Hematology and oncology journals have become his favorite reading, the chancellor said.

Hooker was admitted to the National Cancer Institute in April but began chemotherapy in January at UNC Hospitals. In April he was granted a two-month leave of absence so he could concentrate on his treatment.

Broad appointed William O. McCoy as acting chancellor while Hooker went to Maryland for treatment. McCoy left the acting chancellor's post June 1.

While Hooker stayed at home, a vice chancellor represented him at university functions.

Friday and former Chancellor Paul Hardin were named to the management team with McCoy, a retired BellSouth Corp. executive and former UNC system finance vice president.

Hooker, a UNC graduate, was named chancellor in 1995. He had been president of the University of Massachusetts system.

Hooker, a native of Richlands in the coal-mining territory of southwest Virginia, graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1969 with a degree in philosophy.

The first person in his family to earn a college degree, Hooker went on to receive master's and doctoral degrees in philosophy from the University of Massachusetts.

He rose through the ranks of academia, from a teaching post at Harvard to the presidency of Vermont's Bennington College at age 37. After three years at the helm of the University of Massachusetts, Hooker returned to Chapel Hill as the eighth chancellor of the nation's oldest public university.

Before Hooker was president of the Massachusetts system, he served as president of the University of Maryland-Baltimore County and was dean of undergraduate and graduate studies at The Johns Hopkins University, where he had been a philosophy professor.

Hooker is survived by his wife, Carmen, of Chapel Hill; his daughter, Alexandra, of Baltimore, Md.; his mother, Christine Hooker, of Roanoke, Va.; and Carmen's two daughters, Jennifer and Cyndi Buell, both of Charlotte.