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‘There she was leading nuns on a bus’

“Sister, your standing up was a big deal — a big, big deal — becoming a lawyer to represent the poor and the left-behind.”

What President Biden did not say, when presenting the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, to Sister Simone Campbell, was where she earned her law degree: King Hall, UC Davis. A member of the Class of 1977, she was editor of the UC Davis Law Review and did legal aid work in the community.

Meet the first woman Aggie to letter in a varsity sport

In 1952, Aggie Rifle Team shooter Audrey West ’53 became the first woman to earn a UC Davis varsity letter – and just a year later would go on to place third in the national college rifle championships. 

There were no intercollegiate women's sports at what was then the College of Agriculture at Davis. The rifle team seemed like a good diversion from West’s intense course of study, animal husbandry.

From KDVS to Oscar: A Parallel Education

Joseph Patel’s walk from his seat onto the bright stage during the 94th Academy Awards ceremony took just moments. But his journey to Oscar fame, Patel ’94 says, began years earlier and miles away — in the windowless basement of UC Davis’ Freeborn Hall.

Already a music lover when he arrived as a first-year student from his hometown of Fremont, California, Patel (B.A., economics, ’94) quickly found his way to KDVS, the campus’s freeform radio station.