Yale University President—and union buster extraordinaire—Richard Levin is stepping down after 20 years in power, er, office. His reign—sorry, “administration”—was longer than that of Deng Xiaoping, Slobodan Milošević, and Ríos Montt. Though not as long as Mayor Daley’s.
In Fall 1998, my penultimate semester at Yale, I TA’d for a course called “Yale and the External World.” Taught by historian Gaddis Smith, it was part of the university’s annual DeVane Lectures, in which a distinguished member of the faculty is given an opportunity to expound over the course of a semester—to students, alums, and the public—on a topic of his or her choice. Other DeVane Lecturers have included Nancy Cott on the history of marriage, whose lectures ultimately became this excellent book, Michael Denning on democracy, and more. But in 1998, Yale was heading toward its tercentennial, and President Richard Levin wanted someone to take stock of “the evolution of the University’s place in the modern world.” Smith, […]