School of Social Sciences Humanities and Arts

First-generation Students Shine at UC Merced. This Week Celebrates Them

November 3, 2025

UC Merced Professor Rose Scott, student Narciso Martinez Solorio

More than six in 10 UC Merced undergraduates are the first in their families to attend a university. The national average for four-year universities is about two in 10. Opening doors to opportunity for first-generation students is infused into UC Merced’s DNA. Young people who had little...

Alumnus Takes Trailblazing Spirit to Washington

David Do sits in his office in Washington, D.C. — nearly 3,000 miles from UC Merced — reflecting on the path he’s cut for himself. Do, who now serves as director of the city’s Office of Asian and...

Campus Continues to Set Precedents in Sustainability

UC Merced is the only university in the country to have all of its buildings certified under the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program. That body...

Literature Professor Wins Latino Book Award

UC Merced Professor Manuel M. Martín-Rodríguez recently won a 2015 International Latino Book Award for “With a Book in Their Hands: Chicano/a Readers and Readerships,” which beat six other finalists...

Robbins Named Dean of School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts

Jill Robbins has been named dean of the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts (SSHA) at the University of California, Merced, the university announced today. She will begin serving full time...

NIH Grant Charts Path to UC Merced Ph.D. for Fresno State Students

A new grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will create a pipeline to doctoral degrees in biomedical and behavioral sciences at the University of California, Merced, for underrepresented...

SSHA Professors Conducting Summer Research Projects

Like their colleagues in science and engineering, researchers in UC Merced’s School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts are keeping busy this summer with a wide variety of projects. Among them...

Researchers Win CITRIS Grants for Four New Technology Projects

UC Merced researchers won four of only 11 seed grants given out by the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) for the year. CITRIS received 24 highly...

Climate Scientist Aims to Change National Dialogue, One Story at a Time

Climate scientist Emmanuel Vincent noticed climate change discussions in Europe had become somewhat politically polarized before he left France a few years ago, and found the same situation on a...

Study: In Any Language, Learning to Walk and Talk Are Linked

UC Merced developmental psychologist Eric Walle recently discovered a link between walking and talking in infants. This development, however, brought up additional questions. Was the link specific to...