Clark Kerr and the Carnegie Commission and Council

Abstract

From 1967 through 1980, Clark Kerr served as Chair and staff director of the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education and its successor the Carnegie Council on Policy Studies in Higher Education. These bodies engaged in a massive 13-year research and publishing effort, the largest in U.S. history, aimed at improving higher education in America. This chapter discusses the unique personal characteristics and professional accomplishments that Kerr brought to the positions as the architect of the University of California system and California Master Plan, author of the classic work Uses of the University and the most renowned leader in the field of higher education nationally. The chapter goes on to discuss the ways in which Kerr organized the work of both bodies. It goes on to describe the research and publications and the Commission’s and Council’s impact on higher education policy and practice. Both the strengths and weaknesses of the Commission and Council are examined. The outcomes are compared to those of Abraham Flexner’s 1910 study of medical education in the United States and Canada, which is commonly considered the most successful reform study in higher education (Flexner, On medical education in the United States and Canada. Washington, DC: Science and Health Publications, 1910). The chapter concludes with a discussion of why another effort such as the Carnegie Commission or Council is unlikely today.