William C. Kirby is T.M. Chang Professor of China Studies and Spangler Family Professor of Business Administration at Harvard University. He is the author of "Empires of Ideas: Creating the Modern University from Germany to America to China."

Ours is a world of interconnected universities. Universities are medieval in origin, but the modern research university is young in historical terms and inescapably international. Universities were re-imagined, first in Germany and then across the globe, using German models in the 19th and early 20th centuries.