Clark Kerr

Clark Kerr is perhaps the most influential higher education theorist and university leader of the twentieth century. This chapter examines his thought regarding the role of the post-war American research university, including his key concepts of the multiversity, Knowledge Industry, and decentralization. It will also address his thoughts about leadership of the modern university. In this context this chapter explores Kerr’s core beliefs that the university should serve the interests of the greater society as a whole, including business and industry, government, national defense, and the general population. Kerr rejected both the classical concept of the university as an ivory tower devoted to classical knowledge or as a pure research institution, detached from both the needs of society and the welfare of its students and other constituents. Kerr was a visionary in seeing the greatly expanded demands that would be placed on American higher education following the Second World War in terms of both massively expanded enrollment and also a growing demand for research. He also anticipated and reacted to the growing, and even dominant, role of federal funding for higher education, especially in the area of research. Finally, the chapter will address the success of Kerr in implementing his vision as both a leading academic administrator and, later, the chairman of the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education.