http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8x92gt9 No online items Dean E. McHenry Papers Mathew Simpson, M. Carey, Cameron Baker The University Library Special Collections and Archives University Library University of California, Santa Cruz Santa Cruz, California, 95064 Email: [email protected] URL: http://library.ucsc.edu/speccoll/ © 2013 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Dean E. McHenry Papers UA 1 1 Dean E. McHenry Papers Collection number: UA 1 The University Library University Archives University of California, Santa Cruz Santa Cruz, California Processed by: Mathew Simpson, M. Carey, Cameron Baker Date Completed: February 2016 Encoded by: M. Carey © 2013 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Descriptive Summary Title: Dean E. McHenry Papers Dates: 1926-1998 Collection number: UA 1 Creator: McHenry, Dean E. Collection Size: 171 boxes 90 linear ft. Repository: University of California, Santa Cruz. University Library. University Archives Santa Cruz, California 95064 Abstract: This collection documents the career of Dean E. McHenry, the founding Chancellor of the University of California, Santa Cruz. Physical location: Stored in Special Collections & Archives: Advance notice is required for access to the papers. Languages: Languages represented in the collection: English Access Collection open for research. Publication Rights Property rights for this collection reside with the University of California. Literary rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. The publication or use of any work protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use for research or educational purposes requires written permission from the copyright owner. Responsibility for obtaining permissions, and for any use rests exclusively with the user. For more information on copyright or to order a reproduction, please visit Title: Special Collections and Archives Duplication & Reproduction Policy . Preferred Citation Dean E. McHenry Papers. UA 1. University Archives, University Library, University of California, Santa Cruz. Acquisition Information Transferred to Special Collections & Archives in 1999. Biography Dean Eugene McHenry was born in 1910 on a bean farm in Lompoc, California. He attended elementary and junior high school in Lompoc and then moved to Van Nuys (near Los Angeles) in 1925, where he attended Van Nuys High School. In 1928 McHenry entered the University of California, Los Angeles, then a primarily undergraduate campus only in its ninth year. He was to become an important force in the history of UCLA, both as a student and later as a faculty member and dean of social sciences. While at UCLA he was elected president of the Associated Students and earned a BA in political science. McHenry went on to Stanford University, where he roomed with Clark Kerr, a fortuitous happening, for Kerr was to Dean E. McHenry Papers UA 1 2 become a lifelong friend and key colleague who shaped McHenry's career. There McHenry also fell in love with his future wife, Jane Snyder. He earned his master's in political science from Stanford in 1933. His thesis focused on lobbying in the California legislature. In 1933 McHenry entered UC Berkeley graduate school with Clark Kerr. The Great Depression gripped the United States and both McHenry and Kerr needed a summer job. Kerr traveled to Los Angeles to work with self-help cooperatives organized by the End Poverty in California (EPIC) movement and McHenry joined him. That summer McHenry was inspired by Upton Sinclair, a Socialist who had switched to the Democratic Party to campaign for governor of California. McHenry returned to UC Berkeley in the fall, but chaired the Northern California Division of the EPIC Young Person's League, organizing what he called a "brain trust" of individuals who would help in the Sinclair administration, should Sinclair be elected. In 1934, while still a graduate student, McHenry was hired as a research assistant at the Bureau of Public Administration in Sacramento, writing briefs for legislators. It was there that he began to build the rich experience in California's politics that would serve him for the rest of his career. In 1936 McHenry completed his doctorate in political science at UC Berkeley and moved to the East Coast, where he taught political science at Williams College and Pennsylvania State University. In 1939, he returned to UCLA as a faculty member in the politics department, where he taught until his appointment as founding chancellor of the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1961. During this period he wrote many books about the American political system, the British political system, and also traveled to the South Pacific to be a Carnegie Fellow in New Zealand and Australia, and a Fulbright Lecturer at the University of Western Australia. In the early 1940s while continuing to teach at UCLA, McHenry ventured beyond academia in search of a political career. In the early 1940s, he joined the State Agricultural Prorate Advisory Commission and a Special Committee to Investigate Milk Marketing in the Los Angeles area. During World War II he served on the Advisory Board to Selective Service and as public representative and panel chairman of the National War Labor Board. He also became a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. In 1950 he ran (but did not win) for mayor of Los Angeles in a recall election against Mayor Fletcher Brown. These electoral ambitions culminated in an unsuccessful campaign for U.S. Congress in 1952, during which the liberal Dean McHenry was viciously redbaited by his opponent. Shifting his focus from electoral politics to higher education policy, in the late 1950s McHenry played the major role in writing the Master Plan Survey of Higher Education for California. Once again Clark Kerr was pivotal. He appointed Dean McHenry as head of academic planning for the University of California system and also as one of two UC representatives on the team that negotiated the plan. In The Gold and the Blue: A Personal Memoir of the University of California, 1949-1967 Clark Kerr reflected, "Dean McHenry was a superb representative of the university with good judgment and outstanding persuasive skills. He and I had jointly developed in our discussions the idea of a master plan. It was his idea as much or more than mine." The Master Plan laid out a coherent system for accessible postsecondary education that defined specific roles for the University of California, California State College [now California State University] and the California Community College system, and remains the guiding document in higher education in California through the present day. As head of academic planning for the UC system, Dean McHenry helped Kerr plan three new UC campuses authorized by the Board of Regents. The site-selection process would lead to campuses in Irvine, San Diego, and Santa Cruz-and Kerr recruited McHenry in 1961 to head what became the University of California, Santa Cruz. McHenry's decades of education, research, and practical experience in California politics from the 1930s to the 1950s imbued him with the savvy, political acumen, and vision to imagine, plan, and lead this boldly innovative campus. During the years before the campus opened, McHenry worked with President Clark Kerr and a team of others including Provost Page Smith, Vice Chancellor Harold Hyde, Landscape Architect Thomas Church to design a singular and internationally prominent experiment in public higher education. UC Santa Cruz married a decentralized residential college system modeled on Oxford and Cambridge and small liberal arts colleges such a Swarthmore with a public research university; offered a narrative evaluation system instead of letter grades; and foregrounded an interdisciplinary and small-scale approach to undergraduate education. He recruited dozens of distinguished scholars such as botanist Kenneth Thimann to the faculty and oversaw the innovative physical planning and distinctive architectural design for this spectacular campus nestled in the redwoods above Monterey Bay. His wife, Jane, who also had a master's degree in political science from Stanford University, was the daughter of the founder of Los Angeles City College, and served on the grand jury in Los Angeles County, played a pivotal role in UCSC's development throughout McHenry's tenure. She helped Dean build relationships with faculty, political figures in California, critical members of the Santa Cruz community, and students alike. They raised four children together. Dean McHenry served as UC Santa Cruz's founding chancellor for thirteen years. His vision, integrity, and deep commitment to higher education played an essential role in the success of UC Santa Cruz. He remained an active member of the UCSC community until his death in 1998 at the age of 87. In his retirement years, McHenry returned to his rural Dean E. McHenry Papers UA 1 3 roots. He and Jane devoted themselves to the family-owned and operated McHenry Vineyards on their Bonny Doon ranch on the sandy slopes above the Pacific Ocean in rural Santa Cruz County, where they produced Pinot Noir wine. Jane died in 2013 at the age of 101. By Irene Reti 1910 October 18th: Dean E. McHenry born on a bean farm near Lompoc, California, son of William Thomas McHenry and Virgie Hilton, who were originally from Missouri. 1915 Attends the Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, California. 1916 Attends the Panama-California Exposition in San Diego, California. 1916-1922 Attends La Purisima District School, Lompoc, Santa Barbara County. 1925-1928 Family moves to Van Nuys and attends Van Nuys High School (City of Los Angeles). 1927-1929 Publishes a sonnet in The Antique Chair: an anthology publised by students of Van Nuys High School. Delivers publicity releases for the Hollywood Bowl to the music editor of the Los Angeles Times Mirror. 1928 Graduates from Van Nuys High School. Enters the University of California, Los Angeles (nine years after its opening).