University of California, Merced

The University of California, Merced (UC Merced or colloquially, UCM) is a public land-grant research university in Merced, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California (UC) system. Established in 2005, UC Merced is the newest campus within the UC system. The primary campus is located around five miles north of Merced and sits adjacent to Lake Yosemite. The main campus is around 1,026 acres (415 ha) in size, and total land owned by the university amounts to around 8,195 acres (3,316 ha) including large areas of preserve land. Large swaths of almond orchards and natural grasslands surround the university.

The forming of UC Merced was initiated to address the large population growth of the Central Valley and the San Joaquin Valley, and to make higher education more accessible for students in the region. UCM is also being developed keeping in mind future growth projections for the UC System. UC Merced consists of three undergraduate, graduate and professional schools with a medical school in the works. The upcoming medical school is being established in partnership with UCSF and UCSF Fresno. UC Merced offers over 60 undergraduate degrees and 18 graduate and professional degrees, and roughly 8,000 undergraduates and 700 graduate students are enrolled at UCM as of Fall 2023. The university is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity", and had $45.9 million in research and development expenditures in 2021.

UC Merced is one of the largest employers in Merced County, and contributes about $1.7 billion to the economy of the San Joaquin Valley. Every building on the campus is LEED certified with the majority being certified gold. The UC Merced Golden Bobcats currently compete in the NAIA as members of the Cal Pac; from 2025, the University plans move athletics to NCAA Division II. Additionally, of the current faculty, one has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

Early years


In the early eighties, the Regents of the University of California launched a search for a location for a new UC campus. By the 1980s, the San Joaquin Valley was the state's largest and most populous region without a UC campus. On May 19, 1988, the UC Regents voted to begin planning for a campus in the region in response to increasing enrollment and growth constraints at existing UC campuses. In 1989, they authorized UC President David P. Gardner to plan up to three new campuses to address these needs. The search quickly was narrowed to California's Central Valley, which was the state's largest and most populous region without its own UC campus. More than 85 sites in the Central Region were submitted to the University for consideration. The candidate sites were evaluated on factors such as proximity to population centers and accessibility.

Through analysis of such factors as transportation, demographics, housing, geo-technical conditions, public support, environmental constraints, and the availability of public services, the University narrowed the Preferred sites to three "Finalist" sites: Lake Yosemite in Merced County, Table Mountain in Madera County, and Academy in Fresno County. These three Finalist sites were evaluated in the UC San Joaquin Valley Campus Site Selection EIR. On May 19, 1995, the Regents selected Merced over two other finalist sites in Madera and Fresno, midway between Fresno and Modesto, as the location for the University of California's tenth campus.

An important hurdle to the construction of UC Merced happened with the passage of Proposition 203 which for the first time authorized bond funds to be used to construct new buildings in the UC and California State University systems. In an historic agreement unveiled in March 2001, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation announced an $11+ million grant to acquire the entire 7030 acres of the Virginia Smith Trust. The Packard Foundation would create a 5030 acre preserve of sensitive vernal pool habitat and would provide the 2000 acres balance to the University of California. The land given would then in turn create a 750 acre UC natural reserve adjacent to the new UC Merced campus. The Virginia Smith Trust would go on to use the proceeds from the acquisition to bolster its scholarship endowment, pay off long-term loans on the golf course property, and invest in the future proposed campus community.

The university originally planned to conserve 5,030 acre to protect sensitive vernal pool habitats but later expanded it to 6,428 acre with the creation of the Merced Vernal Pools and Grassland Reserve which is now part of the University of California Natural Reserve System. A public golf course known as the Merced Hills Golf Course had been constructed at the site in the early 1990s. This course was shut down to make way for the new campus when the original site for the campus was made unavailable due to the discovery of fairy shrimp – an endangered species – on the originally proposed site. Since the construction of the golf course had negated concerns about wetland and vernal pool environmental issues, building the campus at this location was easier than fighting to save the original construction site.

UC Merced established a satellite campus in Bakersfield, California in 2001 in its downtown University Square. The satellite campus extended a UC education to prospective college-bound students of Kern County and the southern San Joaquin Valley before UC Merced opened its official campus in Merced. Classes and counseling were also provided at the Bakersfield center to newly admitted UC students. In 2011, the Bakersfield campus was permanently closed citing cost-cutting efforts and for the university to balance its finances.

Recent history
The campus groundbreaking ceremony was held October 25, 2002, and the first day of undergraduate classes was September 6, 2005 with 706 freshmen, 132 transfer students, and 37 graduate students. Three years and eight months later, on May 16, 2009, First Lady Michelle Obama gave the commencement address for the university's first full graduating class. In 2010, the United States Census Bureau made UC Merced its own separate census-designated place. Later that same year, the new student housing facilities, The Summits, opened to provide two additional residential halls for incoming students. The two four-story buildings, Tenaya Hall and Cathedral Hall, are reserved primarily for incoming freshmen students. Three years later, another housing facility, Half Dome, was built next to the existing Tenaya and Cathedral Halls. Half Dome houses both freshman and continuing students. The university is a census-designated place (CDP) that is uninhabited as of both the 2010 and 2020 census.

In January 2015, UC Merced was nationally classified with the Carnegie Classification for community engagement, along with UC Davis and UCLA.

On November 4, 2015, 18-year-old student Faisal Mohammad stabbed and injured four people with a hunting knife before being shot to death by a campus police officer.

On November 2015, the Regents of the University of California approved a $1.14 billion proposal, known as the 2020 Plan, to double the capacity of UC Merced, boosting its enrollment by nearly 4,000 students. The new buildings were completed in early 2021. In April 2019, the school's student government, the Associated Students of UC Merced, cut off funding for UC Merced's only student-run newspaper, The Prodigy.

UC Merced claims to be the only institution in the United States whose buildings are all LEED certified. Its Triple Net Zero Commitment is expected to create zero net landfill waste and zero net greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2020.

UC Merced announced a partnership with UCSF and UCSF Fresno to create a brand new medical school program by the year 2023, garnering support from governor Gavin Newsom.

On May 12, 2024, as part of the wider pro-Palestinian student protests, students at UC Merced set up an encampment following the university's commencement ceremony in anticipation for the University of California Board of Regents meeting at the university. On May 15, during the 2nd day of the Board of Regents meeting, the students were joined by students from the University of California, Berkeley, alongside other groups from the San Francisco Bay Area, totaling the encampment to over 100 people. On May 16, 6 members of the board of regents met with protestors in the student encampment to discuss divestment from companies with ties to Israel.

Governance
Being one of the 10 general campuses of the University of California system, UC Merced is governed by a 26-member Board of Regents consisting of 18 officials appointed by the Governor of California, seven ex officio members, and a single student regent. The current president of the University of California is Michael Drake, and the administrative head of UC Merced is Juan Sánchez Muñoz. Academic policies are set by each of the school's Academic Senate, and a legislative body including all university faculty members. Nine vice chancellors manage academic affairs, research, diversity, marine sciences, student affairs, planning, external relations, business affairs, and health sciences and report directly to the chancellor. Carol Tomlinson-Keasey was the first chancellor of the University and held the position from 1999 until 2006. Sung-Mo (Steve) Kang, Dean of the Baskin School of Engineering at UC Santa Cruz, took office in early March 2007. Kang stepped down in 2011. Dorothy Leland was the university's next chancellor. In 2020, Juan Sánchez Muñoz, then president of University of Houston-Downtown, was appointed chancellor. UCM's Chancellors are listed below:
 * 1999–2006 Carol Tomlinson-Keasey
 * 2006–2007 Roderic B. Park (interim)
 * 2007–2011 Sung Mo Kang
 * 2011–2019 Dorothy Leland
 * 2019–2020 Nathan Brostrom (interim)
 * 2020–Present Juan Sánchez Muñoz

Funding
With the exception of some government contracts, public support is apportioned to UC Merced and the other campuses of the University of California system through the UC Office of the President and accounts for a large percentage of the University's total revenues. UCM also benefits from donations from individuals and businesses.

Academics


UC Merced has three schools offering 27 undergraduate majors and 25 minors (in parentheses their founding dates):


 * School of Engineering (2005)
 * School of Natural Sciences (2005)
 * School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts (2005)

In 2011, the campus was granted accreditation by WASC. In 2014, the School of Engineering received an ABET accreditation for the Mechanical Engineering, Environmental Engineering, and Materials Science and Engineering programs.

The university is also home to the CCBM Summer Internship Program, an undergraduate research fellowship for non-UC Merced students sponsored by the NSF CREST Center for Cellular and Biomolecular Machines. The campus takes advantage of the surrounding environment by investigating issues relating to environmental systems of the Central Valley and Sierra Nevada, and of its youth by having programs in genetic research conducted in state-of-the-art research labs. It also benefits from proximity to Silicon Valley and other major universities. Research in fields like language acquisition and cultural issues is facilitated by the highly diverse ethnic makeup of the Central Valley. UC Merced operates on a semester system rather than the quarter system for its academic term. The Berkeley campus is the only other UC campus on a semester system.

Rankings
UC Merced was tied for 42nd "Top Public School" and tied for 97th in the 2022 rankings of "Best National Universities" in the U.S. by U.S. News & World Report. Also in the same rankings, it was ranked 5th in "Top Performers on Social Mobility", 171st in "Best Value Schools", and tied for 123th in "Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs" at schools whose highest degree is a doctorate.

Admissions and enrollment
UC Merced received 25,368 undergraduate applications for admission for the Fall 2019 incoming freshman class; 18,263 were admitted (72.0%).

Undergraduate enrollment in Fall 2019 was 51.7% women, 47.5% men and 0.8% unknown; approximately 99% were from California.

UC Merced saw an increase in application for the 2021 freshman class, they received a record breaking number of applications totaling 30,105 between freshman and transfers.

UC Merced also saw an increase in applications for their graduate school program, there was a 25% increase last spring. The application pool consisted of 40% being women and 23% being minority students.

Research institutes

 * Health Sciences Research Institute (HSRI)
 * Sierra Nevada Research Institute (SNRI)
 * University of California Advanced Solar Technologies Institute (UC Solar)
 * NSF CREST Center for Cellular and Biomolecular Machines (CCBM)
 * Merced nAnomaterials Center for Energy and Sensing (MACES)
 * Nicotine and Cannabis Policy Center (NCPC)

In 2007, UC Merced researchers obtained nearly $7 million in funding from the National Science Foundation. Grant funding for research has reached over $168.9 million in 2013.

Campus


The campus is bounded by Lake Yosemite on one side, and two irrigation canals run through the campus. The campus master plan was developed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, its initial infrastructure by Arup, and its first buildings were designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Thomas Hacker and Associates, and EHDD Architecture. The library and central power plant have been classified as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Gold structures in terms of their high energy efficiency and low environmental impact. The campus is located about seven miles (11 km) north of downtown Merced in the middle of a cattle ranch.

Rather than build on 40 acre of protected land east of Lake Yosemite, where endangered fairy shrimp hatch in vernal pools, the school has built on a 230 acre parcel of grazing land south of campus, under a revised layout. The revised plan covers a total of 810 acre rather than the original 910 acre proposed in 2000. The new design was expected to impact a total of 81 acre of native wetlands in the region compared to the 121 acre forecast in the 2000 footprint.

The Science and Engineering Building 2 opened in 2014. The Classroom and Office Building 2 opened in 2016.

Kolligian Library
The library was the first building to open on campus. During the Fall 2005 semester, while construction of the Classroom and Science/Engineering buildings was still taking place, all academic courses were conducted in the library. Its official motto is "Not what other research libraries are, what they will be."

The library contains more electronic holdings than print holdings, consisting of about 70,000 online journals and 3.965 million electronic books (including 3.15 million HathiTrust full-text books), compared to 102,000 print books. It provides access to 937 databases.

Kolligian is a Green library and has Gold LEED certification.

Athletics
The UC Merced athletic teams are called the Golden Bobcats. The university is a member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), primarily competing in the California Pacific Conference (Cal Pac) since the 2011–12 academic year.

UC Merced competes in nine intercollegiate varsity sports: Men's sports include basketball, cross country, soccer and volleyball; while women's sports include basketball, cross country, soccer, volleyball and water polo.

Facilities
In 2006, the university opened its gymnasium. The Joseph Edward Gallo Recreation and Wellness Center features an "NCAA-sized basketball court, workout facilities, room for performances, wellness and fitness education and the Rajender Reddy Student Health Center".

Student life


Approximately 2,100 students currently live on campus in the Valley and Sierra Terraces and the Summits, which includes Tenaya and Cathedral Halls, 4.2 miles (6.8 km) away from the city of Merced. The most recent addition is Half Dome Hall which completed UC Merced's first residential square. The Summits includes cleaning services, study lounges, a market, and a game room. Student housing, as well as the dining commons, are closed during winter break. Much of the student life in the Residence Halls is led by the Resident Assistants (RAs) and Lead Resident Assistants (LRAs) through various programs and activities.

Due to the United States housing bubble and the high cost of bond-funded student housing ($13,720 on-campus compared to $7,000 off campus), many students choose to live in new housing subdivisions outside of campus. The Cattracks transit system serves student-dense developments.

The university's Campus Activities Board (CAB) engages students in campus-wide activities such as the annual Treats N' Beats, CAB Cinema, Enchanted Ball, and more. Past guests that have been brought to these campus activities by CAB include Sage the Gemini, J. Holiday, and George Lopez.

Additionally, many students visit nearby Lake Yosemite which includes recreational swimming, fishing, and water skiing. Merced has several artistic venues which host plays, concerts, and art shows. These include The Mainzer Theater, The Partisan, Merced Multicultural Arts Center, and Playhouse Merced. Castle Air Museum is within close driving distance from Merced. Merced is known as the "Gateway to Yosemite" and it is common for students to recreationally use Yosemite National Park where they may hike, snowboard, rock climb, and camp overnight.

Student publications include The Prodigy, student newspaper, Bobcat Radio, student radio station, The Undergraduate Research Journal (URJ), The Undergraduate Historical Journal, and literary journals The Kumquat and Imagination Dead Imagine. The Vernal Pool is a student literary journal for fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, and visual art.

CatTracks public transportation system
The university operates its own public transportation system, CatTracks. The system has several routes between the University Transit Center and off-campus housing developments with high student populations. In addition, many routes also serve locations in central Merced, about 6.5 mi from campus, including the Merced Amtrak station, Merced College, the Merced Mall, and Merced Transpo, the main hub for Merced County Transit.

Alumni
The UC Merced Alumni Association (UCMAA) consists of more than 16,000 living members.

As stated by the LA Times in 2016, "Although most UC Merced alumni are still in their 20s, 11% of them contributed to their alma mater — outstripping the giving rate of all other UC campuses except UC Santa Barbara (16%) and UC Berkeley (12%). UCLA's rate was 8%, and UC Riverside, the most comparable campus, was 4%."