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Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 January 2016
It is now almost a half century since Clark Kerr (1911–2003) delivered the 1963 Edwin L. Godkin Lectures at Harvard University, presenting what was ultimately recognized as one of the most significant and influential ruminations on the nature of higher education in the United States. This sustained reflection on the modern evolution of the research university, ultimately published by Harvard University Press as The Uses of the University (1963), framed discussion and debate regarding the role of what Kerr called “the multiversity” for decades to come. In this endeavor, there was no one at the time better suited to the task. An economist who had served for several years on the faculty at the University of Washington, Seattle, Kerr joined the University of California, Berkeley, in 1945. Appointed Berkeley's first chancellor in 1952, he was the mastermind behind the enormous expansion (in both capacity and excellence) that marked the campus's immediate postwar history. By 1958, as the then legendary Robert Gordon Sproul concluded his 28-year duty as University of California (UC) president, Kerr seemed the obvious and best choice as successor.