University of California, Merced
PAE-2: Strategic Plan

The first theme of UC Merced's Strategic Academic Vision is identified as "Environmental Sustainability" (Strategic Academic Vision, Pg. 26). Its goal is to build an integrated research and educational program on ecological systems, energy, water and other natural resources, climate change and security threats associated with global change that will help build a sustainable environment. This will be accomplished by the continued development of both UC Merced's Sierra Nevada Research Institute to study the impact of climate change on snowpack and UC Solar, a UC Merced-led renewable energy research consortium. Environmental Sustainability is key element of UC Merced’s strategic academic vision. In conjunction with the campus long range development plan (LRDP), the long-range enrollment plan (LREP) and individual school plans, the academic vision acts as an ongoing guide to major investment and resource decisions.

UC Merced is located in California's San Joaquin Valley, a rapidly growing and ethnically diverse region. From democratic participation to community engagement, the San Joaquin Valley presents a microcosm of many national and international social issues. UC Merced's Strategic Academic Vision envisions the region as a living laboratory through which research and educational programs can impact the nation and the world while serving the region. UC Merced's Strategic Academic Vision addresses social sustainabilty by providing an educational, democratic and community building framework for higher education. The research theme "Community, Culture and Identity" (Pg. 29, Strategic Academic Vision) brings together a wide range of disciplines in the humanities and interpretive social sciences to engage diverse communities in California's San Joaquin Valley. This identified research theme will be implemented by an academic and institutional focus on student recruitment from within the region, conflict resolution, cultural exchange and the arts.

UC Merced is located in California's agricultural San Joaquin Valley. In much the San Joaquin Valley, unemployment rates historically exceed state averages and the population has lower levels of college attainment and higher levels of child poverty. UC Merced's Strategic Academic Vision states that "the San Joaquin Valley’s narrowly focused economic base and a lack of significant research investment are tied to a relatively shallow economic platform of agriculture in the Valley. Current per capita research investment in the counties of the region is more than an order of magnitude less than that in coastal California counties, creating a deep disparity in basic research that can be parlayed into investment in the region’s future." The Strategic Academic Vision's approach is to apply community outreach programs to prepare local young people for college, intensify research dollar activity in the region, and apply research five ("Dynamics of Social and Economic Progress", pg. 31) to explore the "effect of institutional structures on economic outcomes, the efficiency of markets, the connection between citizen preferences and governmental actions, and numerous forms of inequality."