Word: kerrs
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...Clark Kerr, President of the University of California and this year's Godkin lecturer, last came to Harvard in 1958, when he was awarded an honorary degree at Commencement. Kerr remembers the experience with considerable amusement: "I nearly fell flat on my face in front of the audience. I was on crutches, and I momentarily stumbled on the wooden platform." The crutches were to protect a broken ankle, Kerr recalls, an injury he had received the previous Sunday while playing a vigorous game of soccer with his two sons...
Thus the president of the multiversity must be primarily a "mediator," with his first task being to keep the peace. "In seeking [peace] there are some things that should not be compromised, like freedom and equality--then the mediator needs to become the gladiator," Kerr said...
...second task of the president, Kerr said, is to further "progress." Yet unlike the giants of the past, the new president "is not an innovator," though "he must be sensitive to fruitful innovation." "Not all presidents seek to be mediators amid their complexities. But most are in the control tower helping the real pilots make their landings without crashes...
...president of a multiversity "wins few clear-cut victories; he must aim more at avoiding the worst than seizing the best," Kerr said. "The ultimate test is whether the mediation permits progress to be made fast enough and in the right directions; the needed innovations take precedence over the conservation of the institution...
...conclusion Kerr said. 'The president of the multiversity must be content to hold its constituent elements loosely together and to move the whole enterprise another foot ahead in what often seems an unequal race with history...