2012 Merage School Commencement to Include First Full Class of Undergrads

For the first time in the history of The Paul Merage School of Business, a full class of 116 undergraduate business administration majors will participate in commencement ceremonies. Chris White, vice president of the Emerging Technologies Group at Cisco Systems Inc., will give the commencement address for the ceremony scheduled to take place June 17 at the Bren Events Center on the UC Irvine campus. In addition to the undergraduates, White will present to a class of 12 graduating PhD students and more than 300 newly minted MBAs from the full- time, part- time and executive programs.

"This is an exciting time in the history of our business school," said Andrew Policano, dean of the Merage School. "Not only are we honored to have Chris White as our commencement speaker – an experienced executive who exemplifies innovation, global leadership, sustainability and growth – we are celebrating a landmark year with the participation of our first full class of undergraduates. The quality of these students and their accomplishments are noteworthy and will go down in our school's history."

The Merage School undergraduate program continues to develop and grow. Since its inception, the program has seen tremendous demand and currently has more than 500 students enrolled. Competition for a spot in the program is fierce; last fall, incoming SAT scores of the undergraduate business major students was nearly 200 points higher than the average at UC Irvine.