UC Davis Graduate School of Management Celebrates 40-Year Anniversary

This academic year marks a milestone for the UC Davis Graduate School of Management. We’re celebrating our 40th anniversary.

When the doors of the then-Graduate School of Administration swung open in fall 1981, four new faculty members welcomed a charter class of 40 students.

Two of those professors were Nicole Biggart and Paul Griffin. They are now internationally renowned leaders in their fields and continue their groundbreaking research and teaching here.

As they can attest, our progress as a community has been stunning.

We've grown from a single Master of Administration to nationally and internationally ranked graduate business degrees in Davis, Sacramento, San Ramon and San Francisco.

We now offer our MBA in full-time, part-time and online formats, as well as a Master of Professional Accountancy and a Master of Science in Business Analytics programs.

We greeted 40 graduate business students in 1981. Today we’re teaching 745 in all our degree programs.

We’ve spread our wings across the UC Davis campus and globally with top companies. We partner with corporate clients on customized and short-course executive education. We host university researchers, undergraduates and industry professionals in business development and entrepreneurship academies. And we’ve added two undergraduate minors and teach undergraduate accounting courses.

We’re now home to the UC Davis Center for Analytics and Technology in Society and the Mike and Renee Child Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

As dean, I’m most proud of our nearly 5,000 alumni worldwide who make a positive difference every day as collaborative and innovative business leaders. 

This is an exciting moment in our history. There’s much more to come. Our momentum is high and our potential is greater than ever.

Sincerely,

H. Rao Unnava
Dean