Making Harvard Modern The Rise of America's University

by Keller, Morton; Keller, Phyllis

• ISBN13: 9780195144574
• ISBN10: 0195144570
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-11-15
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Making Harvard Modern is a candid, richly detailed portrait of America's most prominent university from 1933 to the present: seven decades of dramatic change. Early twentieth century Harvard was the country's oldest and richest university, but not necessarily its outstanding one. By the century's end it was widely regarded as the nation's, and the world's, leading institution of higher education. With verve, humor, and insight, Morton and Phyllis Keller tell the story of that rise: a tale of compelling personalities, notable achievement and no less notable academic pratfalls. Their book is based on rich and revealing archival materials, interviews, and personal experience. Young, humbly born James Bryant Conant succeeded Boston Brahmin A. Lawrence Lowell as Harvard's president in 1933, and set out to change a Brahmin-dominated university into a meritocratic one. He hoped to recruit the nation's finest scholars and an outstanding national student body. But the lack of new money during the Depression and the distractions of World War Two kept Conant, and Harvard, from achieving this goal. In the 1950s and 1960s, during the presidency of Conant's successor Nathan Marsh Pusey, Harvard raised the money, recruited the faculty, and attracted the students that made it a great meritocratic institution: America's university. The authors provide the fullest account yet of this transformation, and of the wrenching campus crisis of the late 'sixties. During the last thirty years of the twentieth century, a new academic culture arose: meritocratic Harvard morphed into worldly Harvard. During the presidencies of Derek Bok and Neil Rudenstine the university opened its doors to growing numbers of foreign students, women, African- and Asian-Americans, and Hispanics. Its administration, faculty, and students became more deeply engaged in social issues; its scientists and professional schools were more ready to enter into shared commercial ventures. But worldliness brought its own conflicts: over affirmative action and political correctness, over commercialization, over the ever higher costs of higher education. This fascinating account, the first comprehensive history of a modern American university, is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the present state and future course of higher education.

Author Biography

Morton Keller is Spector Professor of History at Brandeis, and has written extensively on American political and economic institutions. Phyllis Keller was the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences from the 1970s to the 1990s, and is the author of Getting at the Core, an inside look at the creation of Harvard's pioneering core curriculum.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xi
Prologue: Fete Accompli, 1936	p. 3
The Meritocratic University 1933-1953	p. 11
James Bryant Conant and the Meritocratic University	p. 13
The College	p. 32
"lesser Breeds"	p. 47
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences	p. 64
The Professional Schools	p. 110
Managing Harvard	p. 134
Harvard and the Real World	p. 152
"an Engine of Power and Responsibility": 1953-1971	p. 171
Nathan Marsh Pusey and the Affluent University	p. 173
Governing the Affluent University	p. 189
The Ascendant Faculty	p. 211
The Professional Schools	p. 252
A Plurality of Minorities	p. 276
The College	p. 290
Crisis and Recovery	p. 307
"a Buzzing Confusion": 1971-2000	p. 339
Derek Curtis Bok and the Worldly University	p. 341
Governing	p. 359
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences	p. 383
The Professional Schools	p. 432
The College	p. 464
Epilogue	p. 481
A Note on the Notes	p. 495
Notes	p. 499
Acknowledgments	p. 565
Index	p. 567
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.