Merced, CA — UC Merced Chancellor Carol Tomlinson-Keasey will be a featured speaker at the upcoming Thomas Jefferson Dinner in Mariposa on April 21, 2001, it was announced today.
Tomlinson-Keasey will discuss educational access for the San Joaquin Valley and Sierra Nevada regions, and update the audience on progress in creating the 10th campus of the UC system. The new campus is scheduled to open in Merced in fall 2005.
The dinner will take place beginning at 5:30 p.m. at the Best Western Yosemite Way station. The event is sponsored by the Mariposa County Democratic committee, and will also feature a presentation to Patti Reilly, of the Mariposa County Board of Supervisors, who will be celebrated as the group's “Democrat of the Year.”
Tomlinson-Keasey was selected as the founding chancellor of the Merced campus in July of 1999 by UC President Richard C. Atkinson and the UC Board of Regents. Prior to that she had served as the University's first systemwide vice provost for academic initiatives, and was named by Atkinson to direct the planning efforts for UC Merced. In that dual role, she served both as the leader of new campus development prior to the formal appointment of a chancellor and as the individual responsible for directing the development of new academic programs throughout the UC system, including the use of new technologies for instruction, research, and public service.
As systemwide vice provost, Tomlinson-Keasey oversaw the creation of the California Digital Library and the establishment of new part-time professional degree programs. She also coordinated planning for UC's academic programs in Washington, D.C.
Prior to her position with the Office of the President, Tomlinson-Keasey served at UC Davis as vice provost for faculty relations from 1992-94, as dean of the college of letters and science from 1994-95, and as vice provost for academic planning and personnel from 1995-1997. Tomlinson-Keasey was a professor at UC Riverside from 1980 to 1992, where she was honored with the campus's distinguished teaching award. She has also held faculty positions at Rutgers University and the University of Nebraska.
She received her bachelor's degree in political science in 1964 from Pennsylvania State University, a master's degree in psychology in 1966 from Iowa State University, and a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from UC Berkeley in 1970.
At UC Merced, Tomlinson-Keasey is overseeing the creation of the first new campus of the University to be built since 1965, and the first UC campus to be located in the Central Valley.
The University intends to make UC Merced a full research university with strong engineering and science programs. The new campus will serve as a “hub” for a program of distributed education throughout the San Joaquin Valley, with physical centers located in Modesto, Merced, Fresno, and Bakersfield.
At full build-out, sometime after 2035, the UC Merced campus will host 25,000 students and dozens of programs at the undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral levels.
