Sam Chauncey

Henry "Sam" Chauncey was a longtime administrator at Yale University. He has been credited in part with management of the volatile atmosphere on campus and in New Haven, CT associated with the New Haven Black Panther trials [Murder in the Model City:The Black Panthers, Yale and the Redemption of a Killer,Basic Books, Paul Bass and Douglas W. Rae, 2006] . Rather than the apocalyptic student riot that consumed Kent State University on May 4, 1970, Yale, under the leadership of Kingman Brewster on behalf of the faculty and Kurt Schmoke on behalf of the undergraduates, embraced and then managed the spirit of the protest. [see 1] The protest lasted two days, May 1 and 2.

Brewster and Chauncey met with Archibald Cox of Harvard to discuss what went awry April 15, 1970 in Cambridge, MA at a protest organized by an offshot of the white radical group Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). The consensus was locking the gates to the university incited the violence, and it had done likewise at Columbia University. Abbie Hoffman vowed that Yale would burn May 1 after the experience at Harvard. [see 1]

The transition to a co-ed from male Yale undergraduate student body was managed by Chauncey, as was the development of Science Park in New Haven.

Chauncey's father, Henry, was the first head of the Educational Testing Service.