Jody Murray

"Flora," the latest film by Yehuda Sharim, will have its world premiere later this spring at a festival in Philadelphia, according to the UC Merced global arts professor.

Sharim describes "Flora" as a collective memoir of post-teen daughters of immigrants who must teach themselves about love and tenderness in a world dominated by unnecessary suffering and pain. Filmed in a Mexican restaurant in downtown Merced, "Flora," blends elements of reality and fiction while telling the story of immigrants through music.

UC Merced’s Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES) is among 95 programs recognized and supported by the Mellon Foundation in an initiative called Affirming Multivocal Humanities.

CRES will use a $100,000 grant from the foundation to kick-start several student-led activities designed to raise awareness about race, ethnicity and social justice both in the campus community and in the surrounding Merced area.

It was a terrible trifecta: a busted tilt skillet, an obsolete replacement part and thousands of hungry students restarting classes in six days.

For a UC Merced Dining Services team facing a logistical kitchen nightmare, the solution was a savory mix of collaboration and outside-the-pizza-box thinking. And it happened barely 12 giant steps from the broken cooker in the Pavilion dining center.

UC Merced researchers are shedding light on a little-explored aspect of cross-cultural communication that involves no spoken words but sometimes can cause confusion and anguish for children acting as interpreters for older family members.

The 12^th edition of the Bobcat Art Show, which debuts this week in a new space, is further proof that creativity can come from anywhere in the UC Merced community.

“In addition to the amazing work done by our Global Arts Studies students and faculty, we have some incredible pieces by engineers, finance managers, anthropologists and more – demonstrating how the power of art truly knows no bounds,” said Collin Lewis, the university’s executive director for the arts.

In a thick rainforest in Papua New Guinea, they're tracking bats. Researchers glue radio transmitters to the creatures’ little, furry bodies, then wait. And wait. When a bat flits to another position, the humans sprint through the foliage, stop and take a reading.

It’s 1 a.m. The researchers will do this all night, running from spot to spot, triangulating the bats’ movements. Logging data.

Having a blast.

“It’s just fun, right?” Betsy Dumont said, recounting a moment lived on the way to becoming one of the world’s top bat biologists. “It’s hard and it’s fun.”

It was a terrible trifecta: a busted tilt skillet, an obsolete replacement part and thousands of hungry students restarting classes in six days.

For a UC Merced Dining Services team facing a logistical kitchen nightmare, the solution was a savory mix of collaboration and outside-the-pizza-box thinking. And it happened barely 12 giant steps from the broken cooker in the Pavilion dining center.

The unflinching demand for justice drives the moving images and impassioned ideas packed into the agenda of this year’s UC Merced Human Rights Film Festival, presented by the university’s Global Arts, Media & Writing Studies department.

Editor's note: In honor of Black History Month, the UC Merced newsroom is highlighting some of the organizations, services and people who serve or represent the Black community on campus.

Three months ago, UC Merced welcomed its first historically African-American international sorority. On Saturday afternoon, the Phi Alpha chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., will open the doors of the California Room for an inaugural Black History Month Celebration.