INDEX
- Roberto C. Delgadillo, °µTV Library
- Chester O. McCorkle Jr., College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and °µTV and UC administration
Roberto C. Delgadillo: Librarian
This obituary is excerpted from a memorial tribute by Jessica Nusbaum, director of communications and marketing for the °µTV Library.
Roberto Carlos Delgadillo, student services librarian, died Oct. 30. A librarian at °µTV for 17 years, he is remembered for his unwavering devotion to supporting students, wicked sense of humor and ability to dig up reams of research on topics from Latin American history to Harry Potter.
āThe students were always number one. He was willing to go the extra mile to meet with them and support their research needs,ā recalled fellow student services librarian Melinda Livas. āHe had such a great rapport with students that when they left a research session, not only did they get the information they needed, they would always be smiling.ā
Roberto was particularly passionate about supporting students from historically underserved communities. In 2017 he established a program of embedded librarianship at the Center for Latinx and Chicanx Academic Student Success, holding āLatte with a Librarianā office hours at El Centro to ensure that research was accessible and approachable for Latinx, Chicanx and first-gen students.
āRobertoās commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion was unwavering. He inspired us all to try harder to connect with our underserved and marginalized communities,ā said MacKenzie Smith, university librarian and vice provost of digital scholarship. āHe inspired countless students to use the library and improve their research, and the faculty that he worked with adored him ā so much so that they nominated him for the American Library Associationās prestigious āI Love My Librarianā award.ā He won it in 2012.
Dan Goldstein, researcher services librarian, said: āIf he ever worked with somebody, he was their librarian for life. I know there are many, many faculty for whom he was ātheir librarian.āā
Following in his footsteps
Mario ³Ņ“Ē²Ō³śĆ”±ō±š³ś ā22, a first-generation college student like Delgadillo, said Roberto became a mentor and friend. āHe was my family here, he looked after me like a big brother,ā Mario said. āHe had a big role in my wanting to become a librarian, because I admired what he was doing to help students.ā
With Robertoās support, Mario applied for graduate school and is now pursuing his masterās in library and information science from San Jose State University. Itās an online program, allowing Mario to work in collection maintenance at the °µTV Library.
Roberto was an āexemplary librarian,ā Smith said, adding: āHis legacy at the °µTV Library will not be forgotten.ā
Delgadillo is survived by his wife, Robin Gustafson, the libraryās head of Access and Delivery Services; and his parents, Norma and Evelio Herrera. A private family service is being planned.
In lieu of flowers, the family encourages contributions to or , two organizations close to Delgadilloās heart.
The library is assembling a memory book to give to his wife and family; anyone who wishes to share notes, memories or photos may drop them off at the library administration office on the , 9 a.m.-noon and 1-3 p.m. Monday-Wednesday, or send them by email to be printed for inclusion in the book.
Chester O. āChetā McCorkle Jr.: Professor and administrator
In a 1989 Dateline article, Chester O. McCorkle Jr. spoke about a simpler time in °µTV history, in 1963, when he and Chancellor Emil Mrak comprised the administrationās upper ranks. āI was vice chancellor ā not āo“Śā anything, because we had only one,ā McCorkle said.
He would go on to become ātheā vice president of the UC system, serving from 1970 to 1978 when he decided to return to full-time teaching and research as a professor of agricultural economics. He missed the classroom, where he had been the recipient of an outstanding teacher award from students.
He retired in 1991 after 40 years as a member of the °µTV faculty, interspersed with his service in the °µTV and UC administrations in the 1960s and ā70s, a period of rapid growth in the UC system.
āChetā McCorkle died April 20 at a private home care facility in St. Helena, Napa County, at the age of 97. He continued to work through 2019, the year he authored his final case studies ā dozens of them ā for the California Agribusiness Executive Seminar, which he co-founded and directed for 30 years.
Vice chancellor, 1963-69
He first served in the systemwide administration from 1962 to 1963, putting in a year as academic assistant to then-President Clark Kerr. Back at °µTV, McCorkle served for a month as special assistant to Chancellor Mrak before moving up to vice chancellor, a position that included oversight of academic affairs, serving from 1963 to 1969. During this time, enrollment of undergraduates and graduate students grew by more than 1Ā½ times, from 4,851 to 12,320.
I was vice chancellor ā not āo“Śā anything, because we had only one. Emil and I were the administration. ā Chester O. āChetā McCorkle Jr., in 1963 Dateline article
McCorkle was named dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences in 1969 but would stay in the position only a year before being called back to UC, where he would serve as vice president for eight years under Charles Hitch and David Saxon.
Born in Gilroy, a third-generation Californian, McCorkle began his college education in 1941 at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where he studied agronomy and trained to be a Marine Corps officer. Amid World War II, school gave way to active duty as a captain at Camp Pendleton, working with troops who were training for duty on amphibious landing vehicles. He returned to Cal Poly in 1946 and transferred that same year to UC Berkeley, where he earned bachelorās and masterās degrees and a Ph.D. in agricultural economics ā and played in the Cal marching band.
Growing a university
He worked as an agricultural analyst for the Bank of America for about a year and as an assistant specialist for UC Berkeleyās Agricultural Experiment Station for two years before joining the Davis campus as an instructor in 1952, hired by Harry Wellman and Ed Voorhies, who had been tasked with assembling and leading an expanded ag economics department. The expansion coincided with planning to grow the old University Farm into a full-fledged UC campus, which happened in 1959.
McCorkle specialized in farm production economics and farm management, and he also studied resource use and development outside the United States. He had spent a year in Greece studying the country's agricultural sector and evaluating changes that it would need to implement for entry into the Common Market.
He is survived by his wife, Sandra Archibald McCorkle of St. Helena; daughter Sandy of San Jose, and sons Ken of Aiken, South Carolina, and Tim of Franklin, Tennessee; stepdaughter Alison Bowyer of St. Helena and stepson Jay Archibald of Napa; and five grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.
Media Resources
Dateline Staff: Dave Jones, editor, 530-752-6556, dateline@ucdavis.edu; Cody Kitaura, News and Media Relations specialist, 530-752-1932, kitaura@ucdavis.edu.