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Santa Barbara: Administrative Officers

Chief Campus Officers
Santa Barbara State College was under the supervision of a president, but in 1944, when it became a campus of the University, the title of the chief executive was changed to provost. In September of 1958, the Regents established Santa Barbara as a general University campus and at that time the official title of the chief campus officer became "chancellor." source

Clarence L. Phelps, 1944-46
Clarence L. Phelps, born in Kentucky in 1881, came west for his college education, earning his A.B. and M.A. degrees at Stanford University. He fulfilled all course requirements for the Ph.D. degree, including the publication of his dissertation, but residence requirements prevented the granting of the degree. Before coming to Santa Barbara, he was on the faculties of teachers colleges at San Jose, Tempe (Arizona), San Diego, and Fresno. In 1918, he became president of Santa Barbara State Normal School of Manual Arts and Home Economics and in 1944 was appointed the first provost when the campus (then known as Santa Barbara State College) became a part of the University system, retiring from that position 1946. He died in Santa Barbara on May 7 1964, at the age of 83. source

J. Harold Williams, 1946-55
J. Harold Williams, acting provost 1946-50, and provost from 1950-55, earned his A.B., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees at Stanford University. He was director of the California Bureau of Research from 1915-23, then joined the faculty at UCLA as lecturer. Dr. Williams advanced to a professorship in 1929 and became director of the Summer Sessions on the Los Angeles campus in 1936. He came to Santa Barbara in 1946 to take up the duties of acting provost. Acquisition of the Goleta site and preparation of a physical master plan for a 3,500-student campus were among his accomplishments. In 1955, he was appointed co-ordinator of Summer Sessions on a University-wide basis with headquarters on the Los Angeles campus. source

Clark G. Kuebler, 1955
Clark G. Kuebler received his A.B. degree at Northwestern University and the Ph.D. degree at the University of Chicago. He was in the classics department of Northwestern from 1930-43, and served as president of Ripon College, Wisconsin, from 1943-55 before coming to the Santa Barbara campus in February of 1955. After a short tenure as provost, Dr. Kuebler resigned the position in November, 1955, and later entered private business. source

John C. Snidecor, 1956
John C. Snidecor, acting provost at Santa Barbara from February to June of 1956, received his A.B. degree from the University (Berkeley) and earned his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Iowa. He joined the Santa Barbara faculty in 1940. Following service with the Navy in World War II, Dr. Snidecor became a dean of the Division of Applied Arts in 1948 and continued in that post (except for the five months spent as acting provost) until July, 1960, when he resumed his full-time responsibilities in teaching and research. source

Elmer R. Noble, 1956-59
Elmer R. Noble received his A.B., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees from the University (Berkeley) before joining the faculty at Santa Barbara in 1936. He became dean of letters and science in 1955. In July of 1956, he was appointed acting provost of the campus and served as such until September, 1958, when he was made vice-chancellor and acting chief campus officer, a position he held until June, 1959. Dr. Noble then became vice-chancellor--graduate affairs, continuing until 1961 when he resumed full-time teaching and research. source

Samuel B. Gould, 1959-62
Samuel B. Gould, who became the first chancellor of the Santa Barbara campus, was born in New York City on August 11, 1910. He received his A.B. degree from Bates College (1930) and his M.A. degree from New York University (1936). During World War II he served as an officer in the Navy. Dr. Gould was president of Antioch College for five years and on the faculty of Boston University for six years before coming to Santa Barbara to serve as chancellor from 1959-62. source

Vernon I. Cheadle, 1962-77
Vernon I. Cheadle received his A.B. degree from Miami University, Ohio, and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University. Prior to coming to California, he was on the faculty of Rhode Island University, which included a decade of service as head of the botany department and director of the graduate division. During ten years of service as professor of botany on the Davis campus, he also served as chairman of his department for eight years and in 1961-62 was acting chancellor. Dr. Cheadle came to the Santa Barbara campus as chancellor in 1962, at a time when enrollment was beginning a series of increases unprecedented in the history of the campus. source

Robert A. Huttenback, 1977-86
A 1951 graduate of UCLA, Robert A. Huttenback received his Ph.D. from the same campus in 1959. He spent the 1956-57 academic year on a Fulbright Fellowship at the University of London in the School of Oriental and African Studies. The following year, he was awarded a Ford grant to study and travel in India. He has received other fellowships and grants that permitted additional study in India and Great Britain as well as Pakistan and South Africa. He joined the faculty at the California Institute of Technology in 1958 and has been a full professor since 1966. He served as chairman of the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences from 1972 until his appointment as chancellor of Santa Barbara in 1977. source

Daniel G. Aldrich, Jr., 1986-87
Daniel Gaskill Aldrich, Jr. was named first chancellor of the Irvine campus in 1962. Born in Northwood, New Hampshire, on July 12, 1918, he received the B.S. degree in 1939 from the University of Rhode Island, the M.S. degree in 1941 from the University of Arizona, and the Ph.D. degree in 1943 from the University of Wisconsin. Joining the University in 1943 as a junior chemist at the Citrus Experiment Station at Riverside, he progressed to the rank of chemist in the Agricultural Experiment Station and in 1955 was appointed professor of soils and chairman of the Department of Soils and Plant Nutrition at Berkeley and Davis. In 1958, he was named dean of the Universitywide Division of Agricultural Sciences and served in that capacity until 1963. He left the Irvine chancellorship in 1984 and was appointed acting chancellor at Riverside following Chancellor Rivera's death. He later served as interim chancellor at Santa Barbara from 1986-87. He died in 1990. source

Barbara S. Uehling, 1987-94
Barbara S. Uehling left the University of Missouri at Columbia after eight years as chancellor to become a senior visiting fellow of the American Council of Education in Washington, D.C. Prior to becoming chancellor at Missouri, she served for two years as provost of the University of Oklahoma-Norman. She left Washington to become chancellor at Santa Barbara in 1987. source

Henry T. Yang, 1994-
Henry T. Yang was named UCSB's chancellor in 1994. He was formerly the Neil A. Armstrong Distinguished Professor of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering at Purdue University, where he also served as the Dean of engineering for ten years. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He has received many awards and honors for his research, teaching, and service, including an honorary doctorate from Purdue University and the Benjamin Garver Lamme gold medal, the highest honor from the American Society of Engineering. source

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Last updated 3/16/05.