Bulletin Spring‧Summer 1981

The Failure of Academic Reform in the United States and Western Europe —Confessions of an Academic Reformer by Dr. Clark Kerr (This lecture was delivered by Dr. Clark Kerr, an overseas Council member o f this University and Chairman o f the Carnegie Council on Policy Studies in Higher Education, at the University on 15th December, 1980.) The period since 1960, particularly the 1960s, but to some extent the 1970s, has probably been the greatest period of attempted academic reform in the history of higher education in Western Europe and the United States since the founding of the University of Bologna in the 12th century. There was a fair amount of reform with efforts to modernize univer­ sity systems in the 19th century, beginning with Napoleon's destruction of the existing university system in France, and establishing what was then a more modem system. There was the development of the Humboldt-type university—the modem research university—in Berlin in the early 1800s; then the founding of the University of London and the other civic universities in Britain and the land-grant univer­ sity idea in the United States. But at no point in history were there so many reforms attempted in so many countries as in the 1960s and 1970s in Western Europe and the United States, and to some extent elsewhere. I think the main reason for this great effort at reform was because it was a period of a great deal of growth. There were many, many new endeavours and it was possible then to do some things in a rather different way. In the U.K., for example, nine totally new universities were begun, giving a chance to try nine different new ways of organizing universities. In the United States there were hundreds and hundreds of new universities and new colleges started, and the same thing happened in Germany and many other places. Also, it was a period when there was in the United States what we call a "counter-cultural revolution" or a "cultural revolution". Around the world there was a spirit of trying things in a new way, rejecting the old on the part of youth. It really was quite a world-wide phenomenon. In addition, during that period of time in a number of countries there were comparatively liberal governments, whether the Labour Government in Great Britain, or Social Democratic Governments on the Continent and Scandinavian countries, or the Democratic administrations of President Kennedy and President Johnson in the United States. So with growth, with changing attitudes among young people and liberal governments, and a spirit of “ let's do things in a different way", there was a tremendous upsurge of academic reform. And it was not just in Western Europe and the United States. The period from 1966 to 1976 was a period when there were many reform attempts in Mainland China. There were new experiments on access to institutions of higher education in China; experiments with shortening the length of time for a high school diploma; shortening the length of time for a university degree; and many efforts to try to associate formal education with actual working experience. In India too, the universities, which went back to the 1850s ， modelled upon the University of London, had been largely unchanged. A major reform effort came in the great national report of the 1960s. In the national study of 1964 to 1966 ， they tried to introduce into India graduate work at a higher level of competence than had been traditional there and also set up different specialized institutes, particularly in technological fields. Reforms took place in other countries as well. I would like to talk about what was attempted during this period of reform. I would like to refer first of all to the efforts we made at the University of California, then to some of the recommendations made by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Educa­ tion, which I chaired over a twelve-year period from 1968 to 1980, and finally, to other types of reforms tried in the United States and to the European efforts. I will ask the questions—What failed and why? What succeeded and why? And, what may the future hold? Are there any reforms that might be undertaken successfully in the period ahead? Purposeful Academic Reform I would like first of all to define my terms. I am going to be talking about "purposeful academic re­ form." By "purposeful" I mean that somebody tried to reform academic life for academic reasons, in contrast with what Professor Riesman of Harvard in a recent book calls "popular reforms," or what might be called “ market reforms"—those that responded to what the students wanted, for whatever reason, but not growing out of an academic idea. For example, in the United States in recent times, there has been a great deal of change as a result of doing away with required courses and substituting electives. In a number of universities required courses (except in the major) were virtually abolished in the late sixties and early seventies, and electives were made almost universal. That was not what I would call a "purposeful academic reform," but a response to student demands of the time. Later the students wanted vocational courses so they could get jobs in a tighter labour market. I would also call that a "popu lar reform," responding to what the students wanted, not to some academic idea about how it might be done better. 4