It is with a mixture of sadness and gratitude that we extend our best wishes and a fond farewell to Candis Snoddy, who retired in June 2023 after an impressive 35 years of employment at UCLA. For the last 29 years, Candis ably served the Center for 17th- & 18th-Century Studies and Clark Library. All would agree that it is difficult to imagine the Center & Clark without Candis’s steady presence and guiding hand.
Candis is a True Bruin. Beginning her UCLA career as an undergraduate, Candis earned her BA in History. She started working for UCLA in 1988 for the Office of Contract and Grant Administration, and three years later she was writing grants for the Department of Head and Neck Surgery. By 1994 Candis came to the Center for 17th- & 18th-Century Studies and the Clark Library as the Manager of Programs and Administration, and oversaw the relocation of the Center from Dodd Hall to Royce Hall in 1996. Candis remained in this position until 2010 when she was appointed as the Assistant Director for the Center and Clark.
Over the course of her tenure, Candis facilitated immense growth in both department staffing and program offerings. The once small combined team of seven is now a department of 15 career staff. Under Candis’s tenure fellowships, academic programs, and named lectures more than doubled. In addition, the Chamber Music at the Clark concert series increased from one concert a season to seven, and the annual on-campus Henry J. Bruman Summer Chamber Music Festival concerts are enjoyed each year by wider audiences and have attracted many accomplished Southern California ensembles to perform. In addition to overseeing the relocation of the Center’s offices several times, Candis shepherded the Clark Library’s multi-year seismic retrofit and book storage expansion project that took place from 2014 through 2018, as well as the restoration and renovation projects that coincided with the seismic retrofit construction. Over the years she served with multiple Directors, including Peter Reill, Barbara Fuchs, Mary Terrall (Acting Director), Helen Deutsch, and Bronwen Wilson, and assisted several Head Librarians, including John Bidwell, Bruce Whiteman, Gerald Cloud, and our current Head Librarian, Anna Chen.
Despite the incredible number of challenges Candis faced over 29 years at the Center & Clark, she always managed to display grace under pressure. She always had time for colleagues’ questions and patiently trained staff on complex systems. Her work ethic and commitment to the Center & Clark Library are beyond compare, and her institutional knowledge unmatched. While our staff greatly misses her guidance and direction already, happily, Candis has assured us that she will never be too far away, and we expect that we’ll see her soon at a Chamber Music at the Clark concert. Please join us in celebrating Candis and her many accomplishments, and bidding her joy and relaxation in the coming years! We invite you to add your well wishes and reflections to Candis’s Kudoboard at https://www.kudoboard.com/boards/YRL4da9b.