UC Riverside Chancellor Suffers Stroke

Three months short of her retirement, UC Riverside Chancellor Rosemary S.J. Schraer suffered a life-threatening stroke Wednesday, officials said.

Schraer, 67, was found unconscious in her car Wednesday morning and was taken to Riverside Community Hospital, where she was placed on life-support systems in the intensive care unit, according to campus spokesman Jack Chappell.

Schraer, head of the Riverside campus since 1987, is expected to retire June 30. Her successor will be Raymond L. Orbach, provost of the College of Letters and Science at UCLA.

Duties of the chancellor were delegated Wednesday to Executive Vice Chancellor Everly B. Fleischer.

Schraer is credited with helping lead the Riverside school through a resurgence. Enrollment dropped dramatically in the 1970s and there had been speculation the campus might be closed. In the past decade, the student body nearly doubled to its current enrollment of 8,900.

She is one of the first two women chancellors in the nine-campus UC system, appointed at the same time as Barbara S. Uehling, head of UC Santa Barbara.