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Steve Roussos

Decent Essays

1. The lecture “Community Research in the San Joaquin Valley” was presented by Steve Roussos.
2. The purpose of Roussos’s presentation was to show students how they can conduct research in order to help the community of Merced. Through the lecture, students were also able to better understand Merced’s (and California’s) issues and how they intertwine. Additionally, the lecture also endorsed a fairly new minor in UC Merced.
3. The city of Merced has several issues such as having a high unemployment rate of 12.6%, compared to California’s unemployment rate of 5.7%. Merced’s children living in food insecure households is 33.3% while California has a 26.3% and Merced’s child poverty rate is 38.1% while California’s rate is 22.7%. Clearly, Merced has issues but there are more. Furthermore, these issues could lead to one another. For instance, if a student goes to school hungry because they don’t have enough food to eat, the student’s main focus will be food and when will they have the opportunity to eat again, if they will. The …show more content…

1st Q: How has the minor helped the community of Merced so far?
2nd Q: How are other UC’s helping their communities? How can we learn from them?
3rd Q: What will happen if Merced doesn’t make a difference? What will the community do?
5. Roussos’s lecture and the readings by Mathews and Karner are related since they all take about serious issues in California, especially in the San Joaquin Valley. For instance, Mathews talks about six San Joaquin policy fight which are: the high speed railing problem, the water problem, crime, fracking, immigration problems and the unemployment problem. Mathews also states that by solving the problems in the San Joaquin Valley, we will be able to face the problems affecting California as a whole. Moreover, Karner continuously states that issues in the San Joaquin Valley should be address sooner than later since things could get even worse later on—we can’t just assume things will get

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