I say this, not just because I have found them courteous and receptive, but because American colleagues testify that when they get through to the top they are well-received and attended to. But it is difficult to get through. There are layers of underlings who do not want to be bothered, and who regard faculty members as mere employees. But in Oxford and Cambridge the faculty member is not just an employee but also a trustee, and a secretary who is minded to treat him like dirt soon experiences a radical reappraisal of priorities. It is over innumerable petty issues of this sort that American academics become alienated from their administration, whereas fellows of Oxford and Cambridge Colleges identify strongly with their institutions in spite of their manifest imperfections.
Identification is crucial.
Competition, as practised in American academic life, militates against identification. Dean Rosovsky acknowledges this, but fails to recognise how corrosive alienation is. He thinks that competition is the only antidote to complacency. Of course, if Oxford becomes complacent or fails to take note of what other universities are doing, that is bad. If we fail to teach our pupils as well as Yale, if our mathematicians have nothing to say that is of interest to the mathematicians in Moscow, if our philosophers are failing to address themselves to the questions that worry philosophers in Paris or Cracow, we need to look to our ways, and try harder to make better use of our opportunities.