Nearly twelve years ago, while completing my dissertation, I was seated next to Hanna Holborn Gray at a conference dinner. The Renaissance historian, who served as the president of the University of Chicago from 1978 to 1993, told me about the changes she had witnessed in higher education during a long career, and described many of the émigré scholars whose works occupied my time and whom she had known—Leo Strauss, Hannah Arendt, and Henry Kissinger, to name a few. Gray’s sonorous voice and matter-of-fact approach to education mesmerized this eager graduate student. I resolved to learn more about her, and a few weeks later sought her permission to write her biography. She politely declined my request.
In retrospect, it was Gray’s no-nonsense approach to higher education that I found most enthralling.
In retrospect, it was Gray’s no-nonsense approach to higher education that I found most enthralling. Contemporary leaders at major research universities often seem to apologize for the work of their schools. Speeches from such presidents regularly focus on the responsibility of research universities to train leaders, socially conscious citizens, and entrepreneurs, or to provide the critical-thinking skills that employers value. Colleges regularly repackage graduation requirements in an effort to make a college education seem sexy and relevant. Rather than acknowledge research and teaching as intrinsically important—for the individual and society—university leaders risk coming across as snake-oil salesmen, boldly selling a product in which they have little confidence. It is no wonder students increasingly view themselves
