The Presidential Search Committee was established in 1969 by the Chancellor of the Oregon State System of Higher Education to conduct a search for a President of Oregon State University and make a recommendation to the Chancellor and the Oregon State Board of Higher Education. The Committee promoted the position, reviewed and evaluated applicants, and conducted preliminary and on-campus interviews. The Committee included academic deans, faculty, students, members of the Board of Higher Education, and alumni. The faculty and student members of the Committee were selected by their respective Senates. The work of the Committee was concluded in early 1970 with the appointment of Robert W. MacVicar as President of Oregon State University, a position he held from 1970 until his retirement in 1984.
Robert L. Phillips, the Director of Summer Term and Professor of Speech Communication, served as the Executive Secretary of the President Search Committee.
These materials were transferred to the former University Archives by the Summer Term Office in 1970 and 1971.
These materials were placed in the Continuing Higher Education and Summer Term Records (RG 179) when they were received in 1970 and 1971. The 1970 transfer included records pertaining to specific applicants that were destroyed in 1985; a folder of minutes and procedural documents was retained. In 2019, all of the remaining records of the Presidential Search Committee were separated from the Continuing Higher Education and Summer Term Records (RG 179) to form this separate collection.
Collection is open for research.
Presidential Search Committee Records (RG 310), Oregon State University Special Collections and Archives Research Center, Corvallis, Oregon.
The Special Collections and Archives Research Center’s holdings include numerous collections documenting Robert W. MacVicar’s presidency of Oregon State University – including the President’s Office
The Presidential Search Committee Records consist of materials assembled and created by the Executive Secretary of the Committee, Robert L. Phillips, in the course of the Committee’s work in 1969-1970 to conduct a search for the President of Oregon State University. The bulk of the materials pertain to the preliminary and on-campus interviews of Robert W. MacVicar, assessments of MacVicar, and announcements of MacVicar’s selection to be the 11th President of Oregon State University.
Materials pertaining to MacVicar include initial correspondence with him in May 1969, assessments of MacVicar prepared by a subset of the Committee that met with him in St. Louis in September 1969, schedules and other details for his on-campus interview in November, and assessments of MacVicar by several Committee members. Of special note in these materials are an assessment by a student member of the Presidential Search Committee -- Stephen C. Downs, a senior in Engineering -- and a list of the individuals scheduled to meet with MacVicar when he was on campus that included students, faculty, academic deans and administrators, members of the Search Committee, and members of the University Goals Commission.
The collection also includes correspondence and related materials pertaining to local arrangements for on-campus interviews, minutes and associated procedural documents of the Committee, and a 2-page mimeographed document, “Oregon State University in the 1970s: Challenges for the President”.
Finally, the records include press clippings pertaining to the search and selection of MacVicar; the February 3, 1970 issue of the Barometer campus newspaper featuring several cover articles about MacVicar’s selection as Oregon State President, and a biographical sketch and personal vitae for MacVicar. The vitae indicates that MacVicar’s mother was Native American and his father Canadian.