The 2012 CLARK KERR LECTURES - Dynamics of American Universities

This first lecture of the series sets the analytic stage for the series. After reviewing the panoply of social changes observable in the history of higher education, the lecturer focuses on a key composite type: structural accretion, or the continued addition of new functions and structures without shedding old ones. A historical sweep of accretions is reviewed. Simple as it is, the notion is a profound one, and it ramifies throughout colleges and universities. Among these ramifications are a pattern of endemic conflicts, profound reorganizations of faculty activities, and changes in the academic community. The lecture also presents an analysis of two quintessential accretions, the academic department organized research institutes and centers.
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The lecture series was established in 2001 under the auspices of the Center for Studies in Higher Education on the Berkeley campus. Initial funding for the lectures was provided by the University of California's Office of the President, and subsequently major complementary funding has been received from the Carnegie Corporation. The Center for Studies in Higher Education has established an agreement with the University of California Press for publication of the second and future lectures.

The 2012 Clark Kerr lecturer will be Neil Smelser, one of the most distinguished and accomplished leaders of American Higher Education and recognized as a profound observer of higher education. He joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 1958 and has authored eighteen books, including "Theory of Collective Behavior". He is a University Professor Emeritus of Sociology for the University of California. His distinguished career has been entirely at the Berkeley campus except for a period in which he was Director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. His research has focused on what he calls the ""macroscopic social structural level"" of social life, including economic sociology, social change, social movements, and the sociology of education. He is also a trained psychoanalyst. His most recent book, published by the University of California Press in 2010, is "Reflections on the University of California: From the Free Speech Movement to the Global University". Smelser is a former president of the American Sociological Association, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a member of the American Philosophical Society.

Professor Smelser's three lectures in the series will be given January 24th and 31st, and February 7th, 2012, on the Berkeley campus, with the third lecture also being given February 14th on the Riverside campus. His subject is "Higher Education: The Play of Continuity and Crisis." In the lectures he will present a general view of social change, especially in universities, and interpret contemporary problems, controversies, and enigmas.

The three lectures are scheduled for:

* January 24, 4 pm, UC Berkeley Art Museum
* January 31, 4 pm, UC Berkeley Art Museum
* February 7, 4 pm, UC Berkeley Art Museum, repeated on February 14 at UC Riverside.

The series honors Clark Kerr, who served as president of the university between 1958 and 1967. Lectures are given at one or more of the university's ten campuses. Kerr headed the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education and then the Carnegie Council on Policy Studies in Higher Education from 1967 until 1979. He came to UC Berkeley in 1945 as an associate professor of industrial relations and was chancellor at Berkeley from 1952 until 1958.

Recipients of the honor are selected once every two years and are sponsored by Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE).

For more information about any of CSHE's lectures and events, contact the Center for Studies in Higher Education at 510-642-5040 or email cshe@berkeley.edu.

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