ABSTRACT
One of the achievements of American universities at the end of the last century was the introduction of a departmental pattern of organization. In most universities, the chairman initiated and carried through appointments to his department in conjunction with the dean and the president. Accounts of accomplishments in games or occasional scientific achievements did appear in newspapers, but in general, universities were not news. The work of academic scientists in the production of the atomic bomb probably had a great deal to do with setting the stage for the expansion of publicity about universities. The student disturbances of the 1960s and early 1970s also caused the volume of publicity about universities to leap upward. University social scientists are inextricably entangled with creating news for the press through their research and through their own opinions on current affairs. The politicization of academics has contributed to the interpenetrating of the inner world of the universities and the outer world of current contention.
