Bren School - Facilities & Labs

Davidson Student Commons

The Davidson Student Commons Room is an important part of student life at the Bren School. Located on the
third floor of Bren Hall, this 880-square-foot room has large, east-facing windows looking onto the courtyard below. Recycled and other materials that support sustainability were used for the casework and furnishings, energy-efficient lighting is used throughout, the steel wall sculptures are made from recycled automobile bodies, and the upholstery is made from recycled materials. The computer work stations all have ergonomic chairs.

The primary function of the Davidson Student Commons is to serve as a resource for Bren School master's students working on their Group Projects. Twelve individual computer work stations have been placed adjacent to informal study and lounge areas to create a flexible mixed-use room well suited to both individual research and team collaboration.

UCSB alumnus Jim Davidson (1990)
endowed the Student Commons in order to provide Bren students with
a place where they could gather and study. His generosity has allowed us
to create a "green" room that supports student research and collaboration while exemplifying the aesthetic value to be gleaned from sustainable materials.

Career Center

The student Career Center is a quiet, comfortable space that is home to three computers and a wealth of career-related resources. Its shelves are stocked with numerous books covering job-seeking skills from cover-letter writing to salary negotiations other titles cover environmental job opportunities, internships, conservation volunteerism, and more. The Center maintains subscriptions to several business periodicals, and a bulletin board lists job-related announcements that are also circulated to students by e-mail.

Interaction Room

Also on the third floor, the Interaction Room is a casual gathering place with chairs and tables, an outdoor balcony, and a galley-style kitchen equipped with sink, a microwave, and a toaster oven. Vending machines provide snacks and drinks. The Bren School encourages students to walk, bike, skateboard or otherwise commute to school without creating greenhouse gases, so the Interaction Room has lockers for students to store a change of clothes or whatever else they might need to secure. A shower is also located on the third floor.

Reading Room

Not a lab per se, the third-floor reading room, located down the hall from Davidson Student Commons, is a quiet, bright space stocked with course textbooks, periodicalsand professional journals, and volumes on chemistry, sustainability, earth sciences, policy making, pollution prevention and remediation, business management, and a other topics relevant to environmental science and management.