The vision: Learning and Scholarship

Through transformative and diverse opportunities for learning, UC Davis will inspire and prepare its students, faculty, staff and alumni to lead and excel in solving the dynamic challenges of tomorrow’s world.

UC Davis has a unique and comprehensive academic profile, offering more than 100 academic majors and 90 graduate programs in four globally respected colleges. It is the only UC campus with professional schools in all of the following disciplines: education, law, management, medicine, nursing and veterinary medicine.

2010 highlights in learning and scholarship:

English professor Yiyun Li was awarded a prestigious MacArthur Foundation fellowship and was named one of the nation’s best young fiction writers by editors of The New Yorker.

Assistant professors lke Arslan and Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra were awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers—the nation’s highest honor for professionals in the early stages of their scientific research careers.

U.S. News & World Report ranked the Graduate School of Management among the top 10 percent of accredited U.S. business schools for the 15th consecutive year. Additionally, UC Davis was ranked among the top 15 percent of universities worldwide for life sciences and biomedicine, according to the QS World Universities Rankings.

School of Education professors Jamal Abedi and Paul Heckman were awarded a $3 million federal grant from the National Science Foundation to help K-12 teachers increase student success in math.

The School of Law opened a $30 million expansion of Martin Luther King Jr. Hall, the home of the nationally ranked law school.

UC Davis currently has one of the highest scoring and most dynamic and diverse student bodies in its history. The mean GPA of admitted freshmen for the 2009-2010 academic year was 4.0, and 3.86 for enrolled freshmen.

UC Davis is accelerating its efforts to improve campus diversity and better reflect the population of the state, while also building a more inclusive community where all students can study and live in a safe and intellectually vibrant environment. In 2010, Chancellor Katehi launched the Hate-Free Campus Initiative to inspire the entire campus community to work together to raise awareness of the Principles of Community. In its first year, the initiative included the launch of a Distinguished Speakers Series, a collaboration with the Los Angeles-based Museum of Tolerance and a “Beyond Tolerance Tuesday” effort that includes free programming assistance to student groups sponsoring events in support of the initiative.