Approximately 3,200 students have applied to participate in college commencement ceremonies.

Cap? Check. Gown? Check. Commencement 2018

Slugs are ready to walk—and join the UC Santa Cruz alumni family in this Year of Alumni. Commencement ceremonies will be June 14–17, and for the first time in more than a decade, exercises will be held in the newly renovated Quarry Amphitheater, as well as on the East Field.

New honor for paleogenomics superstar

Beth Shapiro, a leader in the field of ancient DNA, is among 19 top scientists selected to be Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators

Harry Potter was one of the most popular Humanities offerings of 2018, with nearly 400 students enrolling.

Harry Potter course leaves students spellbound

One of the most popular Humanities offerings of 2018, a course on Harry Potter used each volume in the wizarding series as a means to discuss literary theory.

Hear! Hear!

Get your UC Santa Cruz news while you’re driving to work or doing the dishes. Our podcasts—including a regular news roundup, audio sketches, story companions, and original reports—are available on our StoryCruz channel. Listen on SoundCloud or Google Play, or subscribe on iTunes.

Lisa White: Fueled by fossils

If you have a saber-toothed tiger fang on your desk, there’s a good chance your life is pretty interesting. So it is with Lisa White (Ph.D. ’90, Earth sciences), who is a working paleontologist.

Rolando Perez: Free from fear of failure

In science, failure can be an important part of learning. The same can be said of Rolando Perez (Kresge ’15, bioengineering), now a Ph.D. candidate at Stanford in one of science’s most cutting-edge fields.

The San Quentin debate team and the UC Santa Cruz debate team.

Up for debate

New special report: Can public philosophy teach us to think? A very unusual debate between seven philosophy students from UC Santa Cruz and a team of prison inmates from San Quentin sought to provide a new normal in how we talk about the really big issues confronting us today.