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David Saxon, former UC president and UCLA professor of nuclear physics, shown in a 1991 photo. He

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David Saxon (second from left) celebrates his 80th birthday. From left, Chancellor Albert Carnesa

David Saxon, who came to UCLA in 1947 to teach nuclear physics, and in more than five decades that followed became an iconic figure in the University of California system, died Thursday at the UCLA Medical Center after a long illness. He was 85.

During a career at the University of California which spanned 58 years, Saxon rose from a post as a UCLA professor to president of the UC system. He showed his fortitude when he refused to sign an anti-communist loyalty oath at the beginning of the Red Scare of the 1950s even though it meant losing his job, and later led the university through eight tumultuous years.

His friends and family remember him as a man of brilliance and courage.

“In an organization’s history there are people who stand out as greats, and David is in that group,” said John Sandbrook, a long-time UCLA administrator and one of Saxon’s close personal friends.

Saxon stayed active at UCLA until this summer. He would walk from his Westwood apartment to campus, have lunch at the faculty center, and go to his office at Knudsen Hall.

“I just don’t like golf,” he joked to the Daily Bruin in 2003. “This keeps me off the streets.”

As Saxon’s loved ones and colleagues mourn his loss, they recall his integrity and dedication to his principles. As an emeritus professor, he regularly attended faculty meetings, and his colleagues say he was a great resource.

“Whenever he spoke, everybody listened ... He would put everything in perspective,” said Joseph Rudnick, chairman of the Physics department.

Rudnick said he went to Saxon for personal and professional advice because he was “tremendously wise,” but direct.

“He was a kind person, but he would never sugarcoat things,” he said.

Born in St. Paul, Minn., in 1920, Saxon completed both a bachelor’s and doctorate degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and held several laboratory positions before coming to UCLA.

Shortly after arriving in Westwood to teach nuclear physics, Saxon became one of 31 UC professors who were removed from their posts in 1949 for refusing to sign loyalty oaths – contracts declaring that they were not members of the Communist party.

He and the other professors were reinstated in 1952 when the California Supreme Court struck down the policy. When he returned to UCLA, he began an ascent which would eventually lift him to the presidency of the UC system.

Upon his return, Saxon was made an associate professor, and in 1963 he was appointed chairman of the physics department. He became dean of physical sciences in 1966, won a distinguished teaching award in 1967, and then was promoted to the position of executive vice chancellor .

In 1975, he made the jump to provost of the UC, the system’s No. 2 position, and the next year he was chosen to be the fourteenth president of the university.

From 1983 to 1990 he was chairman of the corporation for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and he was also a professor emeritus at UCLA from 1983 until his death.

In 1987 the UC Board of Regents named a residential suite complex in the Northwest corner of UCLA campus after Saxon and his wife.

Saxon rarely spoke about his decision not to sign the 1949 loyalty oath, but the courage he displayed by not signing it showed that he was not afraid to speak his mind, and may have contributed to his quick ascent, said Rudnick, whose parents were friends with Saxon. He said he first met the former president when he was about five years old.

Saxon’s stand against the loyalty oath also reflected his life-long dedication to academic freedom, said Tom Klitzner, a UCLA pediatric-cardiologist and Saxon’s cousin.

Saxon’s decision not to sign was academic, not political, he said.

“(Saxon) said he didn’t want to be remembered as the guy who didn’t sign the loyalty oath, he wanted to be remembered as a great physicist,” Klitzner said.

Sandbrook expressed a similar sentiment.

“David just felt out of principle that this government involvement was wrong,” Sandbrook said.

But though he saw himself as a scientist, Saxon’s influence extended far beyond academia.

As executive vice chancellor at the height of the Vietnam War, Saxon took a similar principled stance during a faculty debate regarding the presence of ROTC on campus. Saxon believed that as a public institution, UCLA had the obligation to the state and to the public to allow ROTC to recruit, regardless of his personal beliefs, Sandbrook said.

“(Saxon was) the epitome of academic integrity, academic freedom, academic responsibility,” Sandbrook said.

Saxon’s decisions were not always popular.

During his eight-year presidency Saxon had to deal with a newly constrained budget, partly because of Proposition 13, an initiative which capped property taxes.

This forced the state government to redirect money to local governments, and therefore indirectly drained money from the university system, said Ron Heckart, a librarian for the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley.

Proposition 13 set in motion the budgetary balancing act that the state has been trying to recover from ever since, Heckart said.

The budgetary problems meant that Saxon was president for the first major increase in student fees.

While Saxon did make unpopular decisions at times, “he enjoyed the utmost respect even if people disagreed with him,” Sandbrook said.

Saxon is survived by his wife, Shirley; his daughters Barbara, Cathy, Charlotte, Linda, Peggy and Vicky; and six grandchildren.

A memorial service at UCLA will be planned in 2006.

Saxon’s family asks that donations be given in his memory to two causes: the David Saxon Physics Graduate Fellowship Fund, UCLA Foundation, 10920 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90024; or alternately to the Braille Institute, 741 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90029.