Distinguished Professor Emeritus Alan Balch, with more than 590 academic publications to his name and numerous accolades, is the longest serving tenured professor at UC Davis and is being celebrated with the Balch Symposium on Nov. 14. The symposium will consist of lectures from academics around the globe who will highlight Balch’s contributions to the field of chemistry.
The National Endowment for the Humanities awarded a $500,000 grant to launch and fund the UC Davis Center for Artificial Intelligence and Experimental Futures to a center focused on developing solutions to complex problems brought on by the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and imagining a future where it is utilized in innovative, ethical and accessible ways.
Ron Austin of Fairfield, California, is proud he has finally completed the requirements for a Bachelor of Arts in political science, but he sees his life as a cautionary tale that he shares with first-year students. What he didn’t know is that he was just seven units short of meeting the requirements for his degree.
The 2025 UC Davis Medal will be awarded to Michael C. and Renée Z. Child. Mike Child is a member of the Chancellor’s Board of Advisors and emeritus member and former chair of the UC Davis Foundation Board. Renée Child has served on the College of Letters and Science Dean’s Advisory Council.
The University of California, Davis, ushered in a new era for the arts with the grand opening of the Maria Manetti Shrem Art District made possible by philanthropist Maria Manetti Shrem through her transformative gift of over $20 million, the largest gift ever to the College of Letters and Science and the largest to the arts at UC Davis.
Temporary Building 9, or TB 9, a metal structure constructed from old military surplus materials, has been the main creative space at UC Davis since the 1960s. The building is where the first-generation art faculty at the university’s first art department created a place to work.
Celeste Turner Wright was the first chair of the Department of English and the first woman to serve on the UC Davis faculty. She was a prolific scholar and played a fundamental role in developing the humanities at UC Davis.
The year 1969 was the beginning of what would become African American and African, Asian American, Chicana/o and Native American studies programs. Since then, these programs have been a catalyst for social and political action on campus and beyond, and cultivated a lifelong commitment to making a difference.
The Maria Manetti Shrem Arts District will bear the international art patron’s name in recognition of her support of multiple disciplines and her vision to bolster collaboration among them with a holistic approach to the arts. The “Maria Manetti Shrem Arts Renaissance” will be created at the University of California, Davis, with a pledge of more than $20 million to further the art patron’s longstanding philanthropic partnership with the university.
The Accelerating Success by Providing Intensive Research Experience at UC Davis gets students into labs early vastly widening their vision of research through hands-on experience. Through ASPIRE, Valerie Klein has worked as a research assistant in the lab of Richard Huskey, an assistant professor of communication and cognitive science, since her second quarter at UC Davis.
