UCI business school to serve undergraduates

The Paul Merage School of Business at UC Irvine, one of the most renowned graduate business programs in the region, plans to offer undergraduate courses beginning next year.

The university’s academic senate recently approved a bachelor of arts degree in business administration, which would admit 150 students per academic year. The program is expected to start in fall 2008.

“We are delighted that the Merage School can now serve undergraduates as robustly as we have been doing at the graduate level for more than 25 years,” Andy Policano, dean of the school, said in a release. “It behooves our future Bachelor of Arts graduates, as it does our MBA students, to grasp the importance of strategic innovation in the global economy that we stress at Merage.”

The school got its name in March 2005 when Merage, the founder of Chef America and a Newport Coast resident, donated $30 million to UCI’s business school.

— Michael Miller