in “internationalizing” their work — or creating an impact with it on an international level.

In a recent study, he found that simply providing English translations was not enough, indicating that the quality of those translations must improve. Additionally, he found that one of the most significant predictors of a Brazilian journal’s international impact is not the number of English-speakers collaborating on its articles, but the number of English-speaking members of its editorial board.

“Chris’ analysis on Brazil’s psychology journals was accurate, unbiased and critical,” said Lilian Calò, coordinator of science communication at the Latin American and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences Information. “The scientific community cannot treat Brazilian authors in a condescending manner when they submit a paper to an international journal. I think the research Chris is conducting does us a tremendous favor in showing our improvements, and more importantly, our capacity to keep improving.”

As he continues to develop and refine his research, Fradkin hopes to help uncover Brazil’s “lost science” — some of which could make a major impact internationally if communicated in the right way and in the right places.

“There may be findings in a Brazilian journal that connect water pollution to birth defects — say in the slums outside São Paulo,” Fradkin said. “That could be of huge value to scientists in the U.S., the U.K. or France. But there’s so much else to read that scientists aren’t looking in lower-tier journals, and they don’t have time to struggle through a poorly done translation. It becomes a huge barrier.”

The Fulbright Program, which aims to increase mutual understanding between the people of the U.S. and the people of other countries, is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government.

“Fulbright allows international students to immerse themselves in the U.S., and it sends people like me to other countries to participate and collaborate with non-native speakers,” Fradkin said. “It promotes widening one’s experience and developing relationships, which in this day and age is essential.”