Nov. 30, 2001
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By Amy Agronis
Campus community members last Tuesday were treated to a level of historical perspective on higher education that perhaps only a sharp-witted, 90-year-old former UC president like Clark Kerr can offer.
"He's easily one of the 20th century's most influential leaders in higher education," said chancellor Larry Vanderhoef in welcoming Kerr, a key architect of the UC academic system, to the podium.
UC president from 1958 to 1967, and chancellor of UC Berkeley from 1952 to 1958, Kerr helped to decades ago frame the 40-year Master Plan for Higher Education in California. He said such a task would be almost impossible now, given the new directions science and technology could take education in just a few short years. "I would in no way dare to develop a 40-year plan today," he said.
About 170 audience members listened intently at the University Club while Kerr reflected on past challenges faced by higher education and those facing UC today. They include, he said, the shift from elite access to higher education to mass access to higher education, which began about the turn of the 20th century. Suddenly, instead of 3 percent of the population going on to get college degrees, 20 percent was doing so, he said.
That access broadened further into "universal access" after World War II, Kerr said, as returning soldiers took Uncle Sam up on his offer to educate them. "Half of all GI's came from families in which no member had ever gone to college and that opened up higher education," Kerr said.
He said the UC system from 1940 to 1970 faced a "shockwave" - a time when multiple major challenges needed to be accommodated within a short span of time - and is about to face another.
During "Shockwave I," Kerr said college enrollment more than quadrupled across the country, and federal research money, previously amounting to only a few million in funding, started pouring into campuses in the low billions. "This campus is really a consequence of Shockwave I - and a very successful consequence," he said.
Shockwave II is starting, Kerr said, and it presents three main challenges: Tidal Wave II, the new electronic technology and its "fundamental impacts on how classes are taught," and "the new biology" - heralded by the unraveling of the DNA code.
"The new biology is going to affect research in higher education more profoundly than anything that happened out of Shockwave I," Kerr said. And, he added, "It's bringing intrusion of corporations into higher education more than ever before."
Meanwhile, a new benchmark in universal access - access for all people regardless of ethnic or cultural background - has come into play, he said, further populating campuses. "I see enormous battles over resources," Kerr said, noting that universities are now more than ever competing with federal and state programs including Medicare and the criminal justice system.
He believes UC is up to facing these challenges, however. "Rather than pitying those who face Shockwave II, I rather envy the challenges you face and the solutions and triumphs you may draw out of these challenges," he said.
Kerr also fielded questions from the audience, touching on topics including admissions testing and ways to insure that the university is providing the education scholars of tomorrow will require.
Kerr said he favors the SAT II and a more comprehensive approach to admissions. He is concerned, however, about turning judgment calls about who gets into a campus over to staff who potentially won't be properly trained for the task. "I just hope it's carried out with very great care by very experienced people. I can see a lot of problems arising from parents who want to know who was the person who made the decision that my child didn't get admitted."
Kerr also noted that studies show broad-based undergraduate programs turn out the best scholars.
He recommended that the university more closely follow the examples of top liberal arts colleges. General studies programs foster closer interactions between faculty members and students, and promote thinking laterally across subject planes and an interdisciplinary approach to problem-solving, he said, noting: "Our liberal arts education has fallen by the wayside too much."