Black and Hispanic faculty members seeking promotion at research universities face career-damaging biases, with their scholarly production judged more harshly than that of their peers, according to a groundbreaking initiative co-led by UC Merced that aims to uncover the roots of these biases and develop strategies for change.
He studied in hallowed halls of academia. His highly respected research takes him halfway around the globe into societies both foreign and familiar. In his newest role, he leads the largest school of a research university less than two decades old but soaring in reputation and influence.
Yet if you ask Leo Arriola about his journey, he uses a surprising word.
“I’m accidental in every possible way,” he said. “Professor. Administrator. Statistically, I shouldn’t be in this position.”
UC Merced has received a $750,000 boost to its mission to invest in the San Joaquin Valley’s unique cultural, creative and linguistic wealth by working with the region’s people to strengthen communities and champion social justice.
“Flora,” a film by UC Professor Yehuda Sharim, earned an award from the Latino and Native American Film Festival.
The film, which Sharim describes as a memoir of post-teen daughters of immigrants who must teach themselves about love and tenderness in a world dominated by unnecessary suffering and pain, won the festival’s Environmental, Social, Economic, Political Justice Award.
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.
