School of Business Administration

Organizational History

The College of Commerce was founded in 1889 at the University of California, Berkeley, with the aid of UC Regent Arthur B. Rodgers and funding from the Cora Jane Flood Foundation, with the intent to further commercial education. A four-year undergraduate program, the college had no faculty of its own, but instead recruited honorable faculty members from the Economics Department, such as Adolph C. Miller, Henry Rand Hatfield, and Ira B. Cross. To accommodate the rising interest in business, proposals to change the College were approved in 1914, but were not implemented due to World War I. It was not until 1941, with E. T. Grether as Dean, that plans began to take shape.

The School of Business Administration became the College of Commerce on July 1, 1943 and became the second collegiate institution to be established in the United States for training students in business. The undergraduate school, a two-year program for juniors and seniors with a curriculum leading to a degree of Bachelors in Science, was established in 1943, followed by the graduate school in 1944 for students pursuing a Masters of Business Administration, as well as Ph.Ds. The purpose of the school was to prepare students for positions with executive and professional responsibilities in all sectors of business and to encourage careers in teaching and research.

The School of Business Administration was renamed the Haas School of Business in 1989. The Haas family has offered its generous support and commitment to the University for many years. Walter A. Haas, Sr., for whom the school is named, graduated from the College of Commerce in 1910 and continued his loyal contribution to the School as the business school's first advisory counsel under Dean E. T. Grether in 1970. As a counselor and close friend to deans after Grether, Haas remained a benefactor to the school until his death in 1979. His children contributed the cornerstone support in honor of their father to fund the school's building, prompting enthusiastic approval from UC Regents to change the name to the Haas School of Business.

The School provides specialized education in various business fields, including administration and policy, accounting, finance, industrial relations, international business, marketing and real estate. The teaching programs are supported by research and community relations affiliates, such as the Institute of Business and Economic Research; Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics; Center for Research in Management Science; and the Institute of Industrial Relations, which was first headed by former UC president Clark Kerr in 1945. The Graduate school in conjunction with the Graduate School of Business in Los Angeles also publishes the California Management Review, a scholarly quarterly publication.

From the guide to the Guide to the School of Business Administration Records, 1878-1989, (bulk 1940-1989), (The Bancroft Library. University Archives)