{"id":202443,"date":"2026-03-03T17:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T17:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/202443\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T17:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T17:22:10","slug":"former-california-governor-awarded-uc-merced-chancellors-medal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/202443\/","title":{"rendered":"Former California governor awarded UC Merced chancellor&#8217;s medal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"KFSN logo\" class=\"awXxV NDJZt sJeUN IJwXl CfkUa EknAv NwgWd \" data-testid=\"prism-image\" draggable=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/origin-kfsn.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Tuesday, March 3, 2026 4:57PM<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/svg;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAABAAAAAJCAQAAACRI2S5AAAAEElEQVR42mNkIAAYRxWAAQAG9gAKqv6+AwAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" alt=\"Former California governor awarded UC Merced chancellor's medal\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">MERCED, Calif. (KFSN) &#8212; UC Merced is marking its 20th anniversary this year, celebrating two decades since the campus opened to students, and former California Gov. Gray Davis was part of the celebration over the weekend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The university awarded Davis the &#8220;chancellor&#8217;s medal&#8221; in recognition of his instrumental role in bringing the 10th University of California campus to Merced.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The award is the university&#8217;s highest honor.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">UC Merced Chancellor Juan S\u00e1nchez Mu\u00f1oz said the former governor played a pivotal role in &#8220;advancing the vision of a research university in the Central Valley at a critical moment in the campus&#8217;s development.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">In 1999, under the direction of then-Gov. Davis, a state task force was created to coordinate construction and environmental efforts to build the campus.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">UC Merced broke ground in 2002 and officially opened to students on Sept. 6, 2005.<br class=\" \"\/><\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2026 KFSN-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tuesday, March 3, 2026 4:57PM MERCED, Calif. (KFSN) &#8212; UC Merced is marking its 20th anniversary this year,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[93942,9376,7,9,8,93941,2306,294,7346],"class_list":["post-202443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-93942","tag-anniversary","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-chancellors-medal","tag-higher-education","tag-timely","tag-uc-merced"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}