Mai Der Vang, assistant professor, Department of English, was honored April 11 as the recipient of a 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship.

Vang is one of this year’s 188 Guggenheim Fellows – including nine poets – from across North America, chosen from a pool of nearly 3,000 applicants. The fellowships, awarded annually since 1925, are bestowed upon distinguished individuals and culture creators working across disciplines for their “prior career achievement and exceptional promise.”

Read more at FresnoStateNews.com.

Felipe Mercado, assistant professor in the Department of Social Work Education, hosted a series of training sessions earlier this month that focused on trauma support. This included with the Kings County Office of Education, where he trained over 50 educators on how to support students who have experienced trauma, while also equipping them with strategies to create safe and supportive learning environments using the community school model led by students' voices.

He also trained 60 social workers from the Tulare County Office of Education, equipping them with tools to support social workers in understanding how to work with children and families experiencing trauma, as well as fostering a more compassionate approach and self-care practices.

Dr. Peter Robertson, director, Alumni Relations and Annual Giving, was the guest speaker for the Lavender Graduation at UC Merced.

Marianne Foley, librarian in the University Library, presented at the California Academic and Research Libraries 2024 Conference in San Jose in early April. She spoke about the savings, both financial and in staff time, that have resulted from the Library’s new approach of establishing semester deadlines for Kanopy streaming video requests. This year, the Library has spent about half of the amount spent last academic year for Kanopy film licenses.