History of Higher Education

John Aubrey Douglass

Senior Research Fellow

John Aubrey Douglass is Senior Research Fellow - Public Policy and Higher Education at the Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE), and is a faculty member in the Goldman School of Public Policy, at the University of California - Berkeley. His research focuses on the forces and politics of globalization, the future of Democracy, the role of universities in economic development and socioeconomic mobility, the student experience and institutional self-improvement, and the history of higher education. He has written extensively on the rise of neo-nationalism and the impact on...

Robert C. May

Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Philosophy & Linguistics, UC Davis

Robert C. May is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Linguistics at UC Davis. He received his Ph.D. in Linguistics and Philosophy from MIT in 1977, and his Bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College. Prof. May joined the UC Irvine faculty in 1986, and moved to UC Davis in 2006. He held the Venice Chair in Philosophy of Language and Theoretical Linguistics, a Fulbright Distinguished Professorship, and visiting positions at Columbia University, Ecole Normale Superieure, and Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales.


Prof. May’s research interests span areas in...

Maresi Nerad

SERU Senior Researcher, Professor Emerita, Higher Education, University of Washington, Seattle

Maresi Nerad is the founding director of the Center for Innovation and Research in Graduate Education (CIRGE) and a full Professor (tenured) for Higher Education, in the Leadership in Higher Education Program, College of Education, at the University of Washington, Seattle. A native of Germany, Dr. Nerad received her doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley; directed research in the central Graduate Division of UC Berkeley, served as Dean in Residence at the Council of Graduate Schools, D.C., and as Associate Dean of the UW central Graduate School. She was appointed as...

Karen Merritt

From 2006 to the present, Karen Merritt has been a Visiting Scholar and Associate of the Center for Studies in Higher Education, University of California, Berkeley.

Merritt is the co-editor (with Jane Lawrence) of From Rangeland to Research University: The Birth of the University of California, Merced, a chronicle of the founding of UC’s tenth campus published by Jossey-Bass in 2007. She is currently working on a book about the role of the University of California and the Sierra Club in the founding of the National Park Service.

Merritt received her B.A. in English literature...

Chronicle of the University of California

The Chronicle offers a historical perspective, considering past university events in the context of ongoing changes within the university. Issues were organized around single themes that presented an inherent longitudinal view of the university’s development.

University of California History

Patricia A. Pelfrey

Senior Research Associate Emerita

Senior Research Associate, Center for Studies in Higher Education. Co-author (with Margaret Cheney) of A Brief History of the University of California (University of California Press, 2004) and editor of The Pursuit of Knowledge: Speeches and Papers of Richard C. Atkinson (University of California Press, 2007). Her most recent book is Entrepreneurial President: Richard Atkinson and the University of California, 1995-2003 (University of California Press, 2012), a study of the Atkinson presidency and the principal issues facing the University of California during...

Anne MacLachlan

Senior Researcher and Visiting Scholars Coordinator

Anne J. MacLachlan is a retired senior researcher at CSHE who continues to be devoted to increasing access, persistence, and success in postsecondary education for underrepresented groups (URM) including domestic minorities, women, and those from uneducated/poor families with an emphasis on those in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). Her research areas cover the spectrum of postsecondary populations including community college and transfer students, undergraduates in general, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty. Among these, doctoral...

Gary Matkin

Former Dean of Continuing Education, University of California, Irvine
Former Dean, Continuing Education, Distance Learning, and Summer Session Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 1989, Education M.B.A., University of California, Berkeley, 1970, Political Aspects of Business B.S., University of San Francisco, 1966, Accounting Certified Public Accountant (inactive), 1966, California License E14426 Other Experience Associate Dean, CE, UC Berkeley 1990-2000 Director, Admin Services, UC Berkeley 1975-1990 Business Officer, UC Berkeley 1973-1975 CPA, Various 1966-1973 Professional Societies California Alumni Association Association of Public...

Krista M. Soria

Institutional Research, Assessment, and Policy Analysis and Office for Student Affairs, University of Idaho

Dr. Krista M. Soria (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Leadership and Counseling at the University of Idaho. She is a critical quantitative researcher seeking to investigate the most equitable and inclusive programmatic practices and institutional conditions to prepare students to engage in the complexities of social change. She examines how higher education institutions can create a more supportive campus climate for students from diverse backgrounds, whether programs are equitably accessible and beneficial to all students, and how we can create structural conditions to support...