Diversity

New Alumni-Funded Endowment to Champion LGBTQ+ Initiatives at UC Merced

July 29, 2025

A group of dedicated UC Merced alumni have come together to launch an endowed fund focused on supporting LGBTQ+ student initiatives, programs and priorities. Spearheaded by University of California Regent Emeritus Keith Ellis ’12, the LGBTQ+ Lambda Student Engagement Endowment was created...

UC President’s Whirlwind Visit Covers Many Bases

University of California President Janet Napolitano learned about UC Merced’s outreach to local high school students and efforts to support the UC system’s Global Food and Carbon Neutrality...

Campus Ranked Among Most Diverse in the U.S.

UC Merced has been identified by Best Colleges as one of the country’s top 50 campuses where students have the most opportunity to interact with different ethnicities, ranking No. 12. UC Merced is...

Despite Constraints, UC Merced Enrollment Continues to Grow

Enrollment at the University of California, Merced, this fall has climbed to another all-time high of 6,685 students — an increase of 6.7 percent over Fall 2014, according to headcount figures...

New Grant Aids Underrepresented Students With Undeclared Majors

A new grant from the U.S. Department of Education will help the University of California, Merced, establish important support services for first-generation and low-income students who have yet to...

UC Merced Hosts Third Annual UndocuGrads Conference

More than 340 students, advocates, school representatives, and administrators were at UC Merced on Saturday for the third annual UndocuGrads Conference. The one-day event was designed to address the...

Undergraduate Applications for Fall 2015 Rise 14 Percent

The University of California, Merced, received 19,932 undergraduate applications for Fall 2015, the campus’s largest pool of applicants in its first 10 years and a 14 percent increase over last year’...

Ph.D. Student Beats Odds to Put Science and Community First

The odds were stacked against Ruben Rodriguez. When the 27-year-old UC Merced student was still in high school, he was confronted with a sobering statistic that Hispanics receive only 5 percent of...

Campus Hosts Hmong Student Conference

The Hmong Student Association at UC Merced will host its eighth annual educational conference themed, “Hmoob Mekas - Our Next Generation,” on Nov. 15. The one-day conference will focus on Hmong...

UC Merced Senior Is New Leader, Advocate for UC’s 240,000 Students

Jefferson Kuoch-Seng is now the official voice for the University of California’s roughly 240,000 students — the first UC Merced student ever to serve in that role. In August, Kuoch-Seng was elected...