Paths of the Multiversity: Clark Kerr and the Debate Concerning Contemporary University

Abstract

The thoughts presented in Clark Kerr’s Harvard lectures and his 1963 book The Uses of the University are seminal moments for a thematization of the ideas on higher education in the second half of the Twentieth century, and especially for their location on the ridge between the development of mass higher education and the emergence of neoliberal policies.

This essay will focus on the following aspects:

- The original context of the concept of multiversity, in parallel with the elaboration of California Master Plan for Higher Education around 1960, and at the beginning of Kerr’s confrontation with both youth protest and local political elites;

- The real meaning of a definition of the university, often interpreted as a positive sign of modernization, but which identified significant elements of concern;

- Kerr’s circulation in Italy, between the failure of university reforms and the radicalization of the tensions around 1968.