Elite and ordinary: The essential tension in the university

Abstract

Universities are often claimed to be elite institutions, yet they admit less than elite students. Furthermore, their faculty, though occasionally elite, are often ordinary, not to say mediocre. This apparent contradiction, so this paper argues, is in fact an essential tension between the elite and the ordinary in the university. A variety of ways in which this tension is developed and resolved is explored in the paper. It is argued that the tension between elite and ordinary is a necessary condition for the support of democracy by the university and for the maintenance of democracy within the university.