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academy.
Almost overnight, the process changed. New college presidencies
were filled through search committees that included faculty and, from
time to time, students. Women and minorities were given far greater
consideration; they were even, on occasion, chosen for prestigious posi–
tions. Fundraising became the primary job of the president. There were
so many committees and so much activity that there was no time left for
reading, let alone writing. No wonder the average length of time served
by a sitting college president decreased. The job demanded unlimited en–
ergy, unusually thick skin, and, most importantly of all, the ability not to
offend any constituency while presiding over an institution whose prod–
uct, ideas, usually offend someone.
While all this was taking place, the university itself underwent those
changes that David Riesman and Christopher Jencks labeled "the aca–
demic revolution." The sheer number of faculty and students increased
dramatically in the 1960s and 1970s. New branches of new universities
opened as fast as anyone could count. As the old professoriate retired, or
as brand-new academic positions were created, jobs went to children of
the 1960s, including an unprecedented number of women and minorities.
This new generation was suspicious of power. Acadeniic self-governance
became its watchword. The university was a place in which others would
take responsibility for fund-raising while they would take responsibility
for choosing their colleagues, shaping their curriculum, and hiring their
administrators. The changes were so dramatic that they extended also to
boards of trustees (or state legislative committees), which themselves be–
came more diverse and open to the currents of the time.
The coming of the "new class" to the university preceded the con–
troversies over political correctness, but the latter cannot be understood
without appreciating the significance of the former. When demands for
multiculturalism, speech codes, and diversity hit the campus, a structure
was already in place to receive them.
[n
some cases, a new breed of col–
lege leadership, uncomfortable with academic traditionalism, was pre–
pared to jump out ahead of any demands for inclusion that might ap–
pear, anticipating them, even encouraging them.
It
sometimes seemed as
if those who led educational institutions and those who claimed they
were excluded from them formed a natural alliance with each other.
And well they might, for there were at least three things that held them
together.
First, demands for inclusion, despite occasional militant rhetoric,
were conservative demands; they accepted the university as it had be–
come .
[n
the particular environment of the 1990s, it is actually the tradi–
tionalists who have the radical platform. To satisfY them, college adminis–
trators would have to revise every single aspect of contemporary educa-
