François Furstenberg at Public Books:
Johns Hopkins is launching its 150th anniversary celebration. When it was founded in 1876, American universities were still mostly finishing schools for children of the nation’s elite. Hopkins introduced the modern research university to the US, importing the model from Germany, helping reshape American higher education in its image.
At the convocation, speakers announce the coming “sesquicentennial”: once, twice, three times, and then again, lest anyone forget. It’s a great word, he thinks. He tries to use it in a sentence.
The incoming chair of the university’s board of trustees is on hand. He looks nervous. He’s younger than most faculty on stage, the managing partner of a private equity firm based in Boston, with offices in London, Mumbai, Hong Kong, and Menlo Park. Kept, like all faculty, at a safe distance from the trustee, the history professor asks himself what this person can know about running a university.
More here.
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