The Uses of the University: Fifth Edition (Godkin Lectures on the Essentials of Free Government and the) [Paperback]

Clark Kerr (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2, 2001 | ISBN-10: 0674005325 | ISBN-13: 978-0674005327 | Edition: Fifth Edition

America's university president extraordinaire adds a new chapter and preface to The Uses of the University, probably the most important book on the modern university ever written. This summa on higher education brings the research university into the new century.

The multiversity that Clark Kerr so presciently discovered now finds itself in an age of apprehension with few certainties. Leaders of institutions of higher learning can be either hedgehogs or foxes in the new age. Kerr gives five general points of advice on what kinds of attitudes universities should adopt. He then gives a blueprint for action for foxes, suggesting that a few hedgehogs need to be around to protect university autonomy and the public weal.

Editorial Reviews

Review

No book ever written has provided such a penetrating description of the modern research university or offered such insightful comments on its special tensions and problems. Anyone wishing to understand the American research university--past, present, and future--must begin with a careful reading of this book.
--Derek Bok, President Emeritus, Harvard University

Still the finest introduction available to one of America's most remarkable and least understood inventions: the research university. Probably the most learned, witty, and indiscrete book ever written by a university president, yet still wise in a way that stands the test of time.
--Christopher Jencks, Northwestern University

An updated classic written by one of the legendary figures in American higher education. Each new edition has contained important and accurate predictions. The fourth edition will be no exception.
--Henry Rosovsky, Harvard University

The Uses of the University has been the single most influential book on the American research university. Kerr, who was president of the University of California, Berkeley, during the tumult of the Free Speech Movement, gave three lectures at Harvard in 1963 defining the role of the emerging "multiversity." New layers were added to the text in 1972, 1982, and again in 1994; all are included in this edition.
--John Wilson (Books and Culture: A Christian Review )

Review

No book ever written has provided such a penetrating description of the modern research university or offered such insightful comments on its special tensions and problems. With this new edition, Clark Kerr adds to the original text with commentary on the evolution of our universities during the thirty years since the work first appeared and an analysis of the challenges that will arise in the next decade or two. Anyone wishing to understand the American research university--past, present, and future--must begin with a careful reading of this book. (Derek Bok, President, Emeritus, Harvard University ) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press; Fifth Edition edition (March 2, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674005325
• ISBN-13: 978-0674005327
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #603,043 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fifth Edition, Still the Best in Class, June 18, 2003

By 

Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Uses of the University: Fifth Edition (Godkin Lectures on the Essentials of Free Government and the) (Paperback)

Of the three books read and reviewed on the role of the university within a nation, this is the best, with Derek Bok's volume on universities in the marketplace being the runner up.

With a new preface written in 2001, and a pattern over the course of five editions of each time updating, correcting, and commenting on differences between past predictions and actual outcomes, this book appears to be the best available on this topic.

The author is alarmed by the possibilities that universities, which were nurtured by post-World War II federal funding and state funding that is now vanishing, could begin to fail in almost catastrophic terms. Between aging and unrepentent faculty, the vanishing of liberal arts (or even quality education) for undergraduates, and the prostitution of graduate education to commercial purposes, there does appear to be a crisis.

After noting that America appears to spend more on prisons than on universities, the author makes several recommendations, all of which appear sensible. They include a new emphasis on university support to primary and secondary education, a rationalization of information technology within communities to better link businesses with members of the university family, the exploration of distance learning alternatives (as much to reach the drop-outs inexpensively as for any other reason), and the resurrection of mid-career education or continuing education as a mainstream expectation for personal as well as business advancement.

The author, who clearly has a very strong ethical perspective, quotes Alfred North Whitehead, who concluded that any society that "does not value trained intelligence is doomed" and adds his own view, that "the university that does not fully dedicate itself above all else to the continuing advancement of trained intelligence is also doomed."

This is a really fine book that should be in the library of anyone seeking to understand "national intelligence" as Thomas Jefferson understood it when he said "A Nation's best defense is an educated citizenry."

0 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Never really read it..., October 29, 2010

By 

gradschoolgirl - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Uses of the University: Fifth Edition (Godkin Lectures on the Essentials of Free Government and the) (Paperback)

I think I read a chapter of it for my grad school seminar. I was bored and never really picked up the rest.