Can elite universities remain global?

One reason schools have arguably been caught off guard: They have misread the nation.

The Boston Globe published an oped I authored on June 2nd about a potential dilemma facing some of America’s top universities.

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The Trump administration’s move to bar Harvard University from enrolling international students, which a judge later blocked, has made plain one of the lurking dilemmas facing some highly selective universities: what to do about the growing gulf between the internationalization of some American universities and the perception among many that globalization is not in America’s interests.

To say that highly selective research universities have been caught off guard by how aggressively the Trump administration has sought to strip away federal support is to state the obvious.

One reason the schools have arguably been caught off guard is less so: They have misread the nation.

Large and influential swaths of America no longer believe that globalization is in the nation’s interests. But many highly selective universities continue to strive to be more international.

The globalization of America’s universities began decades ago.

When Richard Levin assumed the presidency of Yale in 1993, in his inaugural address he stated that “as we enter the 21st century, we must aspire to educate leaders for the whole world. … We must focus even more on global issues … if we are to be a world university.”