The chancellor of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln is the chief administrative officer of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and is selected by the University of Nebraska System president and confirmed by the Nebraska Board of Regents. The position was most recently held by Rodney D. Bennett from July 2023 to January 2026. The current interim chancellor is Katherine S. Ankerson.
History
Rise to Western prominence The University of Nebraska was created by an act of the Nebraska state legislature in 1869, receiving an initial land grant of about through the Morrill Act of 1862. The office of the chancellor was created two years after the university's founding, and Allen R. Benton began his tenure as Nebraska's first chancellor on September 6, 1871. Benton's responsibilities were wide-ranging, but the bulk of his duties were to develop the infrastructure of the young and rapidly expanding school. Benton resigned in 1876 to return to his post as president of North-Western Christian University (now Butler University); his departure was prompted by a period of turmoil for the university brought on largely by a years-long grasshopper swarm across Nebraska. His successor, Edmund Burke Fairfield, led a contentious tenure as chancellor highlighted by clashes over the place of religion in higher education. Under Fairfield's watch, the University of Nebraska hired its first female faculty member, Ellen Smith. Smith Hall, built on campus in 1967 as a student residence hall, is named in her honor.
By the time James Irving Manatt was appointed chancellor in 1884, the Board of Regents had undertaken an aggressive expansion of the University of Nebraska. Manatt attracted several high-profile faculty members to the university, but his authority was often challenged by the Board of Regents, who removed him from office in 1888. He was replaced by botany professor Charles Edwin Bessey, who served two non-consecutive terms as acting chancellor. Despite Bessey's prominence as a botanist, his brief appointments as chancellor were generally unnoteworthy.
In the University of Nebraska's early years, quick expansion and a limited budget meant many campus buildings were poorly constructed and visually unappealing. Thus, when Nebraska hired James Hulme Canfield in 1891, he immediately began an overhaul of the campus's appearance. Canfield often personally oversaw the paving of sidewalks, installation of landscaping, and construction of new buildings. These buildings included University Library (now Architecture Hall), which was built in 1895 and is the oldest building on NU's campus. Under Canfield's watch, Nebraska significantly expanded its football program and hired its first full-time athletics coach (football coach Frank Crawford). Despite Canfield serving just four years before returning to Ohio to serve as president of Ohio State University, his impact on Nebraska was such that the school later named its administration building after him. Canfield's hand-picked successor, George Edwin MacLean, offered NU's first graduate programs and established its School of Agriculture. However, he was frequently at odds with the Board of Regents as a result of his highly traditional administrative style, which clashed with Canfield's more imaginative methods, and as a result he left the chancellorship in 1899 to become the president of the State University of Iowa (now the University of Iowa).
After a second interim stretch by Charles Edwin Bessey, the University of Nebraska appointed Elisha Andrews its seventh chancellor on September 22, 1900. Just as he had done as president of Brown University, Andrews ambitiously sought funding to expand the school; a 1904 investment from John D. Rockefeller led to the construction of The Temple, which still stands on campus. In total, Andrews constructed nine new buildings in his tenure as chancellor, and oversaw a nearly doubling of the school's enrollment. By the time his health forced him to retire in 1908, the University of Nebraska was the fifth-largest public school in the United States. In lieu of a national search to find a replacement, NU quickly appointed agricultural chemistry professor Samuel Avery to the interim position, and by the end of 1908 appointed him full-time. In the first years of his appointment, Avery fought staunchly, and successfully, to make nearby Havelock (then a separate city from Lincoln frequently visited by college students) dry, claiming it could increase university enrollment by over 1,000 students in ten years.
War and Depression difficulties Avery remained in the position until 1928, making him the longest-serving chancellor in school history. Midway through his tenure, the United States entered The Great War, and Avery was asked to join the U.S. Chemical Warfare Service; William G. Hastings served as acting chancellor while Avery was in Washington, D.C. Like most colleges across the United States, enrollment at NU plummeted as a result of the war. Nebraska was put in a particularly difficult position given the state and university's reliance on agriculture, which was slow to recover in the post-war years. As a result, the later years of Avery's chancellorship were marked with financial hardships and stagnating enrollment. A widespread fundraising campaign was necessary to fund the construction of Memorial Stadium in 1923, the school's first steel-and-concrete football stadium. Avery's successor was dean of agriculture Edgar Albert Burnett, who served from 1928 until 1938, leading the university through the height of the Great Depression. Burnett was never popular amongst the faculty, but shortly before retiring from his post he created the University of Nebraska Foundation to secure funding from non-state sources at a time when spare resources were scarce. The Foundation still serves as the university's primary fundraising outreach.
In 1938, the Board of Regents selected West Virginia University president Chauncey Samuel Boucher to replace the retiring Burnett. The Depression was still unfolding, and in response to a rising level of failing students at the university, Boucher instituted NU's first admission standards. Just as it had during World War I, enrollment plummeted at the American outset of World War II, and Boucher offered vacant buildings at the University of Nebraska to the United States military for training and shelter. He resigned shortly after the end of the war. The university appointed University of Chicago dean Reuben Gustavson as its new chancellor; an influx of new students, many of them veterans, meant NU's enrollment doubled in Gustavson's first year. Gustavson was crucial to a number of post-war developments at Nebraska, including the integration of campus dormitories and the planning of the school's medical center (now the University of Nebraska Medical Center). Gustavson was well-liked and well-respected, and after seven years at NU accepted the presidency of Resources for the Future, a nonprofit organization focusing on energy and environmental sustainability.
University transition and unrest Clifford M. Hardin, then aged thirty-eight, became the youngest university president in the country when he was appointed Nebraska's twelfth chancellor in 1954. He quickly secured funding from the Kellogg's Company to establish the Nebraska Center for Continuing Education, a building which today bears his name as Hardin Hall. Though not an avid fan of the sport himself, Hardin prioritized the re-establishment of Nebraska as a national football power and attempted to hire high-profile head coach Duffy Daugherty from Michigan State, Hardin's previous employer. Daugherty declined, but suggested Hardin contact Wyoming head coach Bob Devaney. Over the next forty years, Devaney and his successor Tom Osborne created one of college football's great dynasties, claiming five national championships between them. Hardin later said that after the Depression, he "felt the state needed something to rally around."
Hardin was critical to the creation of the University of Nebraska system. By the 1950s, the Municipal University of Omaha (now the University of Nebraska Omaha) was run-down and inadequately funded, threatening the existence of the school entirely. Hardin spearheaded the integration of NU, Omaha, and UNMC into one state-wide system, which offered additional budget pools for Omaha to draw from. He was named the University of Nebraska system's first chancellor in 1968 and served for two years before being named United States Secretary of Agriculture under President Richard Nixon. During his tenure, Hardin was praised among faculty for his dedication to increasing salaries and benefits, as Nebraska faculty were among the most well-compensated in the Midwest. In the sixteen years Hardin was employed at the school, the University of Nebraska's enrollment more than tripled.
When Hardin took control of the state-wide system, he appointed his longtime colleague Joseph Soshnik to run what had become the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Soshnik's tenure began in the midst of a transition for the universities of Nebraska, as well as a period of turmoil across many United States campuses as students protested American involvement in the Vietnam War. Unlike most university administrators of the time, Soshnik responded to protests by meeting and negotiating with student leaders, and as a result, no Vietnam War protests at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln became violent or required a National Guard intervention. Soshnik became generally well-liked by students, but the emotion and unpredictability of the chancellorship led him to resign his post in 1971 and accept a position at Omaha investment firm Kirkpatrick, Pettis, Smith, Polian.
After an interim spell by C. Peter Magrath, the Board of Regents selected James Zumberge as its new chancellor. Zumberge, a former Antarctic explorer, served for three years before resigning to become president of Southern Methodist University. Oregon State University researcher Roy Young was named his replacement the following year, and quickly secured a record amount of outside funding for various NU departments. Young left to become president of the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research (now Boyce Thompson Institute) in 1980.
Modern stability
The appointment of Martin Massengale in 1981 ended a decade-long cycle in which no chancellor served more than four years. Massengale served for eleven years and was then appointed president of the University of Nebraska system. As chancellor, he spearheaded the creation of the Center for Grassland Studies and was highly involved in athletics, serving as chair of the College Football Association board of directors. Massengale retired from administrative work in 1994 and holds the title of president emeritus for the University of Nebraska system.
Graham Spanier was named Nebraska's seventeenth chancellor in 1991 and quickly addressed a significant budget shortfall while raising admission standards. Upon the retirement of Bob Devaney as athletic director in 1992, Spanier defied the wishes of head football coach Tom Osborne and hired Bill Byrne as Devaney's replacement. Osborne's program, however, was incredibly successful during Spanier's tenure, compiling a record of 45–4 and winning two national championships across four seasons. Spanier left in 1996 to become president of Pennsylvania State University, where he served until 2011 when he resigned in the wake of the Penn State child sex abuse scandal. Spanier was sentenced to two months in prison for his role in the scandal.