first chancellor, Herman Theodore Spieth, oversaw the beginnings of the school's transition to a full university and its expansion to a capacity of 5,000 students. UCR's second chancellor, Ivan Hinderaker led the campus through the era of the free speech movement and kept student protests peaceful in Riverside. According to a 1998 interview with Hinderaker, the city of Riverside received negative press coverage for smog after the mayor asked Governor Ronald Reagan to declare the South Coast Air Basin a disaster area in 1971; subsequent student enrollment declined by up to 25% through 1979. Hinderaker's development of innovative programs in business administration and biomedical sciences created incentive for enough students to enroll at Riverside to keep the campus open.
In the 1990s, UC experienced a new surge of enrollment applications, now known as "Tidal Wave II". The Regents targeted UCR for an annual growth rate of 6.3%, the fastest in the UC system, and anticipated 19,900 students at UCR by 2010. By 1995, …
