UC Merced Opens for Its Freshman Year

Nearly two decades after it was approved by University of California regents, UC’s 10th campus officially opened Monday near this Central California city, welcoming its inaugural students with musical fanfare, colorful processions, a barbecue lunch and -- despite months of worry -- only minor glitches.

Addressing about 4,000 dignitaries, community members, parents and students gathered to celebrate the opening with a formal convocation, UC Merced Chancellor Carol Tomlinson-Keasey acknowledged the many delays and problems that for a while bedeviled the campus.

“There were lots of times people said this day would never come,” Tomlinson-Keasey said as the UC Merced students seated before her responded with sustained cheers, whoops and applause. “But it has, and we’re just very glad it’s here.”

Throughout the two-hour ceremony in a giant white tent near the unfinished library, the chancellor and others spoke of the challenges they faced in establishing the campus, including increased environmental regulations, political travails and a state budget crisis that caused a one-year delay in its opening.

Many of the political and university leaders who worked to establish the campus and ensure its funding took part in the ceremony, including former Govs. Gray Davis and George Deukmejian. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger did not attend but he had stopped in last week for a brief tour and meeting with campus leaders.

Just outside the entrance to campus Monday, a handful of anti-Schwarzenegger protesters, mainly members of nurses and teachers unions, held a small demonstration but did not disrupt the proceedings.

Inside the air-conditioned tent, decorated with banners and potted ficus trees, UC President Robert C. Dynes praised those involved in creating the campus, saying they had defied the odds.

Now, Dynes said, he could only imagine the exhilaration of those who will be the first to work and study at the new campus.

“You’ve had quite a ride,” he said. “Fasten your seat belts. You’re in for more.”

Set in rolling grasslands about five miles north of this farming community, UC Merced is the first major American research university to be built this century and the first UC campus to open in 40 years. It is also the first UC campus in the San Joaquin Valley, and university officials hope it will help boost college attendance rates in the area, which have traditionally lagged behind the rest of the state.

“This will be an enormous boon to the valley,” Davis said after the ceremony.

But UC Merced’s first students will have to be patient -- and flexible.

Classes for the initial 1,000 students, about 900 of them freshmen, begin today but will be held in classrooms in the two finished wings of the library and in large conference rooms in residence halls. Two other key structures, the main classroom building and a science and engineering facility, will be completed later in the school year.

Workers have been laboring nearly around the clock in recent weeks and have made considerable progress, paving key roads and parking lots, completing electrical work and planting trees and other landscaping.

But many parts of the campus, including a central area outside the library where Monday’s ceremony was held, remain unpaved. And large expanses, filled with construction vehicles and materials, are still fenced off.

Most students interviewed, however, seemed good-natured about the construction and about a handful of minor inconveniences they said were inevitable at a new campus. One student was briefly stuck in an elevator, and several who moved into the dormitories over the weekend said that not all rooms had electricity.

“Mine was fixed pretty fast, but a friend still doesn’t have it,” Jessica Cullins, 17, a freshman from Modesto, said of the power problem. “And they say we won’t have cable, maybe for a month. But it’s OK. Everyone’s really welcoming here, really positive.”

Other students were similarly upbeat as they milled about a plaza between the dorms, waiting for the opening ceremonies to begin. Many wore white polo shirts with UC Merced emblazoned on the front. A few sported navy blue baseball caps decorated with fuzzy fake bobcat ears, in honor of UC Merced’s feline mascot.

Another freshman, Michael Parker, 18, of Napa, said he was drawn to the campus by the enthusiasm of the professors he met at an orientation meeting and by Merced’s small-town atmosphere, which reminded him of his hometown.

Otherwise, he said, “We’re going to have to be a little flexible at first, but that’s part of the fun of it. Everything’s new. And every one of us is new too.... We get to start it all.”

Two other freshmen laughed when asked how things had gone since moving into dorms on Saturday.

“It’s definitely not your average college experience,” said Chris Thomas, 18, of Livermore. “They don’t really know how to handle crowds yet, so trying to get our books was pretty insane. But it’s going to be great once that stuff gets solved.”

His new friend, Paul Samelson, a freshman from Yreka, praised the layout of the dorms, most of which consist of two- or three-bedroom suites clustered around common areas.

“The amenities are great and the staff is really quick to fix problems,” Samelson said.

Thomas added, “I’m just excited to see how it all works out. It’s exciting that we’re the first students and we can kind of leave our mark here.”

Moments later, they joined a mass of other students in the first procession into the tent, followed by UC Merced staff, faculty, major donors and political and university leaders.

UC Board of Regents Chairman Gerald Parsky pointed out that planning for the campus began 17 years ago, at a time when many of the students who sat before him, about to begin their college careers, had probably just been born.

“Vision takes time,” he said.

He and others, including Harvard law professor and keynote speaker Charles Ogletree, spoke of their hopes that the campus, along with the education it provides for its students, will become an engine of economic growth for the San Joaquin Valley.

Tomlinson-Keasey closed the ceremony by paraphrasing President Kennedy.

“Our university will not be finished in 20 years, not in 50 years, not in many lifetimes,” she said. “But let us begin.”