Mauricio Ernesto Ramírez, a postdoctoral scholar in the UC Davis Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies, first walked through Balmy Alley when he was a student at a nearby elementary school in San Francisco’s Mission District. The block-long alley contains the most concentrated collection of murals in a city that’s a tapestry of murals. The alley’s art — which first began appearing in the early 1970s —has long been about issues relevant to the many Mission residents who trace their roots to Mexico and Central America.

History professor Lorena Oropeza is having a leadership moment. On Thursday (Aug. 20), the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities named Oropeza as one of 26 fellows in the second cohort of its Leadership Academy/La Academia de Liderazgo. The same day, the UC Davis Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion announced her appointment as the interim associate vice chancellor for academic diversity.