The UC Davis Graduate School of Management announced today that it is moving its nationally ranked Sacramento Working Professional MBA Program from leased office space near the Tower Bridge in downtown Sacramento to the UC Davis Sacramento campus. The first classes will be held in the new facility in March 2010.

The Education Building, a three-year-old, $46.2 million, 121,000 square-foot facility, serves as a gateway to the 140-acre UC Davis Sacramento campus. It is the learning hub for the UC Davis School of Medicine and home to the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing, which expects to welcome its first students in fall 2010.

“It will be wonderful for our working professional MBA students to be on a UC Davis campus where they can collaborate with other students,” said Nicole Woolsey Biggart, dean of the management school. “The Graduate School of Management will be the third professional school at UC Davis Sacramento. It will be exciting for MBA students to learn alongside other highly motivated professionals.”

"Relocating the Working Professional MBA Program to the Sacramento campus creates a dynamic learning environment where future leaders in all areas of business, medicine and nursing can expand their skills to make positive, long-term impacts in our community and around the globe," said Claire Pomeroy, vice chancellor for Human Health Sciences at UC Davis and dean of the School of Medicine. “It reflects the university’s strong commitment to sharing resources and fostering partnerships that strengthen interprofessional education and result in a rich intellectual diversity and improved systems in health, business and government.”

The Education Building includes a library, two 150-seat lecture halls, classrooms, small teaching rooms, a lounge, study areas and a café. It also boasts high-speed wireless connectivity, high-quality projection, videoconferencing, and video streaming equipment. California Construction Magazine recognized the facility as the best higher education project in Northern California in 2006.

The Sacramento Working Professional MBA Program, which offers evening and Saturday classes, will have use of classrooms, breakout rooms and meeting space on the building's second floor.

“In selecting a new location, we looked at where students live and work and where the economic and population growth likely will be in the next several years,” said James Stevens, assistant dean of student affairs for the management school. "The new location is easily accessible to the downtown Sacramento business community and closer to working professionals in Roseville and Folsom. It is also more convenient for staff and faculty of the UC Davis Health System."

Darren Virassammy, a Sacramento Working Professional MBA Program student who has toured the Education Building, said he was “blown away” by the new space.

“The classrooms are configured in a way that will increase the learning dynamics,” said Virassammy, a project manager with Trainor Commercial Construction in San Anselmo, Calif.

“In our current home, it also is difficult on some nights to meet with your group in private to work on projects. This new facility will make teamwork easier.”

More information about the move is at: http://students.gsm.ucdavis.edu/samba/educationbuilding.htm.

About the UC Davis Graduate School of Management

Established in 1981, the UC Davis Graduate School of Management provides management education to more than 500 students enrolled in Daytime MBA and Working Professional MBA programs on the UC Davis campus, in Sacramento, and in the San Francisco Bay Area. It also offers a technology management minor for undergraduates and business development programs in which doctoral science students develop skills to commercialize research.

The UC Davis Working Professional MBA program is celebrating its 15th year of providing management education to the Sacramento region. Nearly 900 students have graduated from the program since it began in 1994. Applications are still being accepted for fall 2009 admission. Interested candidates should contact Assistant Dean James Stevens at jrstevens@ucdavis.edu for more information.

About the UC Davis Health System

UC Davis Health System is an integrated, academic health system encompassing UC Davis School of Medicine, the 613-bed acute-care hospital and clinical services of UC Davis Medical Center, the 800-member physician group known as UC Davis Medical Group, and the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing.

About UC Davis

For 100 years, UC Davis has engaged in teaching, research and public service that matter to California and transform the world. Located close to the state capital, UC Davis has 31,000 students, an annual research budget that exceeds $500 million, a comprehensive health system and 13 specialized research centers. The university offers interdisciplinary graduate study and more than 100 undergraduate majors in four colleges — Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Letters and Science — and advanced degrees from six professional schools — Education, Law, Management, Medicine, Veterinary Medicine and the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing.