Universities: Caltech & M.I.T.: Rivalry Between the Best

Caltech & M.I.T.: Rivalry Between the Best

The two best institutes of technology in the U.S.—Caltech and M.I.T.—have reached new milestones, marking a time for them to reassess their roles and goals. Last week Caltech (enrollment 1,494) held a three-day scientific convocation to observe its 75th anniversary. A few weeks earlier, M.I.T. (enrollment 7,400) inaugurated a new president, Economist Howard Wesley Johnson, 44. As each school looks inward, it also stares across the 2,600 miles between Pasadena and Cambridge with what an M.I.T. professor terms "interested tension"—a polite phrase for one of academe's...