California Higher Education Sustainability Conference Best Practice Awards recognize innovations made by campuses.

UC Santa Cruz anthropology student traces java's route from Central America to California for senior thesis.

Discovery is among a few little-seen firefly species found in Southern California.

Berkeley, Davis and Irvine dominate top five schools awarding doctoral degrees to Latino students.

As a kid growing up in Salinas, Calif., Rolando Perez displayed an unusual academic and technical aptitude, and once dreamed of becoming an astronaut. But by the time he was in his mid-20s, he found himself on a path that, he says, “was going to wind me up either in prison or dead.”

Drifting between jobs, with a rap sheet of minor offenses and a list of close friends lost to gang violence, Perez ultimately resolved to turn his life around.

Student engineering team is shooting for a 10,000-foot flight at upcoming rocket competition.

Five players and one coach have UC ties at the international soccer tournament, including three key U.S. players.

By the time he was 6, Rene Amel Peralta was already working full time in construction and odds jobs in Mexico, just trying to survive. By 13, he and his sister had been abandoned by their only parent and had made the treacherous journey across the border.

But without immigration papers or an education, poverty followed.

On Saturday (June 13), Peralta and his sister both will defy the long odds that were stacked against them, and be awarded college diplomas.

Their goal now: Help others from similar circumstances.

On the 10-year-old UC Merced campus, Tamela Adkins is as veteran as they come.

The emergency preparedness manager was among the first employees at the newest UC campus when it opened its doors on Sept. 5, 2005. Last month, the 53-year-old became one of its oldest students to be awarded an undergraduate degree.

It was a journey that began almost by accident.

In the state of Tigray in northern Ethiopia, poverty and unemployment were rampant and very few had the fortune to go to college. But Getahun Weldeselassie nevertheless banked on education as his best shot at a better life.

He scarcely could have imagined just how far his ambition and luck would take him.

Last month, Weldeselassie completed the doctor of pharmacy at UCSF. Now a U.S. resident who lives in San Francisco with his wife and young son, he looks forward to a career that offers personal satisfaction while providing a stable livelihood for himself and his family.

Graduation is always joyful, but for UC Riverside’s Cassie Nguyen, it marks a milestone achieved with an especially large measure of persistence and hope.

Nguyen, who will receive her bachelor’s degree in public policy from UC Riverside on June 14, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor at 16. Treatment has cleared her of the disease, but it has not been an easy ride.

Andre Theus will don his cap and gown June 13 at UC Santa Barbara with a list of accomplishments that includes lobbying in Washington and Sacramento, leadership in student government, and numerous honors and awards. Perhaps best of all, he graduates with a job in business development waiting for him at Oracle in San Francisco.

It’s a record worthy of pride for any student. But as a former foster youth, his prospects might have been very different.