A University for the 21st Century 20 Years Later

University presidents are expected to draw upon their experinces to draft a book suggesting possible futures for higher education. Since my term of o ce ended in 1996, as the new century approached, it was natural to label this assignment as A University for the 21st Century, a book that was awarded the Alice Beeman Award of CASE (the Council on Advancement and Support of Education) in 2001. Although this e ort was heavily in uenced by my experience in serving the University of Michigan as dean, provost, and president during the 1980s and 1990s, I attempted to paint a broader picture of American higher education writ large. Of course universities have a remarkable constancy in roles such as teaching and scholarship, in organizations such as schools, colleges, and departments, and in cultures such as academic freedom and tenure. Indeed, as Clark Kerr has noted in his famous quote: