Campuses Shift to Middle as 'Radical Profs' Retire

University campuses all over the country are becoming less passionate and more businesslike as liberal '60s professors retire, the New York Times reports. The process is expected to accelerate over the next decade as Baby Boomers hired in the great '70s expansion of  higher education move on, to be replaced by a generation for whom '60s-style radicalism is ancient history.

As higher education funding shrinks, many younger professors are more concerned with career-boosting than fighting the "culture wars," with corporate handouts and a shift to science further muddying the ideological waters. The newbies "may not be as instinctively anti-authoritarian," one professor said of the younger generation. "They just don’t have that in their background.” (More universities stories.)