What Happened to Search for Yang’s Replacement?

[Updated: Wed., June 11, 2026, 12:20pm]

With Chancellor Henry Yang’s record-setting 31-year tenure at the helm of UCSB about to expire at the end of this week, it remains startlingly unclear who the UC Regents will select to replace him, when that decision might be made, and if an interim chancellor might be necessary in the meantime. What is known is that the search process, initiated nearly a year ago, is taking significantly longer than expected. 

To date, no name has even been submitted to the Board of Regents for their review. Ten had been submitted to UC President Michael Drake earlier in the year, and he reportedly vetted five of them.

Into this void of information, officially unconfirmed reports are making the rounds that Nathan Brostrom — former UC Merced interim chancellor, current CFO for the UC Office of the President, and husband of Santa Barbara County Supervisor Laura Capps’s now-deceased sister — was UC President Drake’s choice but was taken out of the running because of faculty opposition at UCSB because he lacks a PhD. Although Brostom boasts an undeniably stellar record of administrative accomplishment, his lack of the customary academic pedigree would be highly unusual for any UC chancellor. 

UCSB Public Affairs spokesperson Kiki Reyes said she could not comment on the matter, saying that she’s been asked to refer questions to the UC President’s Office. Likewise, calls placed with Vice Chancellor David Marshall — mentioned as a possible interim appointee to fill Yang’s shoes — were referred back to Reyes for comment. 

According to high-level UC insiders, the search for Yang’s successor has not “failed” per se but has merely been extended. Reports about Brostrom, they say, could not be accurate because President Drake hasn’t referred any names to the Regents yet for consideration; no opportunity would have existed for UCSB faculty members to wage any sort of collective opposition like a vote of no confidence.

“The search for a new chancellor to lead UC Santa Barbara remains actively underway; it has not reached a conclusion,” said a University of California spokesperson, Rachel Zaentz. “We are fully confident that this comprehensive process will culminate in a successful appointment of the next chancellor of UC Santa Barbara.” The search committee, formed shortly after Yang announced his retirement last August, provided the UC president an unranked list of candidates. The president can make a recommendation from that list or ask for additional candidates. “The process is confidential to preserve the privacy and professional interests of the candidates,” Zaentz added.

Whether some UCSB faculty members know is one question. Perhaps a bigger one is whether UC President Drake will remain on the job long enough to name Yang’s successor. Drake is scheduled to step down this August and will be replaced by James Milliken, who has served as Chancellor of the University of Texas system of 10 campuses, six health centers, and three nationally affiliated laboratories. For Drake to get a nomination in under the wire, he will most likely have to schedule a special meeting of the Regents. If he doesn’t, Milliken will get the call. 

But Milliken will find himself taking the helm under exceptionally tumultuous conditions, with the White House threatening — and delivering — massive funding cuts to major universities across the country that have resisted his anti-diversity, anti-woke, and pro-Israel agendas and that have insisted upon their own institutional independence. 

During Yang’s tenure, he transformed the campus from a relatively sleepy backwater into a turbo-charged institution of scientific research. But in more recent years, Yang has neglected community concerns over the campus’s impact on the local housing market to his own peril. The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors and the Goleta City Council both took the exceptional step of suing the campus for failing to provide the housing required by UCSB’s own Long Range Development Plan. 

Whether Yang might be conscripted into interim service remains unknown. On campus and throughout the broader political community, he is held in high regard for his obvious achievements, but also with growing impatience for his lack of community engagement. Though one of the county’s most prominent public officials, Yang — notoriously media phobic — has yet to make plain anything about the chain of succession his campus will soon experience. In the meantime, the clock is ticking.

Editor’s Note: This story was updated to note Nathan Brostrom’s relation to Santa Barbara County Supervisor Laura Capps.