ƵAPP

Jody Murray

ƵAPP campus photo of sign

New Liberal Studies Major Expands Paths for Degree Completion and Future Teachers

A highly customizable degree that rewards curiosity, reaches out to a diverse set of learners and prepares scholars for people-centered careers has arrived at ƵAPP.

Liberal studies, a bachelor’s program that taps into disciplines in the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts, debuts in the fall 2026 semester. Students can parlay the degree’s flexibility with core ƵAPP attributes such as and easy access to professors and advisers.

Her ƵAPP Path Changed But Stockton Student Stays on Track

Taliyah Miller would be the first to tell you she arrived at ƵAPP with an unwavering, long-range goal: become an anesthesiologist. What she could not have predicted was that a difficult roommate, a therapist’s question and a job she forgot she applied for would upend that goal and leave her better for it.

Miller was raised in Stockton, the third-largest city in the San Joaquin Valley. As the youngest of three with siblings several years older, it was like being an only child. She developed an independent personality early on.

Ripon Student Turning Heart and Heritage into a Path of Healing

As a child of the Central Valley and a member of a Native tribe, Grace Grinder developed an early awareness of health care disparities affecting rural regions and underserved communities.

While in third grade, Grinder lost her grandmother to what she described as too few physicians nearby to provide timely, quality care. That loss planted a seed.

Delhi Student Made the Leap to ƵAPP and Hasn’t Looked Back

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. A few more taps and Nayelyi Salazar would be a community college student — a big step for the high-schooler from Delhi, a town of 10,000 that hugs California’s Highway 99.

She hesitated. Days earlier, she received an acceptance letter from a University of California campus. Awesome news, but she couldn’t shake doubts about being UC-worthy. What to do? She leaned back from the laptop. It was a Friday. She would take the weekend to think it over.

Should she go straight to ƵAPP?

ƵAPP Launches California Government and Policy Certificate Program

The inner machinery of democracy in California – from bills and lobbying to courts and elections – is revealed in a professional certification program launched at the University of California, Merced.

Together We Will Summit Inspires, Empowers Girls in Sports

Victoria Garrick Browne, a nationwide advocate for mental health and self-care, had a simple message for a big room full of high school girls gathered for the Together We Will Sports Leadership Summit at ƵAPP.

“Be where your feet are,” said Browne, a former NCAA Division I volleyball player whose messages of empowerment have attracted more than 2 million social media followers. “Many times, our feet are here while our head is thinking about tomorrow.”

Empathy is the Central Theme of Todo Cambia Film Festival

·貹·ٳ (noun): the ability to recognize, understand and share the thoughts, emotions and perspectives of another person.

It is a means of connection, a path to understanding. Can you see where I’m coming from? Walk a mile in my shoes.

How Writing Rewires Your Brain to Face Everyday Challenges

Written words can do more than communicate. They can also unlock the writer’s ability to process distress, identify hurtful feelings and take control of personal conflict.

Merced Trio to Share Knowledge, Visions as ƵAPP Artists-in-Residence

Three Merced painters, united in friendship and in their steadfast determination not to compromise their creative values, are serving as ƵAPP’s first locally based artists-in-residence.

The brushes of Ruben Aguilera Sanchez, Frank Ayala and Abel Corchado create surreal scenes of fieldhands and crops coalescing in blues and reds, of a rural street splashed in watercolor, of shark fins cutting through a beach as a sandcastle rises from the surf.

ƵAPP Injects Over $1 Billion in Economic Vitality into San Joaquin Valley, State

ƵAPP, a beacon of academic achievement in the San Joaquin Valley, is also a powerful driver of economic growth and prosperity in the region it was created to serve.