International Higher Education, Spring 2004

Clark Kerr (1911–2003): American Internationalist

Clark Kerr, who died on December 1, 2003, was one of those rare American higher education leaders who was an internationalist out of conviction at a time when few in the American university had much sense of the rest of the world. Kerr, who is best known for his leadership of the University of California during the period when it transformed itself into a mass higher education system that maintained high standards of quality. He was instrumental in developing the “California Master Plan,” the blueprint, still used, that developed what might have been the world’s first mass higher education system--a system that offered both open access to postsecondary education in the community colleges, mass baccalaureate education on the California State University campuses, and highly selective publicly supported elite education at the University of California. The master plan was adapted by many other states in the United States and was later examined by many other countries as they grappled with the challenges of mass higher education.

Kerr is less well remembered for his leadership of the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, probably the largest research effort on higher education anywhere in the world. The commission sponsored studies on a wide range of topics, from finance and access to private higher education, graduate and professional study, and many others. Almost 100 volumes were produced, from research-based studies to thoughtful policy recommendations. While the commission was a private initiative that had no government funding or sponsorship, many of its recommendations became policy--including the government-sponsored student loan programs that are so important to American higher education today.

One of the unusual aspects of the Carnegie Commission was its creation of a series of internationally related studies. Kerr, with the advice of James Perkins (one of the commissioners) and others, sponsored thoughtful analyses by prominent foreign observers with the aim of obtaining the insights of outside observers on the strengths and weakness of American higher education. Sir Eric Ashby of Britain, Michio Nagai of Japan, and Alain Touraine of France were among the authors. Kerr also commissioned a volume of studies of the higher education systems of other countries, again with the aim of enlightening U.S. thinking with the experience of others.

At a time when Americans thought that they had little to learn from the rest of the world, Clark Kerr looked abroad for insights. Kerr was perhaps the most influential American thinker on higher education of the 20th century. He was also one of the pioneering internationalists in the field.

Philip G. Altbach