It is with great sadness that we report the passing of Sam McCulloch, the founding Dean of Humanities and Professor Emeritus of History at UC Irvine. McCulloch first arrived at UCI in 1964 as one of the founding faculty members and remained an important leader on campus throughout his entire life. He was UCI’s unofficial historian, compiling records, stories, letters, and other historical material for his 1996 book Instant University, which covers the history of the UCI campus from 1957 to 1993. McCulloch also conducted oral history interviews with 97 members of UCI’s prominent faculty and staff from 1967 to 1993, including Chancellors Daniel Aldrich and Jack Peltason, as well as Nobel Laureates F. Sherwood Rowland and Frederick Reines. In 2009, McCulloch donated his faculty papers to UCI Special Collections and Archives, which include correspondence, research notes, clippings, and bibliographies. We at Special Collections and Archives are forever indebted to Sam McCulloch for his commitment to documenting, preserving, and sharing the rich history of this campus.

Numerous interviews from the collection of Samuel McCulloch Oral Histories (AS-033) are available here at the Online Archive of UCI History. Both audio recordings and transcripts of selected interviews are available for use online, and the remaining interviews from the collection will be digitized and added to the Online Archive soon.

The finding aid for the faculty papers of Sam McCulloch (MS-F031) is available here through the Online Archive of California.

Instant University is available for use in the Special Collections and Archives reading room and is also available for check-out.

Photos from AS-061, UCI Communications Photographs Collection; and AS-056, Early Campus Photograph Albums.  Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.