services including college prep courses and counseling for students across Kern County and the broader southern San Joaquin Valley. However, the Bakersfield center was permanently closed in 2011 as part of UC Merced's efforts to manage expenses and balance its operating budget.
=== Recent history ===
The campus groundbreaking ceremony was held October 25, 2002, and the first day of undergraduate classes was September 6, 2005 with 706 freshmen, 132 transfer students, and 37 graduate students. First Lady Michelle Obama gave the commencement address for the university's first full graduating class. The campaign to bring Michelle Obama to campus was started by the students of the graduating class where they wrote over 900 cards asking her to come. The commencement was the First Lady's first commencement speaker event.
With the start of the great recession between 2007 and 2009 the University of California was hit with budget cuts by the state. During this time Andrew Scull and 22 other faculty members from UC San …
