Business leaders, faculty, students and alumni applauded the grand opening on Friday of Maurice J. Gallagher Jr. Hall, the new home of the UC Davis Graduate School of Management.
The building is named after Maurice J. Gallagher Jr., CEO of Nevada airline Allegiant Air and a UC Davis alumnus, who contributed $10 million for the building’s construction and an endowment for the university.
Gallagher Hall is adjacent to the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts and the Larry N. Vanderhoef Quad.
The event marked the campus’ effort to propel the school’s presence and status. Steven C. Currall, dean of the Graduate School of Management, said the building would allow the school to expand the influence of its faculty and students.
“Building on a world-class foundation of scholarship, educational excellence and practical relevance, we’re now poised for greater visibility on the state, national and international stages,” Currall said. “Clearly Gallagher Hall is our new launching pad.”
UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi spoke at the grand opening, hailing the new building as both a new entry point of the university and a symbol of the direction that the Graduate School of Management plans to take.
“Such a state of the art facility will give our GSM faculty and students the capacity to reinvent and reform, to innovate and help lead the state and the nation’s recovery in reinvention,” Katehi said.
Gallagher himself also spoke at the event. He praised the values of hard work and equality of opportunity and challenged university leaders to pass them on to future students.
“These are the greatest causes of our schools, to educate our students and our children, and the concepts that have made this country the society as great as it is today,” Gallagher said.
The building’s design reflects the university’s commitment to environmental sustainability. Gallagher Hall is expected to be the first California business school building to fulfill the Gold Standard of the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design, or LEED, program.
LEED judges buildings based on criteria such as sustainable building sites, water efficiency and energy use. An example of the building’s qualifiers is its combination of landscaping and drought resistant plants to reduce water use by 50 percent. More than 75 percent of the waste generated by the project has been recycled. These and other features have also reduced building costs.
New technology is also one of the building’s highlights. Staff members remotely monitor the audio-visual system. Wiring has been designed to minimize the need for building renovation.
“It’s impossible to predict what the future may bring, but the building is built in a way that allows taking advantage of new technologies, whatever they may be, without having to do a major remodel,” said campus spokesperson Jim Sweeney.
The Graduate School of Management is one of the nation’s top-ranked business schools. U.S. News and World Report ranked Davis among the top 50 national MBA programs. In 2007, the Wall Street Journal placed the GSM sixth in the field of technology, telecommunications and Internet industry.
LESLIE TSAN can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.
