UC Merced's purposeful location in the San Joaquin Valley, near the Sierra Nevada — a region characterized by disadvantages in the environment, economics, education, health and civic engagement — invites this academic program that focuses on ways to transform poverty into prosperity.
Addressing the complexity of local, regional and global poverty requires the knowledge and problem-solving strategies from diverse academic fields and skills for working effectively with non-academic community members and organizations. This minor highlights the role of community-engaged research (CEnR), an approach to problem solving based on academic-community collaboration.