Scholarly Leadership in Higher Education: An Intellectual History of James Bryant Conant

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Urban provides an intellectual history of Harvard presidency of James Bryant Conant (1933-1953), situating it within the broader international landscape and drawing out the implication for the current state of higher education with reference to specific leadership policy issues in the sector. Throughout this volume, Urban explores the ways in which Conant achieved largely successful attempts to modernize Harvard by upgrading both its student body and its faculty. He explores the intellectual excellence agenda that Conant pursued both with students and academics, and the ramifications of this. He also considers the nature of Conant’s part-time handling of the role of president, the way he delegated campus control to his Provost, Paul Buck, and the ways the two operated together and separately. Urban also looks at Conant’s own intellectual breadth, as scientist and humanist, which showed itself prominently in his activities in pursuit of general education reform. Conant’s combination of intellect and agenda was unusual for a president in his own time, and is exceedingly rare, if not completely missing, in contemporary university presidencies. In exploring this innovative president’s time in office at Harvard, Urban offers pertinent ideas to today’s leaders of higher education.

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