RARE "First Chancellor UCLA " Clark Kerr Signed 3X5 Card For Sale

Up for sale a RARE! "First Chancellor UCLA " Clark Kerr Hand Signed 3X5 Card. 

ES-5313

Clark Kerr (May

17, 1911 – December 1, 2003) was an American professor of economics and

academic administrator. He was the of California,

Berkeley, and twelfth president of the University of California. Kerr

was born in Stony Creek, Pennsylvania,

to Samuel William and Caroline (Clark) Kerr and earned his A.B. from Swarthmore College in

1932, an M.A. from Stanford University in

1933, and a Ph.D. in economics

from UC Berkeley in 1939.[1] In 1945, he became an associate

professor of industrial relations and was the founding director of the UC

Berkeley Institute of Industrial Relations. Soon after the beginning of

the Second Red Scare (the McCarthy era), in 1949, the Regents of

the University of California adopted an anti-communist loyalty oath to be

signed by all University of California employees. Kerr signed the oath, but

fought against the firing of those who refused to sign. Kerr gained respect

from his stance and was named UC Berkeley's first chancellor when that position

was created in 1952. As chancellor, Kerr oversaw the construction of 12

high-rise dormitories. In September, 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed

him to the Commission

on Intergovernmental Relations. In October 1957, Kerr was the Regents'

unanimous choice to lead the entire university system. Raymond B. Allen had been widely expected to

succeed Robert Gordon Sproul as

systemwide president, but Allen's tenure as UCLA's first chancellor was marred

by athletics scandals, poor campus planning, and the perception among the

southern Regents that he had not put up enough resistance—especially in

comparison to Kerr—to Sproul's stubborn refusal to delegate anything to the

campus chancellors. Therefore, when Sproul finally

announced his retirement in 1957, Allen was passed over in favor of Kerr. Kerr's

term as UC president saw the opening of campuses in San Diego, Irvine,

and Santa Cruz to

accommodate the influx of baby boomers. Faced with a dramatic

increase of students entering college, Kerr helped establish the having the handful of University of California campuses

act as 'top tier' research institutions, the more numerous California State

University campuses handle the bulk of undergraduate students

and the very numerous California Community

College campuses provide vocational and transfer-oriented

college programs to the remainder. A Mother Jones article

mentioned that Kerr's achievements in this field earned him international

acclaim. In

1959, Kerr along with Chancellor Glenn T. Seaborg helped found the Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory.

In 2002, the FBI released

documents used to blacklist Kerr as part of a government campaign to suppress

subversive viewpoints at the University. This information had been

classified by the FBI and was only released after a fifteen-year legal battle

that the FBI repeatedly appealed up to the Supreme Court, but agreed to settle

before the Supreme Court decided on hearing the matter. President Lyndon Johnson had picked Kerr to become Secretary

of Health, Education and Welfare but withdrew the nomination

after the FBI background check on Kerr included damaging information the agency

knew to be false. Edwin Pauley approached CIA Director John McCone (a Berkeley alum and associate) for

assistance. McCone in turn met with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover agreed to supply Pauley with

confidential FBI information on "ultra-liberal" regents, faculty

members, and students, and to assist in removing Kerr. Pauley received dozens

of briefings from the FBI to this end. The FBI assisted Pauley and Ronald Reagan in painting Kerr as a dangerous

"liberal." Kerr's perceived leniency was key in Reagan's election

as Governor of California in

1966 and

in Kerr's dismissal as president in 1967. Shortly thereafter, Kerr's old

friend Thomas M. Storke insisted

that Kerr should be allowed to participate, as previously scheduled, in the

dedication of a building on the Santa Barbara campus in Storke's honor. At

the dedication ceremony Kerr stated that he had left the presidency of the university

just as he had entered it: "fired with memoir, The Gold and the Blue: A Personal Memoir of the University of California,

1949-1967 Volume Two: Political Turmoil details what he refers to as

his greatest blunders in dealing with the Free Speech Movement that

ultimately led to his firing.