University of California Merced General Introduction

The University of California, Merced (UC Merced) is a public university founded in 2005. It is the tenth university in the California system and the first research university in the United States in the 21st century. The school is located in San Joaquin Valley, a suburb of Merced in central California. The groundbreaking ceremony for campus construction was held on October 25, 2002, and the undergraduate course began on September 6, 2005. The University of California, Merced is currently the only university campus in the United States to receive LEED's leading energy and environmental design certification for all buildings. It is estimated that by 2020, the school will achieve the "three nets commitment", namely zero landfill and zero greenhouse gas emissions.