The position of Chancellor, Amherst Campus, was created in 1970 when the office of University President moved to Boston. The first person to serve as Chancellor was Oswald Tippo (1970). The Chancellor is the chief administrative officer of the campus and is responsible for carrying out policies and procedures as established by the Board of Trustees and the University President and for coordinating the major administrative units of the campus, each supervised by the Deputy Chancellor or Vice Chancellor. The Chancellor is also responsible for campus strategic planning and, in particular, for proposing and reviewing activities that involve different administrative units, such as budget reallocations, enrollment management, facilities planning and some labor relations. Externally, the Chancellor speaks for the campus to such audiences as trustees, state and federal legislators, alumni, state and local public officials, business and community leaders. In addition to the Deputy Chancellor and the Vice Chancellors, the Director of Athletics reports to the Chancellor, as does the Associate University Counsel, who advises the Chancellor and others about legal issues.

The bulk of the Chancellor's materials consist of the administrative records of individual Chancellors. Additional series document activities of the Chancellor's Office. Since 1983, the various Chancellors have issued The Chancellor's Report, an annual report of the Amherst Campus. Included is the state of the campus and special topics such as student needs, the future, relationships with the Commonwealth and budget issues. Materials in the series Budget Documents (1908- ) including news clippings (1885- ) were first maintained in 1908 by Ralph J. Watts, the College's first full time Secretary to the President. Robert Hawley, his successor, became the College's Treasurer in 1940. When the President's Office moved to Boston the early budget files became part of the Chancellor's record. In 1969 the Office of Budgeting and Institutional Studies was created and it assumed budget responsibility. The Institutional Studies series is a collection of facts and reports, which have been compiled since 1960, including information on campus enrollment, degrees, programs, budget, and many other institutional issues. The Chancellor's Lecture Series (1974- ) documents this on-campus lecture program and its participants; VHS tapes are available for most of these lectures.

The records of the Chancellor's Office are organized into three major series: Individual Chancellors, Budget Documents and Institutional Studies; and a number of smaller series. Individual Chancellors has two major divisions (1970-1982 & 1979-1984) due to an overlap in the original file transfers. These early records of the Chancellor's Office are arranged by subject heading and then alphabetically within each grouping. Access to the files is available with delay, as they are stored off-site. Budget Documents are arranged by year. Institutional Studies is arranged by sub-series to reflect the many changes in organization since 1960. Chancellor's Lecture Series is arranged by year of lecture. The remaining smaller series consist of the Office of Grant and Contract Administration, Assistant to the Chancellor, Office of Human Relations, Affirmative Action Office/Equal Opportunity and Diversity Office, Ombuds Office, Office of Industrial Relations and Regional Development, Campus Council-Amherst, Planning and Space Management, Office of Economic Development, University Counsel, Counsel on Community, Diversity and Social Justice and Deputy Chancellor.