University in California Dresses Up for First Lady
MERCED, Calif. — There are, to be sure, other things happening here this year. But in terms of sheer excitement — and frantic primping — there has been no bigger event in recent memory than Saturday’s visit by Michelle Obama, who will deliver the commencement address to the first full graduating class of the University of California at Merced, the newest, smallest and most anonymous of 10 campuses in the state university system.
The stage was being set on Tuesday for the commencement ceremony at the University of California, Merced, where Michelle Obama will speak Saturday.
“It’s going to be huge,” said Zain Memon, a 22-year-old senior. “This puts us on the map.”
Of course, such reputation-making is not cheap. Officials at the university were scrambling on Tuesday to finalize the financing for the event, which is expected to draw more than 10,000 visitors and cost some $700,000, or roughly $600,000 more than had been budgeted before Mrs. Obama committed to speak.
The cost includes a raft of technological upgrades, including an audio-video feed, a Spanish simulcast over cellphone and a concert-size stage set up on the Bowl, the sodded campus lawn where the first lady will speak. Extra security added nearly $100,000 to the cost, including metal detectors on the campus, which sits in a former cattle field surrounded by hay-laden farmland and cows of unknown political leanings.
None of which, university officials said, will be a problem.
“We are going to the office of the president, to the university’s discretionary fund, we’ll borrow if we have to,” said Mary Miller, the vice chancellor for administration. “This is an investment in our future. It is an investment in our community.”
Sure enough, even as students crammed for finals, workers were swarming all over the campus on Tuesday, doing last-minute landscaping, installing flags in front of the library and unloading thousands of shipped-in chairs. One of those hard at work was Joe Hobbs, 24, from nearby Atwater, who said Mrs. Obama’s visit had already become its own stimulus package.
“It gave me a job,” said Mr. Hobbs, who was working on the set-up crew and said he has a 1982 Camaro longing for a new motor. “It gave all these people out here jobs.”
For residents in this recession-battered city of 76,000 people in the heart of the Central Valley in California, Saturday is also being treated as a local holiday, with a daylong, downtown block party featuring its own Jumbotron for viewing Mrs. Obama’s speech and activities ranging from “human bowling” to sumo wrestling.
Merced Theater welcomed Mrs. Obama in a city that is treating her visit as a holiday.
“It’s great for the city,” said R. C. Essig, a co-owner of the Partisan, a Main Street bar that is bringing in a disc jockey from Los Angeles. “I mean any community event here is a big event, but this is even bigger.”
Indeed, local old-timers say the only event that measures up — political celebrity-wise — was a whistle-stop tour by one of the Kennedy brothers in the 1960s. (Which one is up for debate.) Still, some are hoping that Mrs. Obama’s trip will be more than a simple speaking engagement.
“I think she came here on a relief expedition,” said George Alonso, 57, a bankruptcy lawyer who said he had been far too busy lately. “I’m hoping she’s here to check out the situation.”
The situation in question includes soaring unemployment and foreclosure rates and more than a few “For Rent” signs along Main Street, a tidy and banner-filled strip populated by an assortment of mom and pop establishments.
The city — long an agricultural town — had high hopes for an economic boost when the university was opened in 2005. But the campus initially struggled to find students, though seniors like Mr. Memon say its physical improvements have been impressive.
“We have grass now,” he said.
But while the university’s enrollment has improved, its nightlife apparently has not.
“Unless you like cow tipping, there’s not much reason to go out there,” said Rick Stokes, who works at the Gottschalk Music Center, the local guitar shop.
Nor have students always found much reason to head into a city that bored local teenagers derisively call “Mer-dead.”
But local officials feel that Mrs. Obama’s trip may be a major step in the university’s evolution into a school with the cachet of other University of California campuses.
“I think my grandkids will see what the future holds,” said Michele Gabriault-Acosta, a member of the City Council and the descendant of two city mayors. “I love taking them out there and saying you could go here.”
Whether Saturday’s speech does boost the university’s stature remains to be seen. But for the first class to have survived its college years here, Mrs. Obama’s trip is all the confirmation they need.
“You have to be a special person to come to a place and create traditions,” said Vidur Malik, the editor of the student newspaper, The Prodigy. “They deserve credit for sticking it out.”
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