Clark Kerr: Knowledge Industry

Clip from the film "Berkeley in the Sixties. UC president Clark Kerr speaks about his vision of universities as knowledge factories.

"The university is being called upon to educate previously unimaginable numbers of students; to respond to the expanding claims of national service; to merge its activites with industry as never before. Characteristic of this transformation is the growth of the knowledge industry, which is coming to permeate government and business and to draw into it more and more people raised to higher and higher levels of skill. The production, distribution, and consumption of 'knowledge' in all its forms is said to account for 29 percent of the gross national product and 'knowledge production' is growing at about twice the rate of the rest of the economy. Knowledge has certainly never in history been as central to the conduct of an entire society. What the railroads did for the second half of the last century and the automobile did for the first half of this century may be done for the second half of this century by the knowledge industry: that is, to serve as the focal point for national growth."

"One of the most distressful tasks of a university president is to pretend that the protest and outrage of each new generation of undergraduates is really fresh and meaningful. In fact, it is one of the most predictable controversies that we know -- the participants go through a ritual of hackneyed complaints almost as ancient as academe, believing that what is said is radical and new."

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  • Education

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