UC Merced to host Student of Color Conference

Organizers expect nearly 1,000 people from throughout California to be in Merced this weekend to attend UC Merced’s first hosting of the Student of Color Conference.

The 26th annual conference begins just before 9 a.m. Friday and continues through Sunday at UC Merced’s Joseph E. Gallo Recreation Center, 5200 N. Lake Road. It’s organized each year by the University of California Student Association, the University of California’s systemwide student government.

Organizers said the conference will have a handful of guest speakers, including Carlotta Walls LaNier, who was one of nine black children called “The Little Rock Nine” enrolled in a previously all-white school in 1957 Arkansas.

Another speaker is Ruben Canedo Sanchez, the research and mobilization coordinator for the Center for Educational Equity and Excellence at University of California, Berkeley.

Other speakers planned are National Poetry Slam winner Joaquin Zihuatanejo and state Assemblywoman Susan Eggman of the 13th District.

Students of color make up a large majority of the enrollment at UC Merced.

About 86 percent of UC Merced’s undergraduate population reported being of an ethnicity other than white. Underrepresented minority groups make up almost half of the last incoming class and more than half of the entire student body.

Across the UC system this year, more Latinos (28.8 percent) were offered admission as freshmen than whites (26.8 percent) for the first time.

For more on the conference, click here.

This story was originally published November 6, 2014 at 5:31 PM with the headline "UC Merced to host Student of Color Conference."