THE American university was dominated in the 1960's, first by the crusade for civil rights, next by that against the war in Vietnam. It was, preeminently, the era of cause-commitment: an attempt, so its adherents say, at human oneness—between rich and poor, black and white, university idealist and oppressed South Vietnamese. It was, too, a time when goodwill, if only it was intense and fervid enough, seemed all that was ever called for or needed,

Today the university is thought to be experiencing something quite different—a more introspective, self-concerned time, overshadowed by anxieties over one's own economic future. The student seeks admission to law or medical school; many faculty strive for diminishing spots of tenure; the institution itself seems preoccupied, above all else, with the search for "funding." The present seems almost to mock the earlier time of idealism, now turned suddenly inward by the disappearance of war and conscription and the first breaths of unaccustomed hard times.