Abstract
BSTRACT: This article examines the University of Pennsylvania’s
presidential search of 1952–53, which led to the election of the physicist
Gaylord P. Harnwell, in light of other universities’ presidential searches
and literature on such searches during that era. It reveals the existence of a
competitiv e market for university leaders characterized by three common
themes: how universities prioritized keeping their own rising stars; the
growing power of the faculty in university governance, which translated
to pressure to hire an academic as university president; and how professors
who directed military-oriented research during World War II parlayed that
experience into postwar administrative careers