The multiversity's multidirectional stretch: The evolving society is drawing our intellectual centers into new shapes

Dr. Robert Hutchins of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions calls today's American university a "service station." "Whatever the society wants," he says, "the university will do, provided it gets the money to pay for it. And it is not even what the society wants. It is what the most vocal pressure groups demand." His comment is delightfully excoriating but perhaps a little extreme. Intellectual leadership has been and still ought to be the primary responsibility of the university. Criticism is highly valuable as is expert advice, but stepping forth and taking responsibility for action is what sets the level at which the intellectual input changes something for the better. There is an increase of yielding by the intellectually excellent to requests for advice and criticism and, in some views, this has decreased attention to direct leadership at their home base in the university. If too much of leadership is left to the ...