Events
Events and Activities at UCR Palm Desert
Join us for another fun-filled season of learning, lectures, art exhibitions and our MFA student-led book club! Check back soon for a full listing of 2013-2014 lecture dates and details.
Summer movie series
Lit Flicks: Hot Crime in the Summertime
We're excited for the return of our summer movie series, Lit Flicks -- great movies inspired by great books! The theme for our second season is "Hot Crime in the Summertime," featuring three crime classics. Attendance is free but limited to adults only. We also encourage viewers to read the books that inspired these great movies.
UCR Palm Desert Book Club
Our monthly book club meetings are free and open to every adult in the community. Genres will change every month, and there is no obligation -- so join us whenever a book strikes your fancy! Meetings are facilitated by our Master of Fine Arts creative writing program students. Join us for a lively, educational chat about books in a fun, casual atmosphere.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013 at 7 p.m., "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green
This #1 New York Times bestseller, called "damn near genius" by Time Magazine, is the story of Hazel and Augustus, two Indianapolis teenagers who meet at a support group for kids with cancer. It is already being made into a film, of course. So if you read the book now, you can spoil the ending for all your friends at the movies later.
For more information about our book club, please email Maggie Downs at maggie.downs@ucr.edu.
Lecture Series in the 2012-2013 Academic Year
- Arts and Letters Author Series
Facilitated by Tod Goldberg, program director, UCR Palm Desert Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts, this series invites the public to spend time with some of today's influential authors through interviews and personal readings. - Palm Desert Art Documentary Series
This series is a partnership between UCR Palm Desert and the City of Palm Desert's Public Art Department, featuring many memorable community works from all over the globe. Free and open to the public. - UCR Boyd Deep Canyon Lecture Series
Facilitated by Dr. Allan Muth, director, Boyd Deep Canyon Research Center, University of California, Riverside, in partnership with UCR Palm Desert and The Living Desert. Lectures are free and open to the public. - UCR Living Green Lecture Series
UCR Palm Desert is proud to bring a lecture series to the Coachella Valley with the purpose of educating, informing, and inspiring our community to improve our environment, health, and overall quality of life. -
Graduate School of Education Lecture Series
This series, presented by the Graduate School of Education, contains a little something for everyone: Analysis of racial and social class disparities in education, a discussion of California higher education, information about autism in your community and more. All of these lectures are free and open to the public. - Center for Ideas and Society Lecture Series
A lecture series brought to you by the Center for Ideas and Society, an interdisciplinary research center dedicated to advancing humanistic studies and creativity at UC Riverside. These rich and fascinating lectures illuminate the ways in which human beings create and explore a distinctly human life.

The University of California has been active in the Coachella Valley for nearly 100 years, initially supporting the agriculture industry and more recently impacting modern growth issues through research in areas such as transportation, air quality, and energy and water conservation. The UCR Palm Desert Center, established in 2005, provides graduate education to the Coachella Valley through its innovative Executive MBA and MFA degrees.