The Office of the Chancellor was created in 1970 as a result of the reorganization of every campus of the University of Maryland system.

An authority in the field of agricultural economics, Bishop (1921–2012) received a bachelor’s degree at Berea College in 1946, a master’s degree from the University of Kentucky in 1948, and a doctoral degree from the University of Chicago in 1952. Bishop was a faculty member at North Carolina State University for 20 years, serving also as vice president of the University of North Carolina campus for four years.

In 1970, he became chancellor of the University of Maryland, where he oversaw a major academic reorganization and struggled to calm the campus during the Vietnam War. He left in 1974 to become the president of the University of Arkansas.