UC Merced’s graduating Class of 2025 recently celebrated its achievement at the campus’s spring commencement, joined by family members, close friends and loved ones.
For two graduates, Jahaira Morales and Bryan Gutierrez, the ceremony also was an opportunity to meet with a couple of other individuals who have been invested in their higher-education journey at UC Merced – their scholarship benefactors, Dar Chen and Cheryl Matsubara.
As Chen and Matsubara Family Scholars, Morales and Gutierrez received financial awards throughout their four years at UC Merced. They both received the initial scholarship disbursement as incoming freshmen and were eligible to renew it every year as long as they remained in good academic standing.
“I’m very thankful and lucky for being chosen for this scholarship,” Morales said during her meeting with Chen and Matsubara. “School is really expensive, and the scholarship supported me so much throughout my time as an undergrad.”
Morales, a biological sciences major who attended high school in nearby Turlock, said the financial assistance was essential for the necessities to complete her studies.
“The money was important for my supplies,” she said. “I remember my laptop broke, and I was only able to get a new one because of my scholarship.”
Gutierrez, a Merced native who earned his degree in psychology, also expressed his gratitude for the resources provided by the Chen and Matsubara Family Scholarship.
“It really came as a surprise when I was selected, and I am extremely appreciative,” he said.
The two new graduates are the latest Chen and Matsubara Family Scholars to meet with the couple who supported them. Before they visited Merced during commencement, Chen and Matsubara met with other scholarship recipients, observing the dedication and resilience of UC Merced students.
“I’m very impressed with them and how much they value coming to this campus,” said Matsubara. “They have a lot of responsibilities, and I get the sense that they need to work to help with the financial stress.
“That is why we decided to do a current-use scholarship,” she added, citing their preference for a scholarship that provides funding to students immediately rather than an investment for future use. “We hope it helps relieve the financial stress and gives them a little more time to concentrate on their studies or be active in other areas on campus.”
As self-described products of public education and the University of California, Matsubara and Chen noted that “the value of public education is well understood and appreciated by us.”
“Public education is just so vital and the great equalizer,” said Matsubara. “The UC system does a wonderful job, and we want to continue to be a part of that.”
Matsubara and Chen are both UC Berkeley alumni and had considered charitable giving to their alma mater. They started learning more about the UC campus in the Central Valley, located about an hour away from where Matsubara grew up as the daughter of a farmer, and saw the proportional impact their philanthropy could have on the much younger and growing university.
“We looked into the size of endowments at UC campuses and realized Berkeley’s is at a certain level, and the newest campus is completely different,” said Chen. “We had a few conversations and decided our financial assistance program would make a bigger difference at Merced on a relative basis than UC Berkeley and would be able to help more people.”
In addition to their multi-year undergraduate scholarship, Chen and Matsubara have also made a gift in support of the campus’s new Medical Education Building. In recognition of their generosity, the facility’s dedicated anatomy space will be named the Chen and Matsubara Family Anatomy Small Group Room.
Chen and Matsubara shared that the inspiration for the gift came from a conversation between the couple and one of their scholars.
“A few years ago, we had the chance to talk to a couple of the scholarship recipients and asked how their programs were going,” said Chen. “One was in pre-med and told us she needed to go to a community college for her anatomy classes, and we thought, ‘How could that be right?’
“UC Merced should have that capability and facility,” he added. “Also, Cheryl’s degree is in biology and her favorite subject is anatomy, so when the Medical Education Building was proposed, the anatomy room was a natural choice for us.”
Chen and Matsubara are optimistic that UC Merced’s medical education efforts will help improve health care access and quality in the underserved Central Valley and that their support of promising students from the region is contributing to that important outcome.
“We’ve always wanted to give back to help others in their education,” said Matsubara.
It is an ideal the couple hopes they will inspire in others, including the students who benefit from their support. When saying goodbye and sharing their well wishes with Morales and Gutierrez, Chen reminded the new graduates, “Just remember that 30 years from now, you’ve got to pay it forward.”
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