UCLA Anderson School of Management - History

History

The school of management at UCLA was founded in 1935, and the MBA degree was authorized by the UC Regents four years later. In its early years the school was primarily an undergraduate institution, although this began to change in the 1950s after the appointment of Neil H. Jacoby as dean; the last undergraduate degree was awarded in 1969. UCLA is rare among public universities in the U.S. for not offering undergraduate business administration degrees. Undergraduate degrees in business economics are offered.

In 1950 the school was renamed the School of Business Administration. Five years later it became the Graduate School of Business Administration; in the 1970s the school’s name was changed again to the Graduate School of Management.

In 1987 John E. Anderson (1917–2011), class of 1940, donated $15 million to the school and prompted the construction of a new complex at the north end of UCLA’s campus. He later donated additional $25 million. The 6-building, 285,000-square-foot (26,500 m2) facility, designed by Henry N. Cobb of the architectural firm Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, cost $75 million to construct and opened officially in 1995.

Recently, the school has been mostly self-funded, with only $6 million of government funding out of its $96 million budget in 2010-11. In fall 2010, the school proposed "financial self-sufficiency": Giving up all state funding, in return for freedom from some state rules and freedom to raise tuition. Critics called this proposal "privatization", but the school rejected this description, with Dean Judy Olian saying, "This is not privatization.... We will continue to be part of UCLA and part of the state." The proposal met objections in the UCLA Academic Senate (faculty members from all UCLA departments), and is still pending.