Construction progressing on new student health building

UC Riverside’s new Student Health and Counseling Center is beginning to take shape. The project celebrated a milestone with a topping off ceremony in early August as construction crews placed the top beam on the two-story structure. The new building will bring together medical, mental health, and wellbeing services in one convenient location and...

By Imran Ghori |

Grant funds program aimed at diversifying public engagement

A $550,000 grant will allow students at UC Riverside and other nearby minority-serving institutions, or MSIs, to participate in a research training academy and get hands-on experience contributing to a study on publicly engaged research in political science. The project, “Assessing the Effects of a Publicly Engaged Political Science using the MSI...

By University Communications |

Engineering team gathers data on Inland vehicle emissions

A research project by a UC Riverside mechanical engineering team could play an important part in helping to reduce the impact of pollutants from vehicles. The research team deployed weather towers, air samplers, balloons, and even drones to collect air samples in Riverside and Chino Hills in July and August. The researchers will analyze the data...

By Imran Ghori |

Bringing history alive at UCR Library

When Belen Cardenas, 20, a third-year English major, visited the UC Riverside Library Special Collections and University Archives to research Chicano history she had no idea how personal it would become. She and her classmates visited the Tomás Rivera Library as part of a summer class researching Chicano history. She ended up finding a personal...

By Imran Ghori |

UCR employee to chronicle NASA rocket launch

When NASA launches the Artemis I rocket on Monday, Aug. 29, UC Riverside employee Jessica Estrada will have a rare close-up vantage point — one she will be sharing with the world through social media. Estrada, a program coordinator with the University Eastside Community Collaborative, an AmeriCorps program in the Center for Educational and...

By Imran Ghori |

UCR employee joins ancient pilgrimage

For more than 2,000 years, pilgrims have walked the 500-mile path in Spain known as Camino de Santiago. Kathy Kim, a senior director of development, education, and policy at UC Riverside's Office of Development, was among thousands to make that journey this summer. Kim used the opportunity to raise funds for the School of Public Policy Student...

By Imran Ghori |

UCR to appear on “The College Tour” television series

UC Riverside will be showcased in an upcoming episode of “ The College Tour,” a television series that profiles campuses through student stories and is available on Amazon Prime and many other streaming platforms. A television crew completed a week of filming across multiple campus locations that included interviews with 10 students in late July...

By Imran Ghori |

New UCR travel and expense system launches

UC Riverside is moving to a new travel and expense system with updated technology that makes it easier for travelers to manage payments and receive reimbursements. The campus officially deployed the Concur Travel and Expense System on Monday, July 25 following eight months of planning. It’s the first of several updates to aging financial...

By University Communications |

Rare bloom draws record crowds to UCR Botanic Gardens

It was the little plant that raised a big stink for a brief window of time. The UC Riverside Botanic Gardens drew record crowds over the past week with visitors from all over Southern California coming by to catch a glimpse and whiff of Little Miss Stinky. The rare corpse plant, which grew from 1999 seeds and was acquired in 2007, began blooming...

By Imran Ghori |

UCR practices for cyber threats against special archives

It began with angry social media messages before ballooning into full threats and a takeover of UC Riverside computer systems controlling fire sprinklers at Tomas Rivera Library. That was the scenario of a cultural heritage preservation and cybersecurity drill held Wednesday, July 13 that included 25 participants from campus departments and off...

By Imran Ghori |

Corpse plant ready to bloom at the Botanic Gardens

A rare sight — and smell — is on display at the UC Riverside Botanic Gardens with a corpse plant expected to bloom in the coming days. This will be the first time it has bloomed since the gardens began growing the tropical plant, officially known as Amorphophallus titanum, in 2007 from seeds acquired from the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and...

By Imran Ghori |

UCR welcomes Operation Purple Camp back

UC Riverside welcomed Operation Purple Camp back to campus last week, giving 80 military-connected kids a taste of college life with summer camp activities. The campus first hosted the camp, a program organized by the National Military Family Association, in 2019. The week-long stay, from July 10 to July 14, was its first return since then as the...

By Imran Ghori |

How UCR’s Library got one of the world’s largest Japanese hip-hop collections

Journalist and filmmaker Dexter Thomas ’06, who is among the alumni featured in UC Riverside’s 40 Under 40 list in the latest issue of UCR Magazine, achieved success in his field by following his passions, no matter how eclectic. One of those interests is Japanese hip-hop, which led him to acquire hundreds of CDs and magazines while in Japan for a...

By Imran Ghori |

Lt. governor discusses UCR needs during campus visit

California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis joined UC Riverside Chancellor Kim A. Wilcox and other campus leaders Friday, June 17, on a tour of the campus while discussing classroom space needs as the student population continues to grow. “It’s wonderful to be back on campus,” said Kounalakis, who previously visited UCR in 2019 while a candidate. The...

By Imran Ghori |

Highlander Class of 2022 celebrates commencement

UC Riverside held 12 commencement ceremonies over the past week, attracting thousands of graduates and their families in the biggest in-person graduation celebration on campus since before the pandemic. The ceremonies began Friday, June 3, and concluded Monday, June 13. A total of 7,272 students were eligible to graduate. That included 1,117...

By University Communications |

Improved Eucalyptus Walk reopens

A UC Riverside walking path between the Barn and Rivera Library has reopened to the campus following a repair project. The 350-foot section of the Eucalyptus Walk that connects to Rivera, Watkins Hall, and Olmstead Theatre was closed in January for the construction project, which was completed in late May. The heavily used pathway, near a bus stop...

By Imran Ghori |

Dining options expand with new North District store and reopening of Bytes

Two new dining facilities have opened on campus as UC Riverside Dining Services continues to expand its offerings. The Market at North District, located in the new student housing complex that opened last fall, launched in April. Bytes café, which had been closed for over two years due to the pandemic, reopened the same month. Dining Services has...

By Imran Ghori |

Education Secretary calls UCR a model for delivering mental health support

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona held a roundtable discussion on mental health support with four UC Riverside students Thursday, May 19, lauding the campus as an example of how to support student needs. During the hour-long Zoom chat, Cardona asked the students about UCR programs supporting student mental health well-being during the...

By Imran Ghori |

Taking the scenic route

Riding a bicycle to work comes naturally to Boris Baer and his wife Barbara Baer-Imhoof, both researchers at UC Riverside’s Center for Integrative Bee Research, or CIBER. The couple are originally from Switzerland where they never owned a car. Later, when they moved to Copenhagen, Denmark, and then Perth, Australia, they commuted regularly by bike...

By Imran Ghori |

May fundraiser celebrates staff and faculty support

As his 40th birthday approached, Dennis McIver decided to use the date to celebrate UC Riverside as well as his own life milestone, encouraging friends and family members to donate to campus programs. “I consider myself lucky in that I’ve been able to reap the benefit of so much here,” he said. “UCR has always been so good to me, and I wanted to...

By Imran Ghori |