The UC and the future of its master plan

Attended a lecture the other day that you would have loved to hear -- the Future of the California Model of Higher Education.  I debated not going, but it only seemed right that I should go.  Not too many folks attended.  I saw a few librarians and the university registrar (he's a “train friend”) - I'm guessing that most of the others are faculty.  It is one talk in a series (the Clark Kerr lectures) that happens every couple of years – most of them done at Berkeley.  However, this one is here at UCSD.

Is it ageism to say that one of the introductory speakers looks like he might have been a colleague of Clark Kerr?  The speaker for today was Simon Marginson.  He has done a lot of research into higher ed and had some interesting ideas for where it might go in the future.  He seems to really be impressed with the plans that Kerr laid out and sees it as not only a plan for California but also internationally.  One thing he said that surprised me, but made sense, is that UCSD was designed as an experimental campus.  I’ve always wondered about why the campus has 6 distinct colleges, and this might just explain that.  If you were still here, I think you would have liked to read a book he mentioned that Kerr wrote – Uses of the University.  Maybe I’ll buy it anyway and add to your books on the california master plan.  I think you would have enjoyed hearing this talk.