adult students in a classroom

About Us

Education has the power to transform lives.

For 60 years, this statement has been at the heart of the UC Davis Division of Continuing and Professional Education's mission.

  • We believe that professional education plays a vital role in building our economy, improving our community and enriching the lives of the students we serve.
  • We are passionate about sharing the resources, expertise and knowledge of UC Davis with working professionals and other adult learners around the world.
  • And we are committed to providing adult learners with access to the right education in the right format at the right time throughout their careers and lives.
  • The Lifelong Learning Arm of UC Davis
  • UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education leverages the expertise and resources of UC Davis to serve adult learners across their lifetimes. A major emphasis of our programs is workforce and professional development for individuals and organizations.

    By blending the distinctive academic expertise of UC Davis with practical training that immediately improves capability and job performance, we support working professionals as they refresh and expand job skills over the course of their careers.

    CPE maintains one of the University’s most extensive educational portfolios, offering academic and non-credit professional certificates, massive open online courses (MOOCs), contract training for government and corporate clients, conferences and boot camps.

    As a completely self-supporting division, we’re innovative, entrepreneurial and academic, and we play a critical role in advancing the University’s outreach mission.

  • Our History
  • Since we were established in 1960, UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education (then named University Extension) has been characterized by its ability to successfully adapt and evolve to meet the changing educational needs of its students and the modern workforce. Early courses were often based on the passions of the faculty who taught them and many legendary UC Davis faculty and celebrities, including Robert Arneson, Wayne Thiebaud and Martin Yan, taught for the division.

    When then-governor Ronald Reagan cut funding for university-based continuing education in 1968, we became completely self-sufficient and aggressively shifted our focus to creating demand-driven programs for working professionals and their employers. We began offering programs for international students in 1977, started providing contracted training for California’s social services professionals in 1979, and launched UC Davis’ first online course in 1999.

    Today, we serve students in all 50 states and more than 100 countries. Our classes on the Massive Open Online Course platform Coursera have generated nearly four million enrollments from students around the world.
  • Corporate Education – Partner with Us 
  • With our collaborative, solutions-based approach and team of professional instructors, UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education creates effective, customized corporate education programs that meet the unique needs of your organization. These affordable, high-quality courses can be offered online, at your site or in our classrooms, and are seamlessly integrated into your existing training program.
     

    Our expertise in teaching working professional ensures that your employees gain practical knowledge and skills that increase their capacity and improve job performance. Contact us today to learn more about training opportunities for your organization. More information