Effective July 1, UCSB will administer the University of California Education Abroad Program at each of the 10 UC campuses.

UC President Mark Yudof, UCSB Chancellor Henry Yang and UCEAP Executive Director Jean-Xavier Guinard signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Wednesday May 4 to officially document the transition of administrative oversight of the program from the UC headquarters to the Santa Barbara campus.

“The transition is looking for efficiency because of its geographic location and to create administrative efficiency,” Senior Analyst of EAP Andrea Delap said.

According to Delap, students won’t likely see any changes to the program, as the partnership is essentially a transfer of administrative duties.

“The hope is that the partnership will create administrative efficiencies in the future by saving costs,” Delap said.

The transition is intended to decrease the program’s operating costs. Delap added that no additional staff members would be required to administer the program at UCSB.

“We’re really excited to be housed on the Santa Barbara campus and about the new administrative partnership,” Delap said.

According to Delap, 4,834 UC students participated in EAP during the current academic year.

The decision to move administrative control to UCSB was achieved in the interest of making the program more accessible to students, EAP Executive Director Jean-Xavier Guinard said in an interview with the official UCSB student newspaper, the Daily Nexus, in a May 6 article entitled  “UCEAP Passes Baton to UCSB, Campus to Assume Leadership.”

According to Delap, UCOP talked to senior administrators at all of the UC campuses about hosting the program, and UCSB expressed interest.

“UCSB is considered to be a leader in EAP based on our recruiting, fundraising and advertising,” UCSB EAP campus director Juan Campos said to the Daily Nexus.

Additionally, UCSB faculty members will work as program advisers under the new partnership.

According to Delap, the decision to move administrative oversight to UCSB has been in the works for a while. UCOP conferred with administrators across the UC system about how to best serve an academic program like the EAP.

“Academic instructional programs like UCEAP are better served at a campus than they are at the university’s administrative headquarters — UCOP,” UCOP Vice Provost Daniel Greenstein said in a statement.

According to Delap, the program originated at UCSB fifty years ago under UC President Clark Kerr, and was based there for three decades before changing oversight responsibilities to UCOP in Oakland. According to Delap, the UCOP administered the EAP for about two decades prior to the recent partnership.

According to the Daily Nexus, the UCEAP office is currently located near the campus. The EAP office will continue to report to Yudof, as well as to UCSB.

UCSB hopes to benefit from the transition, explained Delap. Currently, UCSB students work as interns in the EAP office in areas of social media and communications.

“It is our hope that under the new partnership, we will be able to grow the internship to benefit both the EAP and the students of UCSB,” Delap said.