UC Merced: A vision realized

Some people encounter the fields spreading away from the UC Merced campus and see only emptiness. Some look at the sun and think, “It’s too darned hot.” Others see the Sierra rising in the distance and say, “It’s so far away.”

Those folks should get back on Highway 99 and look for a different community; a community where dreams don’t come true.

We don’t see endless fields; we see vernal pools being studied even as they burst with blossoms. It’s not too hot; that’s just the power of the sun waiting to be harnessed by solar scientists. Those mountains aren’t so far away; in fact, our university is right there in the middle of them, serving as home base for the Sierra Nevada Research Institute. And that barely begins to tell even a fraction of the story of UC Merced’s first 10 years.

The 10th year of its existence provides a moment to look over our shoulders and think of where we started, what’s been accomplished, whom we have helped and, yes, what could have been done better. Then it will be time to focus on the future – just as UC Merced has been doing all along.

In its first decade, the university has done much of what it promised. Not in a fell swoop, not immediately and not without pauses, hiccups and momentary setbacks. Still, we have a fully functioning, socially important and growing University of California campus sitting on the edge of Merced. What started as a bold dream for a few visionaries has become a vision realized. And it belongs to us ... and to the rest of California.

It’s unlikely you need a recap. But we recall the battles over where to put the campus; naysayers complaining it should be planted in a “healthier” community. They still talk about the old Merced Hills Golf Course as if they’re afraid students will get lost in a sand trap. We recall the thrill of seeing the earth start moving, then the buildings – connected through utility tunnels – rising from the grasslands. The arrival of the first students is still fresh. Many were Valley kids, but many more came from Los Angeles and the Bay Area, kids who had never seen a cow up close until one wandered through campus. For dozens, their first night at UC Merced was their first night away from home. Hundreds have been the first in their families to attend college.

That creates the greatest sense of pride – all those young people deciding to come here to the Valley. Their families entrusting us, Merced, to care for those kids, just as they entrusted those kids to care for their dreams. Important tasks.

Those students reflect California. UC Merced has the highest diversity in the UC system. In a minority-majority state, these are the young people who will carry California into the future. And they will have started their journeys here, destined never to forget Merced.

How can they forget professors who invite them into their homes for long discussions over dinner? Opportunities to work on research projects involving wildfire, childhood obesity, air pollution and issues vital to the Valley?

“We want to make sure we don’t lose that,” said Dorothy Leland, chancellor since 2011. “There really is a sense of community on our campus; that spirit has (given) our students a connection – a connection they want to give back to our communities.”

And many will stay, having found opportunities through internships and volunteerism. There are 115 students or alumni working in internships for Valley companies, including E.&J. Gallo Winery, Mercy Medical Center, Foster Farms, Frito-Lay, Del Monte Foods and Kaiser Permanente. With 6,300 students on campus (four times more than five years ago), more internships are needed.

Those internships, said Leland, “not only give students experience in the fields they’re interested in, but they also tell our students that there are opportunities right here in the San Joaquin Valley. And we want to keep our students here; we don’t want to export them to Los Angeles or San Francisco or, God forbid, some other state.”

If there’s a knock on the entire UC system, it is that more administrators aren’t involved directly with students. More specifically at UC Merced, the graduation rate (57 percent in 6 years) is the lowest of any UC campus.

“There are few things in life that are unqualified successes,” said Leland. “You’re always looking to improve. We’ve got a really wonderful student population and we graduate the very vulnerable populations at a significantly higher rate (than other schools). But that’s still below the University of California (overall graduation rate), and one of our goals is to have our students graduate at the same rate as the bigger, older and more highly ranked UC campuses.”

It wasn’t the university’s fault that speculators – sucked into the pre-recession housing bubble – overbuilt, leaving acres of empty neighborhoods. It takes time to grow a UC community, and now Merced is beginning to catch up, due in part to the university’s investment. Overall, UC Merced has spent $152 million with Merced and Stanislaus companies – nearly half its total. Throw in $930 million in payroll, and the impact is substantial. We wonder how much deeper the recession would have gotten without the university.

More is coming. As part of its 2020 project, the UC will bring classrooms, offices, staff and students to downtown Merced – which has enormous potential for downtown development.

“Over time, it will make an impact on the city and help cause things to happen there that are critical to the revitalization of the area,” said Leland. “We know it will provide a lot more foot traffic, and that will boost small retail businesses.”

The university has more momentum than at any time since its inception, with an innovative growth plan and realistic hopes for a desperately needed medical school.

But what about our region, county and city? Where is the vision, the drive, the run-through-walls enthusiasm required to carry this dream off the campus and into our midst?

“Partnerships will be the key,” said Leland.

Ten years ago, UC Merced seemed little more than a mirage rising from the fields with only a few capable of seeing its potential. Today it is a concrete reality and the more who see it, who invest in it, who partner with it, the greater it becomes for all of us and for all of California.

This story was originally published September 29, 2015 at 11:58 PM with the headline "UC Merced: A vision realized."