Acknowledgments
This book would not have been written had I not had the good fortune to join the Kauffman Foundation in the spring of 2006. Carl Schramm, the foundation’s remarkable president and CEO, has demonstrated repeatedly, by his own example, his desire to make Kauffman not simply a grant-making organization but also a place of ideas. Almost from the moment I started work, Carl urged me to write a book. Once a suitable idea took form in my mind, he offered me unstinting support and remarkable flexibility during the research and writing phases. I am deeply grateful for his encouragement.
My other great debt at Kauffman is to Bob Litan. I first met Bob over the phone when I was a magazine journalist seeking an expert to discuss an international trade dispute involving, I recall, Mexican tomatoes. Years later, after he became vice president for research and policy at Kauffman, Bob played a key role in bringing me to the foundation. His never-ending enthusiasm and creative energy helped launch this project, sustain it, and bring it to completion. Among other things, he read every outline and every chapter, offering valuable suggestions and support at each point in the process. In all the roles in which I have known Bob—journalistic source, recruiter, boss, and mentor—he has served as a wise sounding board and tireless intellectual guide. I am lucky to work with him.
Many other Kauffman colleagues helped along the way. Indira Dammu was a summer intern at the foundation in 2008 and continued working as my research assistant during her senior year at Indiana University. She kept assiduous track of new developments in global higher education and wrote research memos that I drew on extensively when writing the chapters on student mobility and world-class universities. Her efforts were indispensable. Mindee Forman helped get the book to the finish line. In the final months of the project, she performed last-minute research, checked and double-checked facts and endnotes on deadline, read the entire manuscript, and offered useful editorial suggestions—all with the good cheer, efficiency, and tech-savvy for which she is well known at the foundation. Alyse Freilich, a gifted editor, read large parts of the manuscript and improved it substantially with her suggestions. I was fortunate to get feedback from many others at Kauffman during an in-house work-in-progress presentation.
Kauffman associates provided other kinds of assistance, too, whether planning logistics for my extensive travels, connecting me to overseas contacts, suggesting interview subjects closer to home, helping with book promotion, or simply providing encouragement and brainstorming help. I thank all these colleagues, including Melody Dellinger, Norma Getz, Wendy Guillies, Tim Kane, Lesa Mitchell, Glory Olson, Margo Quiriconi, E. J. Reedy, Munro Richardson, Trayce Riley, Thom Ruhe, Dane Stangler, Bob Strom, Joy Torchia, Wendy Torrance, and John Tyler.
I have also been fortunate to find a second home as a guest scholar in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. I am grateful to Pietro Nivola, former head of the department, for bringing me on board, to his successor, Darrell West, for keeping me, and to a fantastic group of colleagues for providing helpful feedback throughout my book project. I benefited enormously from presenting my work at an in-house Research in Progress lunch, and from ongoing conversations with Governance Studies colleagues, including Sarah Binder, Bill Galston, Jonathan Rauch, Kent Weaver, and Russ Whitehurst. I had useful discussions with others at Brookings, too, including Bill Antholis and Belle Sawhill. Brookings’ crack librarians, especially Sarah Chilton and Laura Mooney, helped me in numerous ways. Korin Davis, Ellen Higgins, Christine Jacobs, and other colleagues helped organize a launch event for the book. All in all, I couldn’t ask for a more stimulating and congenial work environment.
I owe further appreciation to the Shalem Center in Jerusalem. Its president, Dan Polisar, generously offered me the use of an office as I was finishing my manuscript in the summer of 2009. This enabled me to spend a glorious summer in Jerusalem with my family while also getting a significant amount of work done. My research talk at Shalem on global college rankings, organized by Amichai Magen, managing director of academic programs, helped sharpen my thinking on the subject. Dan, who is embarking on a higher education initiative of his own with the creation of Shalem College, later took the time to review my manuscript page by page. The incisive critique he offered, on points large and small, significantly improved the quality of the final product. I’m especially pleased to have forged a professional as well as a personal connection to Dan, several decades after we became friends in our teens, and fifty-some years after our fathers met as classmates at Brooklyn College.
Thanks, too, to David Brady, Mandy MacCalla, and Deborah Ventura of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where in June 2008 I spent an enjoyable and productive week as a visiting scholar, the most recent in a terrific series of such visits in recent years.
Many others provided indispensible assistance as I worked on this project. Jamie Merisotis of the Lumina Foundation kick-started my research by getting me invited to a Shanghai conference that influenced my thinking considerably. There I met a number of higher education scholars who became valuable intellectual guides, including Phil Altbach and Ellen Hazelkorn. Checker Finn of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute gave me terrific practical advice about my trip to India. He also put me in touch with Anil Virmani and Viren and Nishi Madan, all of whom provided gracious hospitality in Delhi and useful information about the workings of the Indian Institutes of Technology. I greatly appreciate the help of numerous other individuals not quoted directly in the final manuscript who took the time to talk to me and, in some cases, to arrange valuable reporting visits. Among them were Desh Deshpande, Ludo Van der Heyden and his colleagues at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, Nicola Owen, Dan Stoll, and the staff of Tejas Networks in Bangalore.
Kevin Carey of Education Sector gave me the opportunity to road test my thoughts on global college rankings, first in the Washington Monthly and then at an American Enterprise Institute conference on accountability in higher education, which will lead to an edited volume. At the Monthly, I appreciate the editorial guidance of Paul Glastris, Charlie Homans, and Tim Murphy (who is living proof that fact checkers are the unsung heroes of the journalism world). Adrienne Burke, executive editor of the New York Academy of Sciences Magazine, commissioned an essay drawn from the book and was a pleasure to work with. I also want to acknowledge the fine journalists of the Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed, whose coverage of the ever-changing world of global higher education was indispensable to my knowledge of the subject.
Certain debts combine the personal and the professional. I thank Eric Patashnik, whose contributions ranged from offering moral support and superb editorial advice to giving last-minute PowerPoint assistance. My regular dining companions of many years, Vin Cannato, Ira Carnahan, Noam Neusner, Matt Rees, and Tevi Troy, tolerated my occasional angst, offered some bona fide book advice, and provided welcome comic relief. Others who offered ideas and help of all kinds include Bart Aronson, Cati Bannier, Rajika Bhandari, Julian Barnes, Roger Benjamin, Ulrich Boser, Corky Bryant, Richard Colvin, Andrew Curry, Pascal Delisle, Steve Denning, Liz Farrell, Rodney Ferguson, and the entire staff of Lipman Hearne, Andy Ferguson, Bruce Friedland, Richard Garrett, Darren Gersh, Madeleine Green, Terry Hartle, and Tim McDonough of the American Council on Education (for which I consulted in 2007 on a short writing project), Art Hauptman, Rick Hess, Anne Himmelfarb, Rick Kahlenberg, Helaine Klasky, Ron Machtley and the Bryant University board of trustees, Bill Meehan, Kris Mehuron, Ken Newbaker, Lynn and Steve Olson, M. A. Pai, Tony Pals, Steve Pelletier, Rafe Sagalyn, Peter Stokes, Barry Toiv and the Association of American Universities Public Affairs Network, Dan Troy, Alex Usher, and Richard Whitmire and Robin Gradison.
I had a high opinion of Princeton University Press long before it accepted my manuscript, thanks mostly to my acquaintance with its director, Peter Dougherty. Now direct experience has more than confirmed that impression. My editor, Seth Ditchik, was a wise, unflappable, and good-humored colleague and guide throughout the editing process. His hard work improved the book enormously. Joan Gieseke was the best copyeditor I could have asked for (or should that be “for whom I could have asked”?). Jessica Pellien applied her considerable energies to publicizing the book, while Shaquona Crews ably handled serial rights and Kathleen Cioffi efficiently managed the complex business of turning a manuscript into a finished book. Pam Schnitter created the first-rate jacket design and Tobiah Waldron crafted the helpful index. I also thank the anonymous reviewers who evaluated my manuscript and made many helpful suggestions.
This book is dedicated to the memory of my father, Aaron Wildavsky, an immense and much-missed presence in my life. The son of immigrants with limited formal education, he turned into a globe-trotting academic himself. I think he would have appreciated this analysis of the increasingly global nature of the institution that made possible his life’s work.
As I worked on The Great Brain Race, I also thought often of my late mother, Carol Wildavsky. Born in Brooklyn, she became an enthusiastic citizen of the world and would have enjoyed the far-flung reporting that went into this volume.
I have been fortunate during two-plus years of research and writing to live in a house full of activity, warmth, passionate discussion, and enduring affection (with a healthy degree of chaos mixed in as well). For this, and much else, I thank my family. My three children, Eva, Aaron, and Saul, also assisted me in a very practical way: each spent time at my downtown office helping to bring order to my scattered files. They continue to bring me joy every day.
As for my wife, Rachel, it is hard to know where to begin. She is perhaps the best editor I know. She read the manuscript in its entirety and made numerous useful editorial suggestions. She also held down the fort with characteristic good humor and efficiency during my many foreign and domestic trips. She provided a steady stream of encouragement and reassurance as I tackled what has probably been the most ambitious project of my professional life. Above all, throughout our eighteen years of marriage, Rachel has made my life better in every way.
While I appreciate the considerable help I have received, any errors of fact or interpretation—and, of course, the book’s conclusions—are mine alone.