This text argues that Clark Kerr, Gaylord P. Harnwell, and other post-World War II academic leaders set the American research university on a new course by creating the instrumental university. With its emphasis on procedural rationality, organized research, and project-based funding by external patrons, the instrumental university would provide technical and managerial knowledge to shape the social order. Its leaders hoped that by solving the nation's pressing social problems, the research university would become the essential institution of postwar America. On this view, the university's leading purposes included promoting economic development and coordinating research from many fields in order to attack social problems.

Previously issued in print: 2019.