Clark Kerr, the first chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, and chief architect of the master plan that has guided California higher education for more than 40 years, died on Monday, Dec. 1.
Kerr, who died peacefully in his sleep after complications from a fall, was 92.
A professor of economics and industrial relations, he was president of the University of California from 1958-67 during a time of tremendous growth, planning and student unrest. He joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 1945 and served in the newly created position of chancellor from 1952-58.
As UC president, he spearheaded the negotiation of California's Master Plan for Higher Education, released in 1960, a plan that assured access to higher education for all California students and defined the roles of the UC campuses, the California State University system and California's system of community colleges. The plan has been used as a model in education planning around the world.
"Clark Kerr is, without question, a legend in higher education," UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Berdahl said Monday evening. "This quiet, unassuming man with a powerful intellect not only created the state's Master Plan but took on some of the most difficult issues facing higher education. I, and other chancellors at UC Berkeley, have repeatedly sought his wise counsel, and he will be deeply missed."
Kerr struggled with growing campus unrest, including the Free Speech Movement that rocked the Berkeley campus beginning in 1964. Under pressure by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan, the UC Board of Regents fired Kerr in 1967. Kerr later quipped that he came into the job as president "fired with enthusiasm" and left the same way.
Kerr headed the influential Carnegie Commission on Higher Education from 1967-73 and its successor, the Carnegie Council on Policy Issues in Higher Education, until 1979.
"Clark Kerr was a giant in American higher education, and the entire University of California community joins in mourning his loss," said UC President Robert Dynes.
"He was a statesman and a visionary who had much to do with creating the modern California higher education system and its hallmarks of high quality and broad accessibility. He was the dean of the higher education community not only in California, but in America, and we will be forever in his debt for the extraordinary contributions he made to educational excellence and opportunity."