Charles E. Young, UCLA’s longest serving chancellor, dead at 91
Charles E. Young, the fiery, fiercely outspoken chancellor of UCLA credited with turning the campus into an academic powerhouse, died of natural causes Sunday at his Sonoma home. He was 91.
At the helm of UCLA for 29 years, Young oversaw its transformation from a small regional campus to one of the nation’s premier research universities.
“During his long tenure, Chuck Young guided UCLA toward what it is today: one of the nation’s most comprehensive and respected research universities and one that is profoundly dedicated to inclusiveness and diversity,” UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said in a statement announcing Young’s death.
When Young started at the post at the age of 36 in 1968, he was the youngest chancellor in UC history. When he retired in 1997, he would be one of the longest-serving leaders of an American university.
UCLA grew rapidly under his watch. Its annual operating budget increased tenfold to $1.7 billion. The number of undergraduates increased from 19,000 to 24,000. And the number of endowed professorships rose from 1 to over 100.
At the time of his retirement, the president of the American Council on Education called
