Vernon Irvin Cheadle (February 6, 1910 – July 23, 1995) was an American botanist, educator and university administrator. He served as the second chancellor of the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) from 1962 until 1977.[1]
Cheadle became UCSB's second chancellor at a time when local leaders in Santa Barbara, California had already been fighting tenaciously for several decades to establish a research university in their community. Cheadle gave them what they had desired for so long: the transformation of UCSB from a small liberal arts college into a research university. However, Cheadle was severely traumatized by the turmoil of the anti-Vietnam War era of the late 1960s, when Governor Ronald Reagan declared martial law and deployed heavily armed California National Guard troops to the UCSB campus. As a result, Cheadle became so passive for the remainder of his chancellorship that from 1972 to 1977, real power on campus lay in the hands of Vice Chancellor Alec Alexander.[2]