The Haas School of Business owes its existence to visionaries, teachers, and gold rush pioneers who gave birth to a burgeoning field of study in the U.S. and established the nation’s second oldest business school, and the first at a public university.

This bold idea to create the College of Commerce, as it was called then, was first proposed by Berkeley graduate and entrepreneur Arthur Rodgers in 1883. Fifteen years later, Cora Jane Flood turned Rodgers’ vision into reality by donating a substantial gift to found the College of Commerce now known as Haas School of Business.

To this day, Haas graduates blaze new trails as they embody the school’s four Defining Leadership Principles: Question the Status Quo, Confidence without Attitude, Students Always, and Beyond Yourself. Its faculty is known for Nobel-Prize winning research and economic and management insights that benefit governments and firms worldwide.The school’s degree programs consistently rank among the top business programs in the world.