Alexander F. McCalla

Active efforts to organize the Graduate School of Administration, as it was known in 1981, were launched under the leadership of Professor Emeritus Alexander F. McCalla, professor of agricultural economics and former dean of the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. McCalla was asked to serve as the founding dean of the nascent program from 1979 to 1981. Together with a 13-member planning committee, McCalla was responsible for the School’s initial organization and development. In two years, McCalla and his team put in place a fully functioning organization with six full-time faculty, a curriculum and an entering class of 40 students.