16 Facts About Clark Kerr

Clark Kerr was an American economist and academic administrator.

Clark Kerr was the first chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, and twelfth president of the University of California.

Clark Kerr was raised on rural farms outside of Reading, Pennsylvania, first in the Stony Creek area and then in the Oley Valley after age 10.

Clark Kerr signed the oath, but fought against the firing of those who refused to sign.

Clark Kerr gained respect from his stance and was named University of California, Berkeley's first chancellor when that position was created in 1952.

In October 1957, Clark Kerr was the Board of Regents' unanimous choice to lead the entire university system.

Clark Kerr's reforms included delegating to the chancellors the full range of powers, privileges, and responsibilities which Sproul had previously denied them.

Clark Kerr was criticized both by students, for not agreeing to their demands, and by conservative UC Regent Edwin Pauley and others, for responding too leniently to the student unrest.

In late 1964, President Lyndon Johnson picked Clark Kerr to become secretary of Health, Education and Welfare.

Clark Kerr later withdrew the nomination after the FBI background check on Kerr included damaging information the agency knew to be false.

Clark Kerr knew what was coming and did not actively fight it in the sense of actively lobbying individual regents.

At the dedication ceremony Clark Kerr stated that he had left the presidency of the university just as he had entered it: "fired with enthusiasm".

Clark Kerr served as chair of the 1984 USPS National Agreement Arbitration Panel, after which he joined the USPS panel of national contract arbitrators.

Clark Kerr was married to Catherine "Kay" Spaulding on Christmas Day, 1934.

Clark Kerr died on December 1,2003, in El Cerrito, California, following complications from a fall.

At UC Berkeley the Clark Kerr Campus is a 50-acre student residence complex.