Introduction

Research universities have no memory. They properly educate the young in the heritage of the past in order to equip them to criticize, revise or expand it in the future. Research in every theoretical discipline looks forward, wasting no time in dwelling on bygones, especially bygones concerning its own activities. Each student cohort sees only that time slice of university culture coordinate with its own residence in academia, affecting the conditions of its own stay. Each student, moreover, is engaged in expanding personal knowledge, enhancing relevant skills, and planning a career, every such task oriented toward the future. As a result, the past cultures of research universities are typically lost from view, along with the personalities, attitudes, and ideas that shaped them. Only those whose time perspective antecedes that of the student cohort have the capacity to recall portions of the university’s past as embodied in their own experience.