Center for Studies in Higher Education

This article examines the intellectual history of The Uses of the University, including the influence of José Ortega y Gasset’s ideas about higher education, with a view to exploring Clark Kerr’s vision for the university and how that vision might be expanded to take account of present challenges, in particular, diversity. The paper, which calls for leadership renewal and succession planning, pays special attention to the two types of administrators defined by Kerr--the visionary hedgehog and the shrewd fox. We need to identify the hedgehogs and foxes of the future, who must be as diverse as possible if they are to raise the “multiversity” to “the height of the times.”