University of California, Merced - Jody Murray

Three-year Grant Lifts Joy Provided by ��ý Children’s Opera

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 15:50:53 +0000

By Jody Murray, ��ý

October 20, 2025

Uriah Brown, left, performs in the 2025 ��ý Children's Opera production,"Treble Trouble." Brown, a music educator and professional opera singer, has worked with the production for more than a decade.

��ý Children’s Opera, a performance that delights and enlightens thousands of schoolchildren a year while giving Bobcat students experience in theater, has received support from a generous grant from the Central Valley Opportunity Fund.

The three-year, $90,000 grant to the opera and the Merced County Office of Education (MCOE) will strengthen the sustainability of the opera, which is produced annually by ��ý Arts and operates largely on the work of dedicated contractors and the seemingly bottomless energy of Jenni Samuelson, the opera’s director and a music lecturer for ��ý Global Arts Studies.

“This grant provides the sustainability we need to keep the Children’s Opera thriving,” said Samuelson, an opera singer herself who grew up in Merced and has taught at ��ý since 2011. “It ensures we can continue presenting engaging, high-quality performances that connect our community’s youth with our campus through music and storytelling.”

The Children’s Opera is performed each spring in coordination with MCOE’s arts program. This academic year’s production, “The Ghost in the Opera House,” marks the opera’s 16th year, with a free community performance scheduled for May 23, 2026, at the Art Kamangar Center at The Merced Theatre downtown.

Each performance features professional opera singers, musicians and designers. ��ý students work alongside these professionals, both on stage and in the production crew. The book and lyrics for each show are written by Nancy Steele Brokaw, an Illinois-based educator and writer.

The shows feature classic opera tunes recognizable from pop culture but with words rewritten to fit a family-friendly plot. Audience members are taught songs and cues early on and are urged to interact with the performers.

��ý students Lois Lopez, left, and Chi Ude perform in "Treble Trouble."

“Jenni and our production team are extremely efficient and do incredible work with a fairly modest budget,” said Collin Lewis, executive director for ��ý Arts. “The Children’s Opera looks and sounds like any educational program that you would find at a major performing arts center.

“We’re thrilled that these high-quality productions continue to engage and educate thousands of children in Merced each year and have attracted philanthropic partners in the area, such as the Central Valley Opportunity Fund.”

The CVOF grant will be used to increase compensation for the professional performers, upgrade production equipment, and launch a new educational outreach program that will strengthen the opera’s connections with its annual attendees and attract new schools and educators.

CVOF, part of the philanthropic Central Valley Community Foundation, is a private, donor-advised fund dedicated to improving the lives of residents of the greater Merced community. CVOF strives to be a catalyst for additional public and private resources, and for establishing regional partnerships aimed at equitable, lasting and systemic change.

“One of my favorite things in this community is the Children’s Opera. You can immediately see the impact on those little faces,” said Kim Garner, Merced regional director of the Central Valley Community Foundation and facilitator of the Opportunity Fund.

“Having infrastructure that shows the benefits of arts in education is so important,” said Noelle Chandler, MCOE arts program specialist. “The grant allows us to not only help with funding and support, but to unite the curriculum for multiple opportunities.”

��ý a National Finalist for Student Success Award

Anonymous — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 14:41:27 +0000

By Jody Murray, ��ý

October 16, 2025

��ý is a finalist for the Excellence in Student Success Award offered by a national organization of public universities.

��ý, recognized nationwide for providing access to a world-class education and transforming young scholars’ lives, is a finalist for the inaugural Excellence in Student Success Award offered by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities.

��ý is among five universities nominated for the award. APLU, with more than 250 member institutions, advocates efforts to increase student success and workforce readiness; promote research; and bolster community engagement.

Several points support ��ý’s nomination:

A student body in which 61% are eligible for Pell grants and 65% are the first in their families to attend a university.
Two consecutive years ranked third by U.S. News & World Report for social mobility – a graduate’s ability to improve their economic status compared to that of their parents or their earlier life circumstances
The Merced Automatic Admissions Program (MAAP) guarantees streamlined admission for qualifying high school students from 40 districts throughout California. MAAP students accepted to ��ý are more than twice as likely to enroll as all other students.
The Merced Promise expands pathways for transfer students. Construction of affordable housing and the opening of a Transfer Student Resource Center have fueled a 20% year-over-year increase in transfer enrollment.
The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Center offers access to faculty-mentored inquiry. About 42% of fourth-year students graduate with research experience, strengthening retention and a sense of belonging.

"Being selected as one of only five finalists for this prestigious award is evidence of the tremendous progress our campus is making in centering the needs of our students through strategic, data-informed initiatives," Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Betsy Dumont said.

The other nominees for the award are the University of Illinois Chicago; Northern Illinois University; the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; and the University of Texas at San Antonio. The winner will be announced in November.

APLU President Waded Cruzado said, “We’re delighted to highlight institutions that are on the leading edge of advancing student success and ensuring more students benefit from the transformational power of a college education.”

Writer-in-Residence Mark Arax Chronicles California's Lifeblood: Water

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 21:44:57 +0000

By Jody Murray, ��ý

September 18, 2025

Author and Central Valley native Mark Arax will serve as ��ý's writer-in-residence this academic year.

��ý has debuted a writer-in-residence program with one of California’s premier chroniclers of its history, especially the titanic power plays for land and water that have shaped the state’s growth and loom over its future.

Mark Arax, a Fresno native, author and former Los Angeles Times journalist, will host workshops about his craft throughout the academic year. His presence on campus also will offer inside access to a working author.

The writer-in-residence program is co-hosted by the ��ý Library and the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts. The intent is to make this a feature of every academic year.

“This is an honor,” Arax said, “and it comes at an interesting time because I’m embarking on a new book.”

Arax is a two-time winner of the California Book Award and a recipient of Stanford University's William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. His most recent work, “The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California,” was hailed by critics as one of the most important books about the West.

“The Dreamt Land” delves into the state’s epic battles over water. Its predecessor, “The King of California,” co-written with Rick Wartzman, chronicles J.G. Boswell, a powerful cotton grower in the Central Valley.

“The writer-in-residence program reflects our commitment to bringing distinguished voices to campus who can inspire our students,” said Leo Arriola, dean of the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts. “Mark's work does so powerfully by deepening our understanding of the Central Valley’s history and the stakes for our future, especially in how we manage land and water resources.”

Arax’s Armenian heritage deeply affects his work. His 1996 book, “In My Father’s Name,” describes the 1972 killing of his father, Ara Arax, along with the Armenian immigrant experience.

There are three writer-in-residence workshops scheduled; more will be announced. All are free and open to the public, and are scheduled for 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. in Classroom and Office Building 2, room 170:

Sept. 23: Stories About Place
Oct. 14: Creative Non-fiction: How Does it Work?
Nov. 4: Investigative Journalism: Our Last, Best Hope When Democracy Corrodes

Check this library webpage for information and updates about the writer-in-residence program.

Open Arms, Open Skies: Students Welcomed at Spirited, Soggy Scholars Bridge Crossing

Anonymous — Wed, 27 Aug 2025 00:58:14 +0000

By Jody Murray, ��ý

August 26, 2025

Wet and wonderful: Bursts of rain made for a rare and memorable Scholars Bridge Crossing.

Spirits were high and futures bright while all else was soaked in a summer storm that made Tuesday morning’s Scholars Bridge Crossing, ��ý’s traditional greeting to new students, a welcome unlike any before.

Call them Thunder ‘Cats.

The ceremony embraced about 2,000 first-year and transfer students to a campus that this fall semester marks 20 years since the first undergraduate class began at the newly built institution, bringing the power of a University of California education to the Central Valley.

Low, gray clouds and occasional distant thunder framed the scene as the new Bobcats gathered at about 8:30 a.m., dressed in dark-blue Boomer Bobcat T-shirts. Many had moved into residence halls a few days earlier in cloudless, 100-degree heat.

“We’re all excited to have you here, and we’re going to get this thing moving,” Chancellor Juan Sánchez Muñoz told the incoming students, glancing at the sky. “You are the realization of a future launched 20 years ago. You will find countless ways to discover who you are and who you want to become.”

Just as Muñoz wrapped up his remarks, the sky opened — big, warm drops, growing in intensity. The chancellor, joined by his wife, Professor Zenaida Aguirre-Muñoz, and the university’s three school deans, led a brisk procession up to Scholars Lane and across the bridge.

The students were cheered by hundreds of faculty and staff, several of whom put welcome signs above their heads to ward off the downpour. Lightning flashed and rumbles of distant thunder were felt as the students marched to the Beginnings sculpture.

In years past they would walk ceremoniously through the twin spires then pause for a greeting from campus leaders. But Tuesday'st stormy conditions — no previous Bridge Crossing had experienced this — called for a swift, non-stop passage, followed by a retreat to dry shelter under the eaves of the nearby library and classroom buildings.

As staff and faculty worked to accommodate an event schedule now contracted and largely moved indoors, students enjoyed boxed lunches, maintained a celebratory atmosphere and showed the resilience that has set Bobcats apart through the years.

Professor Zenaida Aguirre-Muñoz, Chancellor Juan Sánchez Muñoz and new ��ý students enjoy a rain-soaked Scholars Bridge Crossing.

Several were asked to share why they came to ��ý and what they hope to accomplish.

Romeo Yang from Sacramento is a bioengineering major. He came to ��ý because “I really liked the campus. It’s very walkable.” He has enjoyed all the welcoming events. “I definitely think it will be fun here. I’ve met a lot of new people.”

Winnie Mabula is from San Jose; her family came to the United States from Kenya two years ago. She is committed to pre-med studies. She said she received generous financial aid (“I couldn’t say ‘no’ to that”) and that “what stood out to me is that everybody is nice and friendly. The atmosphere is very welcoming.”

Computer science and engineering is the chosen major for Jonathan Brown of Placencia. He looks forward to delving into science and robotics. He considered UC Santa Cruz and California State University-Pomona but ��ý won out because “it has a really good campus life and the best amount of things I’m looking for.”

This Scholars Bridge Crossing debuted welcome sessions from academic advisers and professors. Associate Dean Anne Zanucchi and Professor Yang Lor, who chairs the sociology undergraduate program, roamed the desks in a packed classroom, talking to students.

"I asked him a couple questions and he was very informative," Kassandra Suentel of Tracy said of Lor. "He helped me start to figure out my future here."

Elsewhere, fourth-year student and chemical engineering major Luis Onofre, who interned this summer at 3M, demonstrated how a metal wire straightens to its original shape when exposed to heat.

“It remembers its form," he told a nodding group of Thunder ‘Cats. Their journey was well underway.

Public Information Officer Patty Guerra contributed to this story.

Fellowship Lifts Mission of Farmworkers’ Daughter to Improve Immigrant Health

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 21:31:51 +0000

By Jody Murray, ��ý

August 13, 2025

Fabiola Perez-Lua, a recent Ph.D. graduate at ��ý, earned a UCLA Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellowship.

A daughter of San Joaquin Valley immigrant farmworkers has earned the opportunity to study alongside a nationally prominent health researcher and energize her mission to improve the well-being of agricultural laborers.

Fabiola Perez-Lua, who in May received a Ph.D. in Public Health at ��ý, earned a UCLA Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program award. The program offers research funds and faculty mentoring to scholars whose research and public service can enhance diversity and equal opportunity at the University of California and beyond.

Growing up with parents who gathered grapes, almonds and pistachios from Tulare County fields sharpened the insight Perez-Lua applies to improving the lives of California’s immigrants, especially those in the agriculture industry. Her longtime adviser at ��ý said Perez-Lua has an innate rapport with the dozens of people she has interviewed for studies.

“She manages to balance the urgency of getting the data with thoughtfulness and care in a way that is extraordinary,” said Maria-Elena De Trinidad Young, a public health professor who has worked alongside Perez-Lua for nearly six years.

Under the fellowship, Perez-Lua will be mentored by Professor Ninez Ponce, director of UCLA’s Center for Health Policy Research. Ponce, a nationally recognized voice for the well-being of marginalized populations, oversees the California Health Interview Survey, the nation’s largest survey of state-level data on race and ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity, and immigrant health.

Young, who earned a Ph.D. in Community Health at UCLA, said Ponce and Perez-Lua became acquainted during a collaborative study by ��ý and UCLA. The fellowship opens new doors for her protégé.

“Ninez is a health policy leader whom people turn to at a national level to support things like affordable insurance for marginalized populations,” Young said. “She embodies good scholarship and good advocacy. I’m excited for Fabiola.”

Perez-Lua’s parents came to California more than 30 years ago, leaving impoverished lives in Mexico. They took up fieldwork in the Valley and started a family. As the years passed, her father would work while her mother watched their daughters, or both parents farmed when the children were at school. During winter breaks from school, the girls would help in the grape vineyards, collecting pruned branches for tractors to pick up.

“My sisters and I never worked on crops other than grapes because that’s what was there at the time,” Perez-Lua said. “A lot of those vineyards have been knocked down to grow almonds. The landscape has changed over the years.”

She joined ��ý’s Public Health graduate program in summer 2020, amid the shattering early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, Perez-Lua’s signature research revolved around the coronavirus.

“She manages to balance the urgency of getting the data with thoughtfulness and care in a way that is extraordinary.”

Professor Maria-Elena De Trinidad Young

She and ��ý professors co-authored studies on how COVID affected rural Latino immigrants’ mental health and access to food. Another paper showed how these immigrants created workarounds to survive exclusion from institutional assistance.

��ý public health professors praised Perez-Lua’s combination of perspective and talent. “She is deeply driven by social justice goals,” Professor Sidra Goldman-Mellor said. Professor Alec Chan-Golston added that she “effortlessly blends her personal experiences, quantitative analyses and qualitative research into a cohesive narrative about the challenges of farmworker health.”

Perez-Lua will continue to work with ��ý researchers during the one-year fellowship, but also is partnering with Carly Hyland, a UC Berkeley environmental health science professor. Their first collaboration will use interviews with farmworkers and employers to help develop workplace solutions to heat-related stress and illness.

“Fabiola brings a unique combination of impressive public health training and unrelenting passion for addressing the root causes of environmental, occupational and health inequities among farmworkers and their families,” Hyland said.

Perez-Lua started her college career at UC Santa Barbara. The oceanside campus was worlds away from her Valley hometown but still familiar; she had visited the university as a Tulare Union High School student.

By her second year at UCSB, she hadn’t picked a major but was feeding a longtime interest in biological science. Then she started an elective course that changed everything.

“For a social sciences requirement I took Chicano studies,” she said. “It opened my eyes to the history of the Mexican population in the United States and provided context to the things I was experiencing with my family.”

Perez-Lua’s pursuit of hard science now had a powerful complement — confronting the physical, economic and political hardships faced by hundreds of thousands of immigrant farmworkers in the Valley. An academic path was coming into focus.

As she pursued her passion for research, Perez-Lua eventually merged her interests in biology and social science into an anthropology major. After securing her bachelor’s degree, she thought medical school would be her step. To gain experience, she took a job at an ophthalmology clinic.

What she witnessed changed her mind. Farmworkers came through the door with eyes lacerated by a branch or burned by chemicals. They ran into language barriers and struggled with workers’ compensation red tape.

“I realized I didn’t want to work in a clinic, just shuttling people in and out,” she said; this realization coalesced into a decision that she could make a bigger impact through academic research into health inequities among Latino immigrants and farmworkers.,

But did such research opportunities exist, and where were they? She opened her laptop and started searching, landing eventually on a profile of Young, then a new professor at ��ý whose public health emphases included immigration policy.

A few emails and phone calls later, Perez-Lua was on her way to nearly six years of rigorous studies at a campus in the Valley where she grew up.

Perez-Lua said her current research examines how the agriculture industry is able to perpetuate conditions that harm the health of fieldworkers like her parents.

“Agriculture is this huge political and economic powerhouse, especially in the Central Valley,” she said. “So how does the industry exercise this power and how does that shape farmworkers’ conditions? I'll use the time through this fellowship to dig deep into this question.”

Igniting Our Response to Wildfires: the Power of Metaphors

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Jul 2025 18:00:23 +0000

By Jody Murray, ��ý

July 21, 2025

The ��ý study looked at the use of metaphorical language to help people grasp the scope and dangers of wildlifes.

As wind-whipped walls of flame destroyed hundreds of Los Angeles-area residences last January, one media report framed the disastrous wildfires in beastly terms, saying they were “ripping through homes.” The report then shifted to militaristic imagery: “Firefighters here have an uphill battle.”

A day later, a journalist from a national newspaper rode in a helicopter over the blackened devastation. Earlier, an evacuee had told him a stricken neighborhood looked like a war zone.

“I wondered if that was an exaggeration,” the reporter wrote, “until I saw it myself.”

It can be tough to wrap our heads around a wildfire’s scope, speed and destruction. The Madre fire, which started July 2 this year and affected three California counties, burned an area about the size of Atlanta. It is only the 11th largest to torch the state since 2020; the biggest scorched more land than Rhode Island and Washington, D.C., combined. In extreme conditions, a wildfire can generate its own weather and race faster than a person can run.

This is where the power of words can exert itself. By using language borrowed from more human-sized levels of reality, people are better able to understand and respond to a fire’s dangers. Two ��ý researchers studied two common metaphors in communication about wildfire: comparing it to a driven, hungry beast and to an enemy to defeat in war.

“A wildfire involves countless chemical processes happening in parallel over this huge expanse of physical space. We're not designed to comprehend processes with that amount of complexity and size,” said Professor Tyler Marghetis, who authored the study with fellow cognitive scientist Teenie Matlock, a ��ý professor emerita.

The study found that while these metaphors are often effective in framing natural disasters and spurring people to action, they sometimes send the wrong message or evoke an unhelpful reaction to wildfire management. This makes it doubly important that communicators, especially media outlets and response agencies, use these descriptors with care.

Metaphors pop up everywhere in our lives, animating an emotion, giving a noun human traits, or reshaping concepts such as time and distance. They summon imagery that helps describe the otherwise indescribable.

He burned with rage.

X goes to infinity.

Justice is blind.

A sampling of headlines during the Los Angeles County disaster shows metaphors hard at work.

Devastating and deadly wildfires rage in Los Angeles

With firefighters stretched thin, residents battle to save homes

See how a small fire in L.A. turned into a monster, hour by hour

“Metaphors appear everywhere, from mundane descriptions of time to responses to climate crises. Let's think about the implications of which framing we adopt,” Marghetis said. “It's not that one is better than the other, it's that they offer different ways of thinking through a fraught problem.”

Controlled burns, which create defensive space, are one area where metaphors might send the wrong message.

Marghetis and Matlock tapped a massive archive of television news broadcasts for their study. They looked at airings between 2009 and 2023, finding more than 150,000 instances of wildlife as the broadcast topic. The beast and war metaphors popped up every year.

The study found that fire management through planned, controlled burns is one area where the two metaphor styles can muddle the message. Framing flames as an invading military force can make it sound as if a burning landscape is unnatural and to be avoided at all costs. But fire is part of the normal life cycle of forests and wildlands, and controlled burns reduce underbrush that could fuel more dangerous blazes.

The war and beast metaphors can also complement each other, Marghetis said. The war metaphor can be effective because it invites a collective, unified response from people. Alternatively, a beast can be turned away by removing its food source, just as a fire can be controlled by removing fuel.

A similar study by Matlock in 2017 showed residents were more willing to evacuate if the official communication described the wildfire as a monster.

People differ in their motivations to prepare against wildfires. Some worry about losing their homes. Others may care about protecting an ecosystem.

“Metaphorical framing cuts across these perspectives,” the study said, “offering an integrated way to communicate to varied stakeholders about aspects of wildfire management.”

Depression Due to Politics: the Quiet Danger to Democracy

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 16:00:16 +0000

By Jody Murray, ��ý

July 7, 2025

In his book, "The Sad Citizen," ��ý Professor Chistopher Ojeda explores the effect of politics on mental health.

On laptop screens, televisions and social media feeds across the nation, images and words fueled by a fractured political landscape spout anger, frustration and resentment. Clashing ideologies burst forth in public demonstrations, family gatherings and digital echo chambers.

Red-hot rhetoric and finger-pointing memes are open expressions of emotions generated by engaging in politics. But there is another set of emotions far less incendiary but just as damaging to democracy. These feelings can push people to the sidelines and drive them to silence.

Disappointment. Grief. Loss.

The reasons for this phenomenon, along with its effects on mental health, are the subject of “The Sad Citizen: How Politics is Depressing and Why It Matters,” a new book by ��ý political science Professor Christopher Ojeda.

In the book, published in June by The University of Chicago Press, Ojeda combines years of studying the intersection of politics and mental health with fresh data culled from surveys, studies and political polls, along with his own experiments and interviews.

(Ojeda recently talked about “The Sad Citizen” on “Talking Policy,” a podcast by the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation.)

Depression can compel people to withdraw from the democratic process, Ojeda said, and can sap the collective power of like-minded groups. Populations marginalized by race, gender or income are even more likely to be sidelined as political depression piles atop other societal pressures, he said.

This disengagement can lead to people being increasingly misrepresented by governments, which fosters more depression. It’s a vicious cycle, Ojeda said.

In the book, Ojeda takes a broad view of depression, seeing it as a family of emotions such as disappointment, sadness, despair and melancholy. Whether it is mild disillusionment or major depressive disorder, it affects people’s lives and their ability to take part in activities, including politics, he said.

Depression can compel people to withdraw from the democratic process, Ojeda said, and can sap the collective power of like-minded groups.

Sometimes politicians stoke depression intentionally, hoping it can lead to a political score. Ojeda writes about Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell urging his fellow Republicans to emphasize President Joe Biden’s low approval ratings ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, when control of the U.S. Senate was up for grabs (the GOP controlled the House).

McConnell believed that drawing attention to Republican policy priorities risked turning Democrats’ disappointment in Biden “into anxiety over a Republican Congress, a feeling that would propel them to vote,” Ojeda wrote.

As it turned out, Republicans underperformed in those midterms and Democrats held the Senate. Disappointment switched sides.

The results of last year’s presidential election stoked the emotions addressed in “The Sad Citizen.” Donald Trump’s return to the White House was cheered by his supporters, Ojeda said, but those who had hoped the U.S. was steering away from the Trump era were emotionally crushed.

In the months since the election, clashes of triumph and frustration have manifested in fiery social media posts, divisive policies and protesters marching in the streets. In short: action. But headlines also speak of the losing side being adrift, of its political leaders and voters unsure what to do next.

“Depression leads us to withdraw,” Ojeda said in an interview. “If you think something is lost forever, it doesn’t make sense to keep pouring energy into getting it back.”

In the book, Ojeda observes that democracy and depression are difficult, if not impossible, to separate. In elections, one side gets the brass ring and the other goes home. It’s part of the deal. Echo chambers breed misinformation and embrace polarized opinions but are a haven for people with similar ideologies.

“While I don’t have all the answers, I try to point us toward a ‘politics without disruption,’” he writes in “The Sad Citizen.” He said this means working to reduce directed outrage and negativity, thereby expanding space for healthier engagement. Campaigns should emphasize what they stand for and what they want to achieve, Ojeda said.

As for a prescription against depression caused by politics, Ojeda said he supports giving yourself a break from media apps or your finely curated social media feed (it’s called doom-scrolling for a reason). Turn off related phone notifications. Create some distance.

This doesn’t mean disengaging from democracy for all time, Ojeda said. Rather, the goal is to create time to determine what level of engagement is healthy and productive for you.

“It’s OK to step back and take care of your own well-being,” Ojeda said. “You need to do this in order to be a responsible, democratic citizen.”

��ý's CAPE Takes Extraordinary Steps to Prepare Legislative Interns

Anonymous — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 22:04:58 +0000

By Jody Murray, ��ý

June 5, 2025

At the legislative offices in Sacramento, U.S. Rep. Adam Gray, left, introduces friends to ��ý Legislative Fellows (from left) Nijwam Anyangwe, Mariel Garcia and Noah Evjenth.

Mariel Garcia accepted a welcoming handshake from the chief of staff for state Sen. Tim Grayson. A large photograph of rolling hills at sunset near Walnut Creek, a city in Grayson’s district, dominated a wall in the compact reception room.

“Good to meet you,” said the chief of staff, Aaron Moreno. “We’ll make sure to get whatever you need.”

Behind Moreno was a doorway to Grayson’s Sacramento office on the seventh floor of a government complex across O Street from the state Capitol. This was where Garcia, a just-graduated student from ��ý, would spend the next six weeks as a legislative intern.

Garcia was as ready as an intern could likely be, thanks to an extraordinary program at the university. In the academic year leading up to the internship, students first take a fall semester course that simulates how the state Senate works. Those chosen to be interns spend the spring semester working as undergraduate political science research assistants. Just before the internships begin, the students attend a one-week “bootcamp” in Sacramento.

Seven students are in this year’s Legislative Fellows cohort, the third for ��ý’s Center for Analytic Political Engagement, or CAPE, which runs the program.

“The goal is for them to treat public policymaking as a craft. A lot of college students have strong ideologies,” said political science Professor Nathan Monroe, the CAPE director. “We help them step out of their shoes so they can be effective for the people they’re working for.”

Founded in 2021 by ��ý political science faculty, CAPE’s mission is to connect students, faculty and community leaders for the enhancement of democratic participation in the San Joaquin Valley.

“CAPE does a lot of things at ��ý, but the Legislative Fellows program is the crown jewel,” said Monroe, the university’s Tony Coelho Chair of Public Policy.

In state capitals from coast to coast, interns are a summer staple — governing bodies and agencies take on college students who experience the rhythms of democracy while providing help in areas such as researching policy, responding to constituents and helping to shepherd bills.

Interns from the ��ý CAPE program and The Maddy Institute are introduced during an Assembly session.

ICAPE takes preparing students for such responsibilities to another level. The signature step is the first one — the fall semester immersive simulation of the California Senate. Taking on roles as senators, lobbyists or journalists, they live and learn the rules — formal and unwritten — of the Capitol’s upper house.

The course includes a one-day field trip to Sacramento and a featured guest speaker. Past speakers include Gov. Gavin Newsom, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla and Rep. Jim Costa.

Then, CAPE selects each year’s Legislative Fellows and assigns them to political science faculty research projects during the spring. Five of this year’s fellows — Garcia, Aarynn DeLeon, Gracie Jaime, Jade Tirado and Gabriela Vargas-Buell — completed bachelor’s degrees at semester’s end. Noah Evjenth and Nijwam Anyangwe will start their third and fourth years, respectively, this fall.

At the end of May, everyone packed up for Sacramento and a week of bootcamp. On Tuesday morning, the students trooped from their hotel to the Capitol (besieged by scaffolding and fences due to a huge renovation) for a tour led by former Assembly Member Ken Cooley.

After lunch, they gathered in a visitor gallery where, on the Assembly floor below, members applauded them after an introduction by Assembly Member Esmeralda Soria (the gallery group included three interns from The Maddy Institute who took part in the bootcamp).

The balance of Tuesday and the rest of the week were filled with seminars, workshops and agency visits. They heard from a campaign strategist, the president of the California Chamber of Commerce, the communications director for the Senate Republican Caucus office, and staff at the Assembly Democratic Office of Communications and Outreach.

The seminars covered basic tasks such as writing a bill’s fact sheet, creating a policy position letter and developing a vote recommendation for a legislator. Two seminars were run by ��ý alumni — Baltazar Cornejo (’14), a policy advisor for a national law firm, and Ayeree Pipersburg (’23), a legislative aide for state Sen. Henry Stern.

Pipersburg has taken the journey this summer’s interns have begun and believes CAPE’s program can be transformative for the students, Sacramento and the Valley.

Pipersburg took the Senate simulation course at ��ý and said it was a game changer.

At a dinner gathering, state Sen. Tim Grayson chats with ��ý Legislative Fellow Mariel Garcia, who will intern in Grayson's office. (Photo by Meadow Moore)

“Some people questioned what I could do with a political science degree,” she said. “Well, I’m doing exactly what the degree meant for me to do. That’s nothing short of amazing

“Learning how to draft a bill from the ground up, understanding the politics and the people, having all that understanding before you come up here — that’s going to change people’s lives. That’s going to change the way this building runs.”

The Legislative Fellows also honed their networking skills with dinner events. On Tuesday night, more than 20 Capitol officials and staff gathered with the students at Brasserie du Monde for finger food and conversation. A circle of students spent several minutes chatting with ��ý alumnus Matt Wainwright (’13), legislative manager of the state Department of Consumer Affairs.

“You’re all part of a training session tonight,” Monroe told the dinner attendees. “We talk to them about how to recognize these opportunities in professional, social situations, and to make the most of them.”

U.S. Rep. Adam Gray, a former CAPE associate director, was on hand throughout bootcamp week, attending events, offering insight and answering questions. Early in the week, he guided three students to the offices where they would work as interns. Gray, a former state assemblyman, stopped along the hallways several times to greet old colleagues and introduce the students.

The internship takes place during one of the most dynamic periods of the legislative calendar. Lawmakers will pass the state budget, move bills from committees to floor votes and get things squared away before summer recess, which starts just as the internships end.

Anyagwe, Garcia and Tirado said their plans after the internship include a possible pursuit of a law degree. Anyangwe, from San Jose, hoped an up-close experience in policymaking would help her as a lawyer who defends the law. Tirado, from Santa Ana, wants to be an attorney who protects the underserved.

Garcia spent the last two years at ��ý as student coordinator for Services for Undocumented Students, a part of the Calvin E. Bright Success Center. After graduation, she wants to enter law school and land more internships, perhaps at a law firm or immigration office.

“I want to build up experience first and be sure that a law career is something I’m truly committed to,” Garcia said.

For Pipersburg, the ��ý alumna, the journey these interns have started is much like the one that led to a Capitol career. She believes the CAPE program can be transformative for the students, Sacramento and the Valley.

“Learning how to draft a bill from the ground up, understanding the politics and the people, having all that understanding before you come up here — that’s going to change people’s lives,” Pipersburg said. “That’s going to change the way this building runs.”

CAPE fellows, from left, Gracie Jaime, Gabriela Vargas-Buell and Jade Tirado visit the governor's office. (Photo by Meadow Moore)

��ý Project Aims to Strengthen Heat Relief in Kern County

Anonymous — Wed, 21 May 2025 15:00:50 +0000

By Jody Murray, ��ý

May 21, 2025

Cooling centers — spacious buildings that open to the public on dangerously hot days — are one way to ward off heat-related illness in Kern County.

In California’s Kern County, nearly 925,000 people live in oppressive heat 125 days per year.

Several types of relief are offered. Residents can get breaks on energy bills bloated by air conditioning costs. Triple-digit temperatures trigger the opening of public buildings labeled “cooling centers.” Schools and businesses get tips about preventing heat-related illness.

But how effective are these protections? Kern County’s rate of heat-related hospitalizations from 2000 through 2020 was twice California’s average. Access to services are strained by a poverty rate nearly 50% higher than the state’s.

What more can be done?

A research project that partners ��ý with Stanford University aims to find answers. The study will combine health data, interviews with affected residents and expertise from a community advisory board into an action plan to further understand the benefits of heat interventions and improve the quality of life for people in the San Joaquin Valley’s southernmost county.

Public health Professor Sandie Ha leads the project, which is funded by the California Air Resources Board and began April 1. Ha said the project looks beyond heat-related deaths and delves into how oppressive temperatures affect mental, respiratory and cardiovascular health, as well as pregnancies. It also will analyze the health benefit and, by extension, cost-effectiveness of heat interventions.

The Stanford team is taking the lead in working with the community advisory board and interviewing residents about heat interventions — how well they work and what barriers exist. Did residents hear about how they can reduce their power bills? Do they know an agency will pay to button up their homes with caulk and insulation? Are they able to catch a ride to cool off at the East Bakersfield Veterans Hall or the Arvin Community Center?

“Of course, we want to help the communities there. But we want them to help us as well. ��ý is here in the Valley. We’re part of them.”

Professor Sandie Ha

“All of these aspects, cumulatively, make the project more innovative than similar ones done before,” said Ha, a member of ��ý Health Sciences Research Institute.

Ha has extensive experience with population-based studies on environmental impacts on health. In 2024, she and a team of researchers published a study on the effects of air pollution on residents from a concentration of commercial trucks in south Fresno. The study supported a proposal to shift truck routes away from residential areas.

But Ha’s current project is much bigger, at least geographically. Kern County is California’s third-largest county by area. Bakersfield is its anchor city, but some communities stretch into the Sierra Nevada and Coast Range, along with desert landscapes and broad swaths of farmland. More than half of the county’s population is Hispanic.

Dangerous heat is a relative thing. Cooling centers on the valley floor are supposed to open when a day’s forecasted high temperature hits 105 degrees. In the mountain town of Frazier Park, the trigger is 93. In the desert community of Rosamond, it’s 108.

No matter where a Kern County resident lives, exposure to hot days can break down a body’s defenses. According to a recent study, prolonged exposure to extreme heat accelerates aging in people 56 or older. In the study, subjects faced highs of 90 degrees at least 140 days a year. Kern County approaches that mark with an average of 128 such days from 2014 through 2023.

This far-reaching effect of hot weather on Kern County’s people is one huge reason why interviewing, surveying and empowering residents about methods of heat relief is a pivotal part of Ha’s project. Manali Patel, a professor of medicine at Stanford, will head the effort, which the researchers call “ground truthing.”

“Of course, we want to help the communities there. But we want them to help us as well,” Ha said. “��ý is here in the Valley. We’re part of them. Our mindset is to give them genuine care and work to make it bi-directional.”

��ý Graduates Encouraged to Embrace Every Moment

Anonymous — Mon, 19 May 2025 21:00:34 +0000

By Jody Murray, ��ý

May 19, 2025

Two of the more than 1,500 graduates who were celebrated during the Spring 2025 Commencement ceremonies.

With cheers, hugs and leis, more than 1,500 ��ý graduates received a celebratory sendoff to their bright futures as a prominent keynote speaker told them to make the most of the here and now.

Hundreds of families and friends joined the graduates in three days of commencement ceremonies at the university’s Recreation Field. White picket fences lined the processional path for graduates, faculty and campus leaders of the San Joaquin Valley’s only research institution.

University of California President Michael Drake, a longtime champion of the 20-year-old campus, told graduates at Sunday’s ceremony to make the most of every moment.

“This is your life. Today doesn’t come again,” Drake said. “You need to keep your hearts and minds open. When you’re turning in an assignment or completing a project for work, always ask yourself if you’ve done your best. Great if the answer is yes, but if not, it’s always appropriate to double back and improve your effort.

“That kind of focus and engagement leads to learning. It leads to lasting relationships. It leads to success in life.”

Drake, who will step down as UC president later this year, received a Chancellor’s Medal, ��ý’s highest individual honor, from university Chancellor Juan Sánchez Muñoz.

On Friday night, Jennifer Alvarez’s moment included holding 3-year-old daughter Aluna as she and family celebrated her doctoral degree in environmental systems. Two years ago, Alvarez and her husband, Pedro Millan, moved from Modesto to Merced so Aluna could receive on-campus day care, and her mom could devote more time to coursework.

“It feels like everything was perfect timing,” said Alvarez, who is on a path to be a soil conservationist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “I really needed the push of the responsibility of having a child to believe in myself and finish.”

About 120 students received advanced degrees Friday, including a limber master’s graduate who performed the splits while crossing the stage. Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Education Hrant Hratchian told the graduates that only 13% of U.S. residents attain master’s degrees and just 2% earn doctorates.

The speaker that evening noted that 10 years ago, “almost to the day,” she received a Ph.D. in psychology from ��ý.

“I was sitting where you are,” said Kristynn Sullivan, who earlier this year was appointed director of the Merced County Department of Health.

Sullivan said her achievement a decade also brought her to crossroads. She had a baby daughter, a doctorate and two career options —a crime analyst or an epidemiologist. She chose the latter though she had little knowledge of the public health industry.

Why? Two reasons. One, getting vaccinations for her daughter through Medi-Cal was a “horrific” experience; perhaps she could effect change from the inside. Two, the job had a better insurance plan.

“Allow space for those moments, for that magic, to infiltrate, even when you have a five-, 10- and 20-year plan,” Sullivan said. “Stopping, assessing and making sure you are listening to your gut and still choosing the next right thing can lead to opportunities you never imagined. Saying yes to unexpected things can lead to the most beautiful of lives.”

UC President Michael Drake, center, received the ��ý Chancellor's Medal from Chancellor Juan Sánchez Muñoz and UC Board of Regents Chair Janet Reilly.

Saturday’s ceremony brought together about 600 bachelor’s degree recipients from the School of Natural Science and the School of Engineering. Among the students was Simriya Sandhu of El Dorado Hills. Thanks to numerous advanced placement courses in high school and extra research work at ��ý, Sandhu needed just three years to earn a degree in molecular and cell biology.

The new graduate joined her parents, grandparents, brother and an uncle near the Big Rufus statue on University Plaza. “I’m feeling so happy,” said grandmother Anita Sandhu. “I’m very proud of her.”

The keynote speaker that day was Shirley Collado, president of CEO of College Track, an organization that helps underserved young people overcome systemic barriers and earn academic degrees.

Collado shared the personal story that shaped her career. She is from Brooklyn, the daughter of a cab driver and garment worker who earned a scholarship to Vanderbilt University. She and her mother took a 26-hour bus ride to Nashville and a seemingly limitless future — something she now strives to make possible for students who might otherwise be left behind.

“We exist right now in a world that seems so divided, where our shared humanity feels so vulnerable,” Collado said. “This moment requires compassionate awareness, intellectual maturity, meaningful connections and the ability to have productive conversations across lines of difference.”

More than 800 graduates attended Sunday’s ceremony for the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts — the largest one-day commencement event in ��ý history. Janet Reilly, president of the UC Board of Regents, introduced UC President Drake as the day’s keynote speaker.

After the ceremony, the throng of grads and well-wishers at University Plaza included Buya Degonbaatar, who hopes to parlay his cognitive science degree into a career in digital user experience design.

“I learned a lot of things, ranging from philosophy to computer science to artificial intelligence,” he said.

Degonbaatar’s father, Avirmed, stood next to his oldest son, beaming.

“It’s a wonderful day,” he said. “Very exciting. Wonderful things happening.”

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������ý's CAPE Takes Extraordinary Steps to Prepare Legislative Interns

������ý Project Aims to Strengthen Heat Relief in Kern County

������ý Graduates Encouraged to Embrace Every Moment

Three-year Grant Lifts Joy Provided by ��ý Children’s Opera

��ý a National Finalist for Student Success Award

��ý's CAPE Takes Extraordinary Steps to Prepare Legislative Interns

��ý Project Aims to Strengthen Heat Relief in Kern County

��ý Graduates Encouraged to Embrace Every Moment