U. of Illinois Chancellor Named New Caltech Chief

Caltech announced Tuesday that it has picked Thomas E. Everhart, an electrical engineer with a strong background in the physical sciences, as its new president.

Everhart, 55, is the chancellor of the University of Illinois. He will take over as head of the Pasadena campus on Sept. 1, succeeding Marvin L. Goldberger, who has been Caltech’s president for nine years. Goldberger, 64, will become director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J.

Ruben F. Mettler, chairman of Caltech’s Board of Trustees, announced Everhart’s selection, ending a search that began a year ago, when Goldberger told the trustees he wanted to step down.

Everhart has held a wide range of posts in various institutions, and he is a physicist who is noted for his work in the development of electron microscopy and the use of electron beams in the analysis and fabrication of semiconductors.

The selection of an established administrator who is also well entrenched in the hard sciences was viewed by some as a signal that Caltech’s faculty will continue to have the freedom to engage in the spirited research that has made it one of the leading scientific institutions in the world.

“Caltech has an extremely strong faculty, and they are the real rulers of the roost,” said one source who knows the institute well. “It’s small and intensely scientific, and everybody is so good there that there’s no nonsense about running the university.

“Those guys go out and get their own grants,” he said. “They don’t need a lot of coaching.”

One member of the search committee, Bruce Cain, a professor of political science at Caltech, noted that although Everhart is not known as a “high-flying science policy person,” he has served increasingly the last few years on national committees.

Some observers had anticipated the selection of a scientist with greater visibility, particularly in view of the president’s role as a fund-raiser for the private institution, but there is logic in Everhart’s selection, Cain said.

The school wanted someone who had demonstrated abilities as both an administrator and a scholar, “and that’s a very small pool,” Cain said.

He said Everhart was the committee’s first choice.

According to one source, the role of president of Caltech is pretty much determined by the person who has the job.

“He doesn’t go in there with a job description,” the source said, “but the president can also influence the direction of the university profoundly.”

Cain said he expects Everhart to give the campus more of an administrative structure than it has now, and he is expected to have a strong interest in undergraduates.

Everhart was graduated from Harvard University in 1953 with a bachelor’s degree in physics, earned a master’s in physics at UCLA in 1955 and received a doctorate in engineering at Cambridge University in 1958.

Before going to the University of Illinois in 1984, Everhart was dean of the College of Engineering at Cornell University. He taught electrical engineering at UC Berkeley for 20 years, from 1958 to 1978, rising from assistant professor to chairman of the department.

Everhart is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He is married and has four children.

He will be the fifth president in the history of Caltech.