University Governance

Clark Kerr and the Californian Model of Higher Education

Simon Marginson
2014

Fifty years on, Clark Kerr’s multiversity and the Californian Master Plan for Higher Education stand as signal high points in the building of not just great public institutions but high participation modern human society. Key features of the Californian Model have become a universal template for research universities and system design. Seminal ideas and practices of higher education developed by Clark Kerr, Martin Trow, Burton Clark and others continue to colonize the thinking of policy makers, scientists, scholars, students and citizens, with profound effects not just in the United States...

Dynamics of the Contemporary University

Neil Smelser
2013

This book is an expanded version of the Clark Kerr Lectures of 2012, delivered by Neil Smelser at the University of California at Berkeley in January and February of that year. The initial exposition is of a theory of change—labeled structural accretion—that has characterized the history of American higher education, mainly (but not exclusively) of universities. The essence of the theory is that institutions of higher education progressively add functions, structures, and constituencies as they grow, but seldom shed them, yielding increasingly complex structures. The...

The American Research University from World War II to World Wide Web

Charles M. Vest
2007

Forty years after Clark Kerr coined the term multiversity, the American research university has continued to evolve into a complex force for social and economic good. This volume provides a unique opportunity to explore the current state of the research university system. Charles M. Vest, one of the leading advocates for autonomy for American higher education, offers a multifaceted view of the university at the beginning of a new century. With a complex mission and funding structure, the university finds its international openness challenged by new security concerns and...

The Dream is Over: The Crisis of Clark Kerr’s California Idea of Higher Education

Simon Marginson
2016

The Dream Is Over tells the extraordinary story of the 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education in California, created by visionary University of California President Clark Kerr and his contemporaries. The Master Plan’s equality of opportunity policy brought college within reach of millions of American families for the first time and fashioned the world’s leading system of public research universities. The California idea became the leading model for higher education across the world and has had great influence in the rapid growth of universities in China and East Asia. Yet, remarkably...

Searching for Utopia: Universities and Their Histories

Hanna Holborn Gray
2011

In Searching for Utopia, Hanna Holborn Gray reflects on the nature of the university from the perspective of today’s research institutions. In particular, she examines the ideas of former University of California president Clark Kerr as expressed in The Uses of the University, written during the tumultuous 1960s. She contrasts Kerr’s vision of the research-driven “multiveristy” with the traditional liberal educational philosophy espoused by Kerr’s contemporary, former University of Chicago president Robert Maynard Hutchins. Gray’s insightful analysis shows...

Dynamics of the Contemporary University: Growth, Accretion, and Conflict by Neil J. Smelser (2013)

Neil J. Smelser
2013
This book is an expanded version of the Clark Kerr Lectures of 2012, delivered by Neil Smelser at the University of California at Berkeley in January and February of that year. The initial exposition is of a theory of change—labeled structural accretion—that has characterized the history of American higher education, mainly (but not exclusively) of universities. The essence of the theory is that institutions of higher education...

Federal, State, and Local Governments: University Patrons, Partners, or Protagonists?

Charles M. Vest
2006

Charles Vest gave the first of three Clark Kerr Lectures on the Role of Higher Education in Society on April 19, 2005 on the Berkeley campus. This essay argues that research-intensive public and private universities increasingly have far more similarities than differences in missions, structures, and even financial support. For both, the federal government, despite numerous tensions, remains our indispensable partner. At the same time, the role of state governments toward their public universities has evolved from that of patron to that of partner — sometimes a minor partner...

Superstars And Rookies Of The Year: Faculty Hiring Practices In The Postmodern Age

Mary Burgan
2005

Hiring new colleagues is a matter that engages individual faculty members intensely, for peer control of admission to the professoriate has been a highly successful source of academic quality in American higher education. “Super Stars and Rookies of the Year” analyzes the fixation on research acclaim as a negative version of academic hiring practices which has become embedded within the academic psyche. This fixation tends to be aroused by the rituals of recruitment and retention that take place on all campuses. But when recruitment becomes an exercise in what some economists have...

An Emerging View On Accountability In American Higher Education

David E. Leveille
2005

Higher education has become the focus of increased public debate. Stewardship of public resources, student achievement or the lack thereof, relationships and “partnerships” with business and industry in the area of research, substantial increases in tuition and fees, public perception of wrong-doing in the quality of programs, and allegations of wrongdoing in financial and programmatic areas have all led to calls for greater transparency, accountability, and impartiality. At root, these issues all concern trust. This paper discusses accountability in higher education as well as the...