 In 1958, he became the academic assistant to his long-time friend Clark Kerr, the then-president of the University of California, and in 1960 he helped Kerr draft California's Master Plan for Higher Education.The following year he became the first chancellor of the new University of California Santa Cruz, a position he held for 13 years.In 1958, Kerr, McHenry's former roommate at Stanford, quickly recruited him to the post of academic assistant to the president.