Biography
C. Ray Varley served the University of California, Santa Barbara as Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance from 1967-1970. He took a particular interest in Isla Vista and worked to establish a sense of community in the area. Early in 1970, Chancellor Vernon Cheadle modified Varley's title to Vice Chancellor of Business and Finance and Isla Vista Affairs. He served in that capacity until 1971 when he left Santa Barbara to accept an appointment as the Administrative Vice President of the University of Utah.
As was the situation at many other colleges and universities in the late 1960s and early 1970s, UCSB students participated in the growing counterculture. Isla Vista became the local center of political and social unrest, culminating with the riot of February 1970 which ending in the burning of the Isla Vista Bank of America building. Varley, as Vice Chancellor of Isla Vista affairs, was directly involved in the campus's response to the unrest. Later that year, he published Isla Vista, U.S.A., a pictorial history of Isla Vista, positively reflecting the compact community adjacent to the UCSB campus.
From the guide to the C. Ray Varley Papers, 1967-1992, 1967-1971, (University of California, Santa Barbara. Library. Dept. of Special Collections)
