Student Affairs

UC Merced Marks 20th Year with New Academic Programs, First DII Season and Celebration

August 21, 2025

The new academic year is a momentous milestone for UC Merced — two decades of growth, innovation and achievement. In 2005, the first undergraduate students were welcomed on the new campus. Now, 20 years later, thousands more new students will begin their own journeys that will shape their...

Auxiliary Services Restructured to Better Serve Students

UC Merced leadership met with more than 50 university staff members this month to discuss organizational changes to housing, dining and other auxiliary services on campus. The goal is to improve...

Man in business suits gestures while addressing a crowd of college students

Admissions Director Reflects on Decades of Promoting UC Merced

There’s something about a UC Merced student that’s just different. Different from your average “college kid” and different from other students in the University of California...

Commencement student speakers Victoria Arias and Cydney Caradonna

Class of 2019 Student Speakers Leave UC Merced with Messages of Gratitude

Undergraduates Victoria Arias and Cydney Caradonna entered UC Merced through different doors. Arias was a freshman impressed with the campus and community. Caradonna was a transfer student and...

Picture This: Migrant Farmworkers’ Daughter Turns UC Merced Grad

When Anna Ocegueda walks across the stage at UC Merced’s 2019 commencement, it will be not only a powerful moment for her, but for her family, too — and for the thousands of people who...

GAMWS Spring Showcase to Exhibit Student Art

Where do Shakespeare and swing dancing collide? At UC Merced’s Global Arts, Media & Writing Studies (GAMWS) Spring Showcase. For the second time this academic year, students, faculty and...

A Night of Community Art Showcases Principles of Community

Fourteen students, faculty and staff members drew upon their artistic skills to create an array of art pieces to showcase at UC Merced’s Night of Community Art on April 19. The event is the...

UC Merced Named NACCU Innovative Technology Award Winner

In May 2016, first-year UC Merced student Harrison Tom realized he had more money left on his prepaid meal plan than he could use up before the semester ended. The balance wouldn’t roll over...

Devon Glover, The Sonnet Man, speaks to students at Gracey Elementary School in Merced.

Shakespeare Rapper Schools Students with Hip Hop Sonnets

In what world are Shakespeare and hip-hop related? Ask Devon Glover. Glover is The Sonnet Man, a Shakespeare-loving rapper who sets The Bard’s famous sonnets to hip-hop instrumentals. Using...

Alumna Kisha McGuire is a program counselor in the Fiat Lux Scholars Program within the campus’s Calvin E. Bright Success Center.

Alumna Staffer Pours Her Passion into Serving Students

Kisha McGuire has discovered an opportunity to do what she loves for an institution she’s grown to care deeply about. McGuire graduated from UC Merced in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree...