GSM takes entrepreneurial approach to crisis

The UC Davis Graduate School of Management will be able to absorb an initial round of $560,000 in budget cuts this year without curbing class offerings, enrollment or any academic programs, Dean Steven Currall said recently. But next year is more uncertain, he warned.

The $560,000 represents about 3.6 percent of the nationally ranked business school’s $15.5 million budget. To close the gap, the GSM has eliminated two marketing campaigns designed to recruit students, all international student recruitment efforts and two multipurpose development programs – one distinguished speaker event and one business partner event, Currall said.

Where possible, the business school also has delayed replacing equipment, particularly computer servers and personal computers, and has trimmed training and educational programs for staff members.

“Those are fairly modest operational changes,” Currall said. “What we are most interested in is what’s going to happen next year and the year following. Those budget decisions have not yet been made by UC Davis.”

Regardless, Currall said he does not anticipate any major programmatic changes as a result of budget reductions.

“All the academic programs on campus have been urged to think about new sources of revenue, to think entrepreneurially about how we can increase our fundraising," Currall said. "Over the years, the GSM has been a campus leader in entrepreneurial thinking about development of new self-supporting programs and aggressively seeking philanthropic support.”

At the GSM, employees are still basking in the afterglow of moving into a new building, the $16.2 million Maurice J. Gallagher Jr. Hall. The structure at the campus’s south entrance was designed to accommodate an increase in enrollment, although decisions about increasing enrollment are still pending.

 

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Clifton B. Parker, Dateline, (530) 752-1932, cparker@ucdavis.edu

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