Merrill College
Encyclopedia
Residential college
A residential college is an organisational pattern for a division of a university that places academic activity in a community setting of students and faculty, usually at a residence and with shared meals, the college having a degree of autonomy and a federated relationship with the overall...
at the University of California, Santa Cruz
University of California, Santa Cruz
The University of California, Santa Cruz, also known as UC Santa Cruz or UCSC, is a public, collegiate university; one of ten campuses in the University of California...
. The theme of the college, and the name of its freshman core course, is "cultural identities and global consciousness."
Location
Merrill is located at the far northeastern corner of the University of California, Santa Cruz campus, east of Crown CollegeCrown College, University of California, Santa Cruz
Crown College is one of the residential colleges that makes up the University of California, Santa Cruz, USA.Despite its thematic grounding in natural science and technology, like at all UCSC colleges, Crown students major in subjects across all disciplines...
and north of Cowell
Cowell College
The first of the ten residential colleges of the University of California, Santa Cruz, established in 1965, Cowell College sits on the edge of a redwood forest with a remarkable view of Monterey Bay...
and Stevenson
Stevenson College
Adlai E. Stevenson College is a residential college at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Currently, the college is host to the Linguistics Department, as well as many humanities faculty....
colleges. The college sits at the top of a hill and can only be reached by steep access roads and pedestrian paths. The grounds cover approximately nine acres of land (the smallest of the residential colleges) covered largely by tall redwood trees.
History
Merrill was founded in 1968 as the fourth college at UCSC. The college takes its name from Charles E. Merrill Jr.Charles E. Merrill Jr.
Charles E. Merrill Jr. , is an American educator, author and philanthropist, best-known for supporting historically black colleges and founding the Commonwealth School in Boston.-Early life:...
, former Headmaster of the Commonwealth School
Commonwealth School
Commonwealth School is an independent high school of about 155 students and 35 faculty members located at 151 Commonwealth Avenue in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States.-History:...
in Boston. In 1968, Merrill was the chairman of the Charles E. Merrill Trust, named for his father, Charles E. Merrill, Sr.
Charles E. Merrill
Charles Edward Merrill was an American philanthropist, stockbroker and co-founder, with Edmund C. Lynch of Merrill Lynch & Company .-Early years:...
, the founder of Merrill Lynch
Merrill Lynch
Merrill Lynch is the wealth management division of Bank of America. With over 15,000 financial advisors and $2.2 trillion in client assets it is the world's largest brokerage. Formerly known as Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., prior to 2009 the firm was publicly owned and traded on the New York...
. It was in this year that the Trust elected to donate funds for the construction of the hitherto-named College Four at Santa Cruz.
The first three colleges at UCSC all had clearly identified academic specialties before their founding: Cowell in the humanities, Stevenson in the social sciences, and Crown in the natural sciences. However, Merrill allowed its early faculty and students to determine its theme. The college originally intended to focus on international studies, but an early shift towards global poverty led to its eventual emphasis on the developing countries and their cultures, as well as the impact of the United States in the developing world.
With a progressive theme, Merrill quickly attracted liberal and radical faculty and students. It offered ethnic studies classes as well as student housing with ethnic studies emphases, and attracted progressive visitors, including Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse was a German Jewish philosopher, sociologist and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory...
in 1975. Merrill also gained a reputation as a campus center of openness and acceptance for gays and lesbians; in 1991 it established the Vito Russo
Vito Russo
Vito Russo was an American LGBT activist, film historian and author who is best remembered as the author of the book The Celluloid Closet ....
House in one of its student residences.
In 2003, as part of a campus-wide food service consolidation program, the Merrill dining hall closed and was converted into a multi-use space, called the Merrill Cultural Center. In 2006, the History Department, and many affiliated faculty, left their longtime home at Merrill for the new Humanities Building next to Cowell College.
Architecture and buildings
Unlike the first colleges, Merrill does not consist of Bay Regionalist or Mediterranean buildings centered around formal quads. Instead, its structures present three key features: starkly modern and Scandinavian design, orientation around the redwood trees on the site, and playfully historical components such as the bridges to the residential towers, balconies with lattice railings, and the bell tower above the dining hall. The college hosts a range of colors, rust red and off-white residence halls. Merrill prominently features blue metal roofs for nearly every building, with the exception of the two main residence towers.
The Merrill circle, at the top of a driveway off McLaughlin Drive, is the formal entrance to the college. The college office and the academic buildings, with faculty offices, seminar rooms, and a lecture hall, are immediately behind the circle. Just below the main Academic Building are three smaller buildings. One contains the Charles E. Merrill Lounge, another is an annex of faculty offices and home to the Center for Justice, Tolerance, and Community; and lastly, the Casa Latina.
The college activities office and Tacos Moreno, a small Mexican food chain based out of Watsonville, California, are in a small building at the center of the college, adjacent to a small courtyard in front of the former dining hall.
Merrill has four primary residence halls. Lorde-Studds, Kochiyama, Bulosan and Gandhi-Kahlo House (usually referred to as "A Dorm" and "B Dorm" respectively) are in two large, five-story buildings that close a loose square with the dining hall and academic buildings. Two smaller houses, Chavez-Menchu and DuBois (C and D) , are located to the East of the college circle and Ming Ong computer lab.
Near the college are buildings housing the Lionel Cantú GLBTI Resource Center, KZSC
KZSC
KZSC is a public radio station broadcasting from the campus of the University of California, Santa Cruz in Santa Cruz, California. It is a non-commercial college radio station that serves as a training ground for UCSC students interested in broadcasting, as well as an outlet for many members of...
radio, and the campus Peace Corps
Peace Corps
The Peace Corps is an American volunteer program run by the United States Government, as well as a government agency of the same name. The mission of the Peace Corps includes three goals: providing technical assistance, helping people outside the United States to understand US culture, and helping...
office. The Crown-Merrill apartments are located across a ravine from the main college.
Most Merrill freshmen reside in the residence halls, with most sophomores in the college apartments. Upper-division students generally live off-campus.
Academic emphases
Merrill remains a campus center for studies of the developing world and cultural studies. Its freshman core course includes readings by authors from CubaCuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
, Morocco, inner-city Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, and most recently Darfur
Darfur
Darfur is a region in western Sudan. An independent sultanate for several hundred years, it was incorporated into Sudan by Anglo-Egyptian forces in 1916. The region is divided into three federal states: West Darfur, South Darfur, and North Darfur...
.
In particular, it houses many faculty in Spanish language
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
and Latin American and Latino Studies (LALS). Both the LALS academic offices and the Casa Latina library and resource center are housed in the Merrill academic buildings.
Merrill College also houses the faculty and administrative offices of the Politics Department and the Legal Studies Program.
Core course
The core course is called "Cultural Identities and Global Consciousness" (MERR 80A, 80B). It is one quarter long and students read around four novels, usually memoirs, one of which is replaced every year by a new one. In fall 2010, students read the following books:- The Translator: A Tribesman's Memory of Darfur by Daoud HariDaoud HariDaoud Hari is a Sudanese tribesman from the Darfur region of Sudan. He has worked as a language interpreter and guide for NGO's and the press on fact-finding trips into the war-torn and dangerous Darfur area...
- Dreaming in CubanDreaming in CubanDreaming in Cuban is the first novel written by author Cristina García, and was a finalist for the National Book Award. This novel moves between Cuba and the United States featuring three generations of a single family. The novel focuses particularly on the females—Celia del Pino, her daughters...
by Cristina Garcia - Dreams of Trespass by Fatima Mernissi
- Always RunningAlways RunningAlways Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. is a 1993 book by Mexican-American author Luis J. Rodriguez.Luis J. Rodriguez writes this book for his son Ramiro...
by Luis J. RodríguezLuis J. RodriguezLuis J. Rodriguez is an American poet, novelist, journalist, critic, and columnist. His work has won several awards, and he is recognized as a major figure of contemporary Chicano literature...
The following essays are also required and are available online:
- "Cultural Identity and Diaspora" by Stuart HallStuart Hall-People:*Stuart Hall , British radio and television presenter*Stuart Hall , British cultural theorist and first editor of the New Left Review...
- "Globalization" by John TomlinsonJohn TomlinsonJohn Tomlinson may refer to:*John Tomlinson , British educationalist*John Tomlinson , English opera singer*John Tomlinson, Baron Tomlinson , Lord Tomlinson of Walsall, former MP and MEP...
Students are encouraged to buy Easy Writer".
Programs
Merrill has the only pottery co-op in the Santa Cruz colleges. It also offers opportunities to volunteer in local elementary schools. Merrill is home to the Merrill Student Government (MSG): one of the most active student governments at UCSC, the Merrill Activities Council: a group for students to come together and plan programs and events for the Merrill Community, and annually hosts the most highly attended dances on the UCSC campus including "Moat Jam" (the kickoff dance for each academic year), the annual Halloween Dance and "Glitterball" (the kickoff to the Universities month of LGBT pride events)Traditions
The Merrill moat, created by a retaining wall adjacent to the large college dormitories, features murals by Merrill students. Every spring, Merrill students decide which murals should remain and which should be painted over with new artwork. Merrill also hosts a campus-wide dance in the moat at the beginning of each academic year.Provosts
- Phillip Bell, 1968–1972
- John Marcum, 1972–1977
- George von der Muhll, 1979–1983
- John Isbister, 1984–1999
- John Schecter, 1999–2005
- Lourdes Martinez-Echazabal, 2005 -2011
- Kathy Foley, 2011-