UC Merced Magazine | Commemorative Chronicle

She built the Peer Health Educator Program that serves students today. Shay got a doctorate in philosophy at UC Merced while working as assistant director of the Center for Engaged Teaching and Learning. She is now a professor of ecology, evolution and marine biology at UC Santa Barbara. “Once a Bobcat, always a Bobcat,” Shay said. “UC Merced got me where I am today.” JACKIE SHAY ’09, PH.D. ’21 PROFESSOR | UCSB ECOLOGY, EVOLUTION & MARINE BIOLOGY

On a campus that was as much a construction zone as a university, people squinted through the sca olds, cranes and dust to see a long horizon of possibility. “It was like we pulled up to the land, built the log cabins and set up the saloon and sheri ’s o ce,” said Jackie Shay ’09, Ph.D. ’21, one of the rst undergraduates. “It was a playground for dreamers,” she said. “We were building it as we were living it.” Shay founded half a dozen student organizations. She set up student volunteers in the emergency room of Merced’s Mercy Medical Center.

Professor emeritus Christopher Viney, a founding faculty member and a professor of chemical and materials engineering, remembered feeling a “cocktail of emotions” as he gave the rst lecture to a class of pioneer rst-years. “Anticipation, relief, elation, honor, gratitude, anxiety, responsibility, and many more,” he said. It was a general education course. Reporters and news cameras lined the California Room. Founding Chancellor Carol Tomlinson-Keasey gave welcoming remarks. “I then described the motivation for and scope of the course, which was developed by six faculty, two from each school,” Viney said. “ e interdisciplinarity was energizing.” Turning to UC Merced’s future, Viney said he hoped the trait of rolling up sleeves and getting things done endures as the university

“adapts and innovates to ensure future-proof student success.”

For some, 2005 is one waypoint, albeit a big one, on a journey that winds back to the 1980s, when University of California leaders began talking seriously about building a 10th campus to accommodate rising enrollment. CHRISTOPHER VINEY PROFESSOR CHEMICAL & MATERIALS ENGINEERING

UCMERCED MAGAZINE 49