Visitors to UCR’s Palm Desert Graduate Center are greeted at the main building entrance with a display of photography on loan from UCR’s California Museum of Photography, a colorful reminder of the role the Palm Desert Graduate Center plays for UCR in the Southern California desert.

Whether it takes the form of a traveling art exhibit, a lecture by Pulitzer Prize-winners or a scholarship to a low-income student, the Palm Desert Graduate Center is an ambassador for UCR in the Coachella Valley, a physical presence to connect the Riverside campus in the desert.

Opened in 2005, the graduate center hosts two graduate degrees, the M.B.A. and M.F.A. in creative writing and writing for the performing arts. The M.F.A. is offered in traditional and low-residency formats, the latter of which is the only one of its kind in the UC system.

“The low-residency M.F.A. program in the desert has opened the door to students from around the country who may not have been able to attend a full-time program,” said Steve Cullenberg, dean of the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. In addition to the 33 students in the traditional format M.F.A. at Palm Desert, there are 25 students in the inaugural class of the low-residency program.

The same concept is being embraced by Dean David Stewart of AGSM. In the fall of 2009, AGSM plans to enroll 50 students in the Executive M.B.A. program, which will be located at UCR Palm Desert.

In addition to graduate-level classes, the campus also serves as a base for several UCR research programs and hosts international academic conferences, continuing education classes, public service programs and community events. Last year more than 150 events were held there.

“The desert location was attractive to my colleagues, but the event management and attention to detail provided by the Palm Desert event staff was fabulous,” said Professor Donna Hoffman of AGSM, who organized an international conference in Palm Desert for the UCR-based Sloan Center for Internet Retailing.

The vision for the Palm Desert Graduate Center includes serving as a catalyst for the economic diversification of the inland desert region by forging close ties to the community and its leaders, helping to build the infrastructure necessary to support a major research university and attract and retain world-class talent to the area.

For example, the UCR Desert Lyceum, created in partnership with Riverside County Supervisor Roy Wilson, explores issues of consequence to the future of the Coachella Valley and brings together diverse opinions and expertise to focus on Coachella Valley issues related to quality of life, economic growth and balanced sustainability for the future of the Coachella Valley.

The monthly Arts and Letters Lecture Series brings celebrated literary figures to UCR Palm Desert. Upcoming events include Pulitzer Prize-winning authors Geraldine Brooks and Junot Diaz and Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of the best-seller, “Eat, Pray, Love.”

The “Imagining the Future” lecture series brings UCR faculty in the engineering and the sciences to speak in the desert about their fields, such as water quality or alternative fuels.

A grant-funded program started at UCR Palm Desert called Writers in the Schools (WITS) provides local high school students with an opportunity to explore creative writing with UCR students who are earning their M.F.A. at Palm Desert.

In an effort to increase college-going rates in the Coachella Valley, UCR Palm Desert organized a Desert Literacy Network, bringing together other organizations in the Coachella Valley that provide literacy services. A book drive over the holidays garnered more than 500 books for children, which were given to the Torres Martinez Library, a small tribal library and educational center in Thermal.

“We are excited to represent UCR in the Coachella Valley,” said Carolyn Stark, who was recently named executive director of the Palm Desert Campus. “Our work in community engagement connects our university with one of the fastest-growing regions of California. This campus is a resource for our faculty to innovate with academic programs, cultivate relationships, reach new students, and furthers the research UCR faculty have done in this region for many years.”