The University of California: Creating, Nurturing, and Maintaining Academic Quality in a Public University Setting by C. Judson King

Abstract

The first part is an introduction to the history of the University of California, with a particular focus on the leaders who most contributed to its success. [...]an entire chapter is devoted to Clark Kerr, President of the University from 1958 to 1967 and author of the California Master Plan for Higher Education. According to King, the appointment of a total outsider to academia as Yudoff's successor, former governor of Arizona and U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, has only compounded this problem. The Plan was a division of labor among the state's various higher education systems, assigning research and doctoral education to the University of California, undergraduate education and master's degrees to California State University, and lower division to the community colleges. King continues his reflections on scientific developments in part four, where he discusses the role of the University of California in managing the national laboratories of Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, and Lawrence Berkeley, which were instrumental in developing nuclear weapons during World War II and have since carried out many other important research projects.