The Research University

It is a malady of the modern age for universities. The forces of globalization and a campaign by various international university ranking enterprises place too much emphasis on a narrow model of what the best universities should be. One result: the notion of a “World Class University” (WCU) and the focus on its close relative, global rankings of universities, dominates the higher education policymaking of ministries and major universities throughout the globe. Why the attention almost exclusively on research productivity and a few key markers of prestige, like Nobel Laureates? One major...