The Presidency of Tully Knoles

1919 - 1946

Two of the most threatening events to the survival of the University of the Pacific happened during the presidency of Tully Knoles.

Knoles saw the development of the University of California state system right in his own backyard, as it were, when the San Jose campus was being built within one mile of the University's site.

Seeing the writing on the wall in 1925, Knoles made the decision to move the University one last time to Stockton, located in the heart of the Central Valley.

At the time, there was no four-year university serving the Central Valley region.

Loyalty among faculty was so strong that only one professor chose not to move with the University.

Knoles is responsible for the creation of a campus that to all the world looks like it came right out of the hills of Massachusetts, not the farmland of California.

Its East Coast look and feel is unique among California schools, and makes many an east coast professor and student feel right at home.

Soon after the campus was completed, however, disaster struck again, in the form of the Great Depression in 1929.

Knoles, forced to make some tough decisions, decided to take advantage of some state-sponsored incentives for junior colleges.

In 1935, he essentially divided the University into a two-year public junior college called Stockton Junior College, and a two-year private senior college, College of the Pacific.

The College of the Pacific eventually reclaimed its four-year status, and Stockton Junior College became today's  San Joaquin Delta Community College, now located just up the street from the University of the Pacific.