Once the summer break comes to an end, a flood of college students will return to the two campuses in Merced.

There’s a new main entrance at Merced College; the result of a construction project that finished just days before the May commencement.

At the University of California at Merced, there’s nothing new for returning students to see upon their return.

But many will pass by a four-by-four-foot rock at the north side of the campus quad.

The plaque embedded in that rock is not new, but the person whose name is printed on the bronze is worth remembering once again.

The plaque honors Carol Tomlinson-Keasey, the first Chancellor of the institution.

She was named to the post in 1999, years before construction began and six years before students started their first classes.

My connection to Chancellor Tomlinson-Keasey began at a reception in Fresno, where I lived back in 2004.

She attended a reception for business leaders that UC Merced held at a community room in Grizzlies Stadium.

The purpose of the reception was to introduce the reality of a new institution of higher learning to the Fresno business community.

I found her to be gracious, beaming with pride, and intent on telling the story of the effort to start UC Merced.

It was only after I moved to Merced two years after that first meeting with her that I began to appreciate that effort to locate the university to our community.

In 2006, I made it my first priority to schedule a meeting with Dr. Tomlinson-Keasey once I settled in as CEO of the Greater Merced Chamber of Commerce.

We had a productive visit. I shared my thoughts about the future of our community. She shared her deep appreciation for what the community did to get the campus built.

Thanks to an exhibit at the Merced County Courthouse Museum celebrating the tenth year of the campus in the early twenty-teens, details of that effort to create UC Merced came into focus for me.

The exhibit shared icons from the groundbreaking, campus artifacts, and lots of pictures showing community members rallying for support to have the school built here.

We still have a number of individuals in the community right now who were either part of that initiative, or who remember just how far-reaching it was at the time.

In 2022, committee member Roger Wood shared his reflections of that time during an interview on the weekly public affairs radio program Community Conversations.

“There was a real sense of coming together for a common purpose,” I recall Roger telling me on that program. "I was proud to be part of it.”

The Merced Community, especially those who were part of the committee that helped get the Board of Regents to approve locating the campus here, remembers the work of the founding Chancellor.

But others, who knew her from her days teaching psychology at UC Davis also held her in high regard.

In the tribute section of her obituary, Tomlinson-Keasey was recalled as a teacher many would want to emulate.

One student expressed respect for her teaching style and was grateful for being one of her students.

Carol Tomlinson Keasey saw the effort to start UC Merced right through the first year of classes.

Those later years were tough as she battled cancer. She would soon announce her retirement and fought her disease for another three years. She died from complications related to cancer in 2009.

I recall the first commencement at UC Merced in 2006. While the campus had only been open one year, a handful of students who completed their coursework would be receiving diplomas that day.

I attended because I was invited and because I knew that many years from that day I could tell my grandchildren that I was there for the very first commencement at the campus.

The ceremony was held in a small auditorium on campus, but the sense of pride could have filled the entire Central Valley.

The students were smiling in their caps and gowns. The faculty, administration, and other staff were gleaming with satisfaction.

Dr. Tomlinson-Keasey had the biggest smile, the most touching speech, and a sense of grace. Her work was done.

So now, with a group of returning students as well as incoming freshmen and transfers, another year of hope and promise awaits at UC Merced and other colleges and universities.

Hopefully, some of those students will take some time on one of those busy class days to read the words on that plaque on the north side of the quad named after the founding Chancellor.

“Visionary leadership and tireless determination “ are some of the words appearing in the tarnishing bronze.

Those are two phrases help define success in life.

Both phrases defined Carol Tomlinson-Keasey Both phrases are words to live by.