Considering National Context and Other Variables

Abstract

In an often cited analogy, the university is imagined as a village—an insular and tightly knit community, focused on teaching and learning as a worthy endeavor of its own, but somewhat removed from the larger world. The modern comprehensive university is, however, more like a city. It has many subcultures and responsibilities that reflect its growing role in society. “Some get lost in the city,” Clark Kerr once explained in his assessment of major American universities in the early 1960s, “while others, both faculty and students, find communities within the larger institution.” The “city,” continued Kerr, “is more like the totality of civilization” (Kerr 1963).