Let’s all turn out to give a giant welcome to our new students next week, by lining up to cheer them on as they pass under an inflatable, blue-and-gold arch outside The Pavilion. Faculty, staff and returning students are encouraged to participate.

The arch will be waiting as the classes of 2018 (transfers) and 2020 (first-years), along with new international students, emerge from the New Student Celebration at 5 p.m. Monday (Sept. 19), en route to dinner and Resource Fair on Hutchison Field.

Participants in the welcome event are asked to wear blue and gold, and to start gathering at 4:30 p.m. at the southeastern corner of The Pavilion. Faculty, staff and returning students are invited to stay for dinner, for $10 or one swipe of a meal card. More than a dozen food trucks from campus and Sacramento will provide the meals, including vegetarian and vegan options.

Questions? Contact Richard Ronquillo by email. 

Community college to double in size

Sacramento City College will soon have room to serve twice as many students — up to 4,000 — at its Davis Center, located at UC Davis West Village.

The additional capacity will be in a second building due to open in January 2018, providing 15,000 square feet of classroom and lab space. Los Rios Community College District and UC Davis officials broke ground on the project last Friday (Sept. 9).

Acting Chancellor Ralph J. Hexter said the Davis Center is an important way to prepare Sacramento City College students to transfer to four-year universities.

“There's nothing like firsthand experience at a major research university such as UC Davis to give students a real sense of what studying here would be like — to acclimate them in advance,” Hexter said. “The Davis SCC Center allows its students to see that the university is a place where they can feel welcomed and included, where they can grow in many ways and where high academic success is attainable for them.”

The Davis Center opened at West Village in 2012 and remains the only community college on a UC campus.

“We have a great foundation of working together for many years, and we're stepping up the game in the coming months and years to better align the resources with K-12, community colleges and our university partners,” said Brian King, chancellor of the Los Rios Community College District.

— Cody Kitaura

Career Resource Showcase

Human Resources and Staff Assembly announced their second annual Career Resource Showcase, to help employees plan, develop and reach their career goals at UC Davis. The showcase began last year on the Davis campus, and this year it will be held on the Sacramento campus — everyone’s invited, regardless of your home campus.

Four standalone workshops are planned, all during the noon hour, Sept. 20 and 21, and 28 and 29, in the auditorium at the Comprehensive Cancer Center. Preregistration is not required. Light refreshments will be served.

The programs include “Career Journeys” (Tuesday, Sept. 21), in which three UCDHS employees will share their career journeys — the winding road to the present, the surprises, the challenges, the opportunities, and the role that mentoring played along the way; “Optimizing Your UC Davis Employment Application” (Wednesday, Sept. 21), for jobs on either campus; and “Telling Your Success Stories” (Wednesday, Sept. 28), about demonstrating your ability to share with employers what you can do for them and how you can solve their problems.

The final program is health system-specific: “Managing Your Career at UC Davis Health System” (Thursday, Sept. 29).

Monday-Friday finals (only) in 2016-17

As the fall quarter begins, here’s another look at the academic calendar for 2016-17 — during which Saturday finals are officially a thing of the past.

Students had advocated for the change, and the ASUCD and campus leadership worked together to put forth a recommendation to end Saturday finals. The Office of the President signed off, and the last Saturday finals were held in spring 2016.

Here’s the 2016-17 calendar:

• Fall Quarter 2016 — Classes Wednesday, Sept. 21, to Friday, Dec. 2. Final exams Monday through Friday, Dec. 5-9.
• Winter Quarter 2017 — Classes Monday, Jan. 9, to Friday, March 17. Final exams Monday through Friday, March 20-24.
• Spring Quarter 2017 — Classes Monday, April 3, to Thursday, June 8. Final exams Friday, June 9, and Monday through Thursday, June 12-15.

What else changes?

• Instructional days — Fall quarters will have 50 days, winter and spring quarters will have 48.
• Holiday switch — New Year’s Eve, Dec. 31, 2016, is a Saturday, and New Year’s, Jan. 1, 2017, is a Sunday; therefore, these academic and administrative holidays will be observed on Friday, Dec. 30, and Monday, Jan 2.
• Winter quarters always start on Monday — Given that Jan. 2 will be a holiday in 2017, the start of winter quarter will be pushed back a week to Jan. 9, giving students an additional week off.
• Winter break — In 2017, 2018 and 2019, the winter break will be 23 days between the final day of fall exams and the beginning of winter classes.

See the master academic calendar, scheduled through spring 2020.

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