Events

Alumni Reunion Weekend 2026
2026-04-24 00:00 - 2026-04-26 23:59 (America/Los_Angeles) | CA
Join your classmates back at UC Santa Cruz for Alumni Reunion Weekend, April 24–26, 2026. This annual celebration honors the pioneering classes of 1965–1976 and the mark you have left on our campus and the world.
Reconnect with classmates, celebrate your achievements, and enjoy time among the redwoods. Whether you never left or you haven’t returned to Santa Cruz since graduation, we hope to see you there for this spectacular reunion weekend.
Mark your calendar and plan to return to campus, April 24-26, 2026.

DNA Day
2026-04-24 11:00 - 13:00 | Jack Baskin Engineering, Baskin Engineering 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Please join the UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute for our annual celebration of DNA!
We will be in the Baskin Engineering courtyard from 11am-1pm with swag, music, and activities. This is a fun, family-friendly event and open to the public. Activities will include:

Strawberry DNA Extraction demonstration (WiSE)
Double helix origami
Poster session and resource fair
Face painting
Stickers, bookmarks, pins, and other swag
Double human helix conga line (everyone who participates gets a free shirt!)

Stop by and learn about the amazing molecule that codes all of life. 🧬❤️
Want to be a part of DNA Day? Sign up to:
1. Give a poster presentation
2. Volunteer during DNA day
3. Have your student group or org participate in our resource fair

Summer Courses Listed for 2026
2026-04-25 00:00 - 23:59, 2026-04-26 00:00 - 23:59, 2026-04-27 00:00 - 23:59, 2026-04-28 00:00 - 23:59, 2026-04-29 00:00 - 23:59, 2026-04-30 00:00 - 23:59, 2026-05-01 00:00 - 23:59, 2026-05-02 00:00 - 23:59 and 11 more dates | CA
Summer 2026 classes are now posted at summer.ucsc.edu. Explore courses and start planning your summer schedule over winter closure! Days and times will be in the schedule of classes on March 15. Email summer@ucsc.edu with questions.

Spring Plant Sale
2026-04-25 10:00 - 15:00 | Hay Barn, 94 Ranch View Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, United States
Stock your garden with premium organic seedlings while supporting student education! Browse a huge variety of flowers, vegetables, herbs, and strawberries—all grown by UCSC Farm staff, students, and volunteers in our greenhouses. Proceeds support the Center for Agroecology’s hands-on learning programs.
Full list of varieties coming soon.
Special Perks:

Friends of the Farm & Garden members: 10% off all plants + early bird shopping at 9 AM
UCSC students with valid ID: 25% off

Parking and logistics:
Please plan to park across the street from the Hay Barn in parking lot 116. We encourage you to bring a basket, wagon, or other means to carry your plants. We will have a limited number of cardboard boxes available but encourage you to bring your own.
Payment:
We accept cash, checks made out to “UC Regents,” or credit card (we do not have a traditional credit card reader; you will need a smart phone to scan a QR code and then manually enter your credit card number.)
Interested in volunteering in the greenhouses in preparation for our plant sale? Fill out this form!
This event is open to all members of the public consistent with state and federal law.

Santa Cruz Pickwick Club presents: Bleak House
2026-04-26 13:00 - 15:00 | CA
Spontaneous human combustion! Evil lawyers! Detectives! Family intrigue! These all come together in Charles Dickens’s masterwork, Bleak House. This year, we will spend the year reading the 2026 Dickens Universe novel. Join Dickens enthusiasts and Pickwick Club members on Zoom for a series of discussions about this beloved book.
Register via Zoom
Reading Schedule:

OCT 26: Chapters 8-13
NOV 23: Chapters 14-19
DEC 28: No meeting
JAN 25: Chapters 20-25
FEB 22: Chpaters 26-32
MAR 22: Chapters 33-38
APR 26: Chapters 39-46
MAY 24: Chapters 47-53
JUN 28: Chapters 54-67 (End)

Recommended Edition: We recommend the Penguin Classics edition of the novel for its appendices and notes, but other versions are fine. First-time readers should avoid the Introduction if they don’t want spoilers. Download the novel to read at Gutenburg.org or listen to it at LibriVox.org.
The Santa Cruz Pickwick (Book) Club, a branch of the Dickens Fellowship, is a community of local bookworms, students, and teachers who meet monthly to discuss a nineteenth-century novel. The Santa Cruz Public Libraries provide support for the reading group.

Engineering Teaching Community (Faculty)
2026-04-29 12:00 - 13:00 | Jack Baskin Engineering, Baskin Engineering 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
During the chaos of a quarter, is it hard to find time to reflect and improve as an instructor? Would you like to be a part of an inclusive, supportive group of engineering instructors who do this in community? ETC is for sharing teaching experiences, classroom ideas, research on learning, and methods that support instructors and students. All are welcome, and lunch is provided. Please reach out to Jenny Quynn with questions.

Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed
2026-04-29 15:30 - 17:30 | Merrill Cultural Center, 200 McLaughlin Dr, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Please join us as Quinn Slobodian & Ben Tarnoff discuss their new book, Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed (April, 2026).
A Financial Times Most Anticipated Nonfiction Book of the Year • A Kirkus Most Anticipated Nonfiction Book of Spring 2026• A Literary Hub Most Anticipated Book of the Year

A pyrotechnic examination of Elon Musk as a symptom and avatar of our postliberal age
Everyone’s got an Elon take. He’s a messiah. A menace; a genius; a clown. The verdicts differ, but they share one theme: they treat him as an individual. Muskism argues otherwise. Elon Musk isn’t a glitch in the system—he is the system. His worldview promises sovereignty through technology: plug in, power up, and become self-reliant. But the more you connect, the more he owns you.
If Fordism defined the capitalism of the twentieth century, Muskism may define the twenty-first. Fordism helped build the welfare state. Musk undoes it. He thrives on dependence while preaching freedom. His cars run on subsidies; his satellites run the battlefield; his social networks train the AI that trains us. Muskism sells itself as the future but entrenches age-old hierarchies. It offers autonomy for some and exclusion for others. It’s pro-natalist but anti-immigrant, futurist but reactionary. It speaks of humanity but warns against empathy. Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff cut through the hype and the hate to reveal what Musk really represents: a new political economy, where to be “free” means to serve a Technoking. Muskism isn’t about the man. It’s about the machine that made him—and the world he’s making next.
Quinn Slobodian is professor of international history at Boston University, and the author or editor of seven books translated into ten languages including, Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ and the Capitalism of the Far Right, Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World without Democracy, and Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism.
Ben Tarnoff is a writer and technologist based in Massachusetts and is the author of Internet for the People and the co-author of Voices from the Valley: Tech Workers Talk About What They Do—And How They Do It. He is a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books, and has also written for the New York Times, The New Yorker, and the New Republic, among other publications.

TLC Convocation 2026
2026-04-30 05:00 - 19:30 | Colleges Nine and John R. Lewis College Multi-purpose Room, 615 College Nine Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
The Opposite of Cheating: Rethinking Instruction in the Age of AI
David Rettinger, Applied Professor and Undergraduate Program Director at the University of Tulsa
Higher education stands at a crossroads. Generative AI is a powerful and flawed tool that may render traditional assessments obsolete and call fundamental pedagogical assumptions into question across all disciplines. Yet this moment of disruption also presents an opportunity to refocus on what truly matters: student learning and growth. In this session, David Rettinger will outline a positive, evidence-based approach to academic integrity in the age of AI, encouraging all of us to move beyond policing to authentic learning. Together, we will take an evidence-based approach toward change, by rethinking assessments to focus on durable human skills, by learning to communicate the value of higher education to our students, and by evaluating strategies for integrating AI thoughtfully into our courses. Attendees will leave with both conceptual frameworks for decision-making and concrete tools for AI integration, communicating about integrity, and reducing misconduct through improved teaching and learning.
Register to attend in person or watch remotely

Summer Session Enrollment Open
2026-05-01 09:00 - 17:00 | https://events.ucsc.edu/event/summer-session-enrollment-open/2026-05-01/
Summer Session enrollment is now open! All continuing students can add classes in MyUCSC. Incoming students must register to enroll. Get ahead on your degree, explore new subjects, or catch up on requirements. Financial aid is available. Learn more and enroll at summer.ucsc.edu

First Saturday Tour at the Arboretum
2026-05-02 11:00 - 12:00 | Arboretum, 122 Arboretum Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
First Saturday Tours are a wonderful way to introduce yourself to the Arboretum or to deepen your knowledge of the Arboretum’s plant collections. Each tour is a little different depending on the time of year, the interests of the tour guide, and the people who join in. For example, you might learn about the birds and mammals that make this land their home or about the amazing physical adaptations that plants have evolved to better deal with our extreme weather and climate conditions. Tours are free with paid admission.

Community Day: Free Admission at the Arboretum
2026-05-05 09:00 - 17:00 | Arboretum, 122 Arboretum Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
The first Tuesday of each month, the Arboretum is open without charge to visitors. See dates and times UC Santa Cruz Arboretum & Botanic Garden is open. NOTE: Due to limited parking at the Arboretum and the popularity of Community Day, we greatly encourage visitors to carpool, bike, walk or use public transportation as much as possible.

AA/PI/SWANA Heritage Night Market
2026-05-08 17:00 - 21:00 | Upper Quarry Amphitheater, 15 McLaughlin Drive, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Save the date and join the Asian American/Pacific Islander Resource Center (AA/PIRC) on Friday, May 8th from 5-9pm at the Quarry Amphitheater as we celebrate Asian American, Pacific Islander, and Southwest Asian & North African Heritage with a Night Market!
More details about our second annual AA/PI/SWANA Heritage Night Market are coming soon. This FREE event is open to all UCSC community affiliates and will feature food, vendors, games, activities, and performances — all showcasing the diverse talents and cultures among our communities.
You Belong Here: The programs and services described here are open to all, consistent with state and federal law, as well as the University of California’s nondiscrimination policies. Every initiative—whether a student service, faculty program, or community event—is designed to be accessible, inclusive, and respectful of all identities.
