Brenda Ortiz

Founding UC Merced Staffer Wraps Up 45 Years in Law Enforcement

August 28, 2025

A collage of photos depicting Tamela Adkins and other staff during the past 20 years.

On Aug. 12, 2005, less than one month before UC Merced opened its doors to undergraduate students, Tamela Adkins joined the campus’s Police Department as support services manager. Intially, her role included managing records and evidence, overseeing the police dispatch center and hiring....

Student Commencement Speakers Blaze Paths as Campus Leaders

Students Jamie Sweet and Vanessa Estavillo have much more in common than a love of UC Merced, a legacy of leadership and being members of the Class of 2014. These two women have been chosen to speak...

Scholarship Empowers Students to Make a Difference

Five words from one of American history’s most famous speeches inspired Dalton Rogers to contribute to society. He was called to public service in high school when he read President John F. Kennedy’s...

Student’s Lengthy Academic Journey Concludes at Commencement

For Helen Dahman, college was always more marathon than sprint. Now 73, Dahman was just out of high school when she took her first college classes. But she wasn’t ready then and instead entered the...

Students Save Cash Through New Program Offering ‘Office’ for Free

UC Merced students are now using some of the latest and most popular Microsoft Office applications without having to dig into their wallets. The free software is available under Microsoft’s Student...

Students Continue Their Acting Careers at UC Merced

TaNayiah Bryels didn’t get the lead role of Mary in her first-grade Christmas pageant, but it did spark a lifelong interest in theater. The UC Merced student has been acting ever since, landing parts...

Campus Spirit Encouraged Alumna to Pursue Fungi Research

Graduate school is a constant state of discovery, something UC Merced alumna Jackie Shay credits for her current passion: fungus. Shay just returned home from a month in the humid climes of...

Commencement Speakers Bring Varied Experience to Campus’s Largest Commencement

The University of California, Merced, has selected CEO of Enduring Hydro LLC and former U.S. Undersecretary for Energy Kristina Johnson and Merced County Superior Court Judge Paul C. Lo to deliver...

Men’s Soccer Team Builds Framework for Success in Debut Season

In its inaugural intercollegiate season, the UC Merced men’s soccer team showed plenty of promise by defeating the eventual conference champions and producing the California Pacific Conference...

Campus Pitches In for Day of Service

A day off meant a day of service for some UC Merced students and staff and faculty members who volunteered to help spruce up Luther Burbank Elementary School in Merced as part of the 2014 Martin...