Jody Murray

It’s spring break 2009 and Jane Lawrence is rushing across campus, the words from the phone call still ringing in her ear. The unimaginable is happening and she must tell Charles Nies,

First Lady Michelle Obama is coming to UC Merced as commencement speaker.

Lawrence, the vice chancellor for student affairs, finds her associate vice chancellor in his office. With the campus quiet and students gone home, Nies had brought his two young daughters to work.

“Flora,” a film by UC Professor Yehuda Sharim, earned an award from the Latino and Native American Film Festival.

The film, which Sharim describes as a memoir of post-teen daughters of immigrants who must teach themselves about love and tenderness in a world dominated by unnecessary suffering and pain, won the festival’s Environmental, Social, Economic, Political Justice Award.

Exploring sources of historical narratives can take you to places where walls seem to move and truth feels fluid and interchangeable. Ma Vang’s research has focused on how people narrate their histories, tracking the lived experiences of people pigeonholed or marginalized by dominant narratives that privilege the record and written text.

The community is invited to an all-day summit where researchers will present cutting-edge information on the latest efforts to stem tobacco use in the San Joaquin Valley and surrounding foothills.

The Tobacco Control Summit is scheduled for Thursday, June 6 at The Mainzer, 655 W. Main St. in downtown Merced. Capacity is limited so attendees are urged to register by 5 p.m. Wednesday, May 22.

Two UC Merced professors have collaborated on a meditative and innovative exploration of the literal and figurative threads that weave through a Southern California city.

It was a groundbreaking Tuesday night so there were shovels. Many shovels. Full sized, posterized, miniaturized (in a gift box). All to mark a symbolic turning of earth for UC Merced’s Medical Education Center.

The tools also evoke something Dr. Kenny Banh said nearly a year ago. A top administrator at UC San Francisco's Fresno campus, he was talking about San Joaquin Valley PRIME, a program that prepared students from the Valley for a medical career. Training included at least a year in the Bay Area.

UC Merced Arts invites everyone to a free performance that serves up whimsy, interactive fun and an inspiring message with a big helping of … operatic singing. 

Thirteen graduating students were honored by UC Merced’s School of Social Science, Humanities and Arts for outstanding academic careers.

It’s a pair of special birthdays for UC Merced’s two student-run journals for undergraduates. The Vernal Pool , which publishes creative stories, poems and images, turned 10 this academic year. Meanwhile, it’s the sweet 16th for the Undergraduate Research Journal , which provides an early taste of the lifeblood of graduate and post-grad research — peer-reviewed publication.

It is impossible to avoid — the real-life event that frames the play “26 Pebbles” is disturbing. Heartbreaking.

Which makes all the more remarkable the play’s uplifting message of human resilience and the ability to come together after an unspeakable tragedy — the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.