UC Davis Business School Dean to Step Down

Nicole Woolsey Biggart to Return to Faculty in 2009
DAVIS, Calif.--(Business Wire)--
Nicole Woolsey Biggart, dean of the Graduate School of Management
at the University of California, Davis, and an influential ambassador
to the Northern California business community, has announced her
intention to step down from her administrative post next July.

Biggart, who has served as dean since July 2003, will then
complete a year-long sabbatical before returning to full-time teaching
and research.

Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef praised Biggart as "an accomplished
academic with an interest in the sociology of business. Nicole is a
natural as dean. She's taken the school into a new era, from securing
a $10 million gift for a new education building to establishing a
campus in the Bay Area and continuing to build the Graduate School of
Management's reputation as an innovative, collaborative and excellent
business school. And she is a true campus citizen, always looking for
opportunities to leverage the strengths of UC Davis in broader service
to the region."

A national search for a new dean will begin immediately, with the
goal of having Biggart's successor on board for the 2009-10 academic
year.

As dean, Biggart's accomplishments include the launch of an annual
survey of California women business leaders, which focused attention
on the fact that only one in 10 top corporate executives and directors
are women. She also oversaw the start of construction of Maurice J.
Gallagher, Jr. Hall, a new campus home for the Graduate School of
Management. The new building, on schedule to open its doors in
September 2009, will help anchor UC Davis' new gateway entry.

Under Biggart, the school also developed a successful San
Francisco Working Professional MBA Program, allowing UC Davis' entry
into one of the nation's most competitive MBA markets. Next month, the
school will officially dedicate a new teaching suite for the program
in the Bishop Ranch Business Park in San Ramon. Additionally, the
school launched a Technology Management Minor degree program for
science and engineering undergraduates.

Biggart said she began her term as dean "with several aspirations,
and I am pleased that we have achieved substantial progress toward
these goals in the past five years. The Graduate School of Management
is well-positioned to explore new opportunities and to develop
further. The faculty is widely recognized for their research and
teaching skills and is among the best in the country as measured by
rankings, research productivity and reputation. The School's staff is
entrepreneurial, dedicated and willing to take on new challenges. And
our students are among the best in the world."

Under Biggart's leadership, the Graduate School of Management has
played a major role in promoting a culture of entrepreneurship at UC
Davis. She was instrumental in establishing the school's Center for
Entrepreneurship, which has educated MBA students and hundreds of
scientists and engineers (from both UC Davis and research institutions
nationwide) about the commercialization process.

In addition, the school has continued to earn national and
international recognition. The Financial Times ranked the school #1 in
the world in the field of organizational behavior, Biggart's
specialty. Recruiters surveyed by The Wall Street Journal placed the
school among the top 30 regional business schools in the U.S. The
Aspen Institute's Beyond Grey Pinstripes survey ranked the UC Davis
MBA program among the top 30 worldwide for integrating issues of
social and environmental stewardship into curricula and research. And,
for the 13th consecutive year, U.S. News & World Report ranked the
Graduate School of Management among the top 50 business schools in the
nation.

"I am deeply proud of the Graduate School of Management and UC
Davis," Biggart said. "I feel that with all the momentum we are
experiencing here on campus that this is the right time to step down
and return to my teaching and research."

Biggart was among the first faculty members to join the
then-Graduate School of Administration faculty in 1981, the year the
School opened. She is an expert in organizational theory and
management of innovation, with research interests in economic and
organizational sociology, firm networks, industrial change and social
bases of technology adoption. In 2002, she was awarded the Jerome J.
and Elsie Suran Chair in Technology Management. She became dean on
July 1, 2003.

Today, she is active and deeply engaged in the Northern California
business community. She serves on the editorial board of Comstock's
business magazine. She serves on the board of the Sacramento Area
Regional Technology Alliance. She is a member of the Business
Development/Entrepreneurship Action Team of Partnership for
Prosperity, a diverse group of stakeholders that is building a
business plan for the Sacramento region that leverages its unique
strengths and market opportunities. Biggart also represents UC Davis
on the Bay Area Council, a business-sponsored, public-policy advocacy
organization for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area.

The author of seven books or book-length reports, Biggart has also
written more than 30 articles and chapters and numerous books reviews,
and is a frequent presenter at international meetings. She has held
leadership positions in the Academy of Management, the Society for the
Advancement of Socio-Economics and the American Sociological
Association, and has served on the editorial boards of several
professional journals. Her work has been published in many of her
field's top scholarly publications.

Biggart received her bachelor's degree from Simmons College in
Boston, Mass., a master's degree from UC Davis, and a doctorate from
the University of California, Berkeley. She is a native of Brooklyn,
N.Y.

UC Davis University Communications
Lisa Lapin, 530-752-9842
lalapin@ucdavis.edu
UC Davis News Service
Claudia Morain, 530-752-9851
cmmorain@ucdavis.edu
UC Davis Graduate School of Management
Tim Akin, 530-752-7362
tmakin@ucdavis.edu

Copyright Business Wire 2008