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He is no longer a “hero-figure who filled an impossible post,” on the model of the University of Chicago’s Robert Maynard Hutchins or Abraham Flexner, influential in medical education and as head of Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study. Witty, perhaps, but hardly a vote of confidence.Ī university president must adapt to these changes, said Kerr. as British as possible for the sake of the undergraduates, as German as possible for the sake of the graduates and research personnel and as American as possible for the sake of the public at large, confused as possible for the sake of the preservation of the whole uneasy balance. A community should have a soul, a single animating principle the multiversity has several… But a careful reading raises some red flags:Ī community should have common interests in the multiversity they are quite varied, even conflicting. Noting the rise of the modern “research university,” with its incoherent mix of divisions, disciplines, and aims, Kerr seemed to embrace chaos rather than deplore it he even gave it a cool new label: the multiversity. In an engaging 1963 Harvard Godkin Lecture (published as The Uses of the University) Kerr painted an optimistic “new age” picture that now looks rather different. An early signal came from the University of California’s admired president, Clark Kerr. American universities have been changing since World War II, and administrations have been complicit. Like a 21 st-century Rip Van Winkle, I found it almost unrecognizable. But last year, I finally encountered the university first-hand, as it is now. I can beat that: I have been retired from academic teaching and research for nearly 14 years and have rarely visited my campus during that time. A well-known podcaster has the custom of going “off the grid” for a month each summer, to gain some perspective.
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