Instrumental University

Ethan Schrum is Assistant Professor of History at Azusa Pacific University, and an Associate Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia.

• Introduction: The InstrumentalUniversity and American Modernity 1. The Progressive Roots of theInstrumental University: PublicAdministration, City Planning,and Industrial Relations2. Clark Kerr: Leading Proponentof the Instrumental University3. The Urban University as CommunityServiceInstitution: Pennsylvaniain the Era of Gaylord P. Harnwell4. "Instruments of TechnicalCooperation": American Universities'Institution Building Abroad5. A Use of the University of Michigan:Samuel P. Hayes Jr. and EconomicDevelopment 6. Founding the University of Californiaat Irvine: High Modern Social Scienceand Technocratic Public PolicyEpilogue: Critics of the InstrumentalUniversityAcknowledgmentsNotes Index

A striking feature of this important chapter in the history of US higher education is how networked the leaders were: this was an upper-class boys club of policy-oriented academics. This detailed book is instructive and penetrating in examining how the current academic world came to be.(Choice) Ethan Schrum 's The Instrumental University dissects an important, understudied unit that blossomed between 1945 and 1970 – the university based 'Organized Research Unit,' more familiar by its abbreviation, 'ORU.' Schrum takes readers on a fantastic voyage to see how some influential university presidents in conjunction with leaders of major foundations and selected faculty members collaborated to incorporate this new entity as a fixture in the established academic structure still familiar today.(Society) Ethan Schrum's book is an important contribution to the literature on the development of American research universities after World War II. He offers a useful corrective to the assumption that the increasing corporatization of American universities in recent decades is due solely to the rise of neoliberalism and to the imposition by constituencies beyond the campus, particularly conservative politicians and business leaders, of a narrow economically driven conception of the mission of research institutions.(The Journal of American History) This is a fascinating, persuasive, and important book that provides a new perspective on history of the modern social sciences. It should interest anyone who wants to understand how universities got to where they are today.(AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW)