ABSTRACT

The twin revolutions, in access to higher education and in academic research, provided an underlying dynamic to a far-reaching transformation of American higher education during the 1960s. Besides performing the bulk of academic research, they pioneered an enlargement of university roles, the ascendancy of graduate education, the specialization of the curriculum, and an alteration of faculty roles. At the time of Sputnik, the sixteen established prewar research universities still occupied the top of the academic prestige hierarchy. The only new campus to join this august company was UCLA; the only member in danger of slipping out was Johns Hopkins, which remained quite small outside biomedical fields. Both public and private universities sought in their own individual ways to enhance the absolute quality of their faculty and programs, which is what mattered for everyday life on campus. The established prewar research universities were pressured by their faculties to take advantage of the new abundance by expanding departments, facilities, and graduate programs.