America's big research universities are the best in the world today. But General Motors once was the world's mightiest auto maker.

WSJ's David Wessel says U.S. universities are atop the global heap today, though competition from abroad is looming. Here's how one school -- Yale -- is gearing up. (April 24)

China's Beijing, Tsinghua, Fudan and Zhejiang universities aren't world class -- yet. Nor are the National University of Singapore, University of Hong Kong or Seoul National University. But they mean to get there. The Chinese, in particular, are investing heavily to that end. Yet many U.S. universities are complacent, preoccupied with internal intrigue and rivalry with one another.

"American universities right now are pre-eminent," says Lawrence Summers, who was deposed as Harvard's president in 2006. "They have enormous advantages in wealth, in the attractiveness of the U.S. as a place to study and teach, in their demonstrated excellence. The threat to the top universities is not imminent. But Oxford and Cambridge didn't perceive the threat as imminent. The combination of Britain's losing relative economic ground and deep complacency, lack of major investment in science and technology and governance modes that favored internal equity over external competitiveness caused them to lose their position over two generations."

Given its scale and wealth, Harvard remains almost certain to be among the world's top dozen universities a generation from now, even if Mr. Summers's stormy five-year tenure is followed by years of caution and slow change.

But when Richard Levin became president of Yale in 1993, he knew it wasn't assured of a spot in the top ranks, despite a prestigious brand and lustrous history. "The three presidents before Levin didn't have the inclination or the money to really expand Yale's international involvement," says Gaddis Smith, a retired Yale professor writing a history of the university. Mr. Levin's predecessor Benno Schmidt bequeathed a deficit and a dispirited faculty. The faculty "just wanted the wheels put back on," Mr. Smith says. "There was a longing not so much for specific leadership, but for leadership."

Mr. Levin is less prominent an economist than Mr. Summers and less prone to penetrating insights and politically incorrect one-liners, less visionary but more politically agile at changing an organization designed to resist change. His 15-year tenure offers a case study in expanding and redirecting a venerable institution that, along with public and private peers, is vital to American prosperity. (And, no, I am not a Yale alum.)

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Longevity has been an ally. In his tenure, the presidencies of the other seven Ivy League schools have turned over two or three times; Yale's deans are all Levin appointees. Another ally has been the investment prowess of Yale money manager David Swensen; Yale's endowment has grown to $22.5 billion from $1.3 billion since Mr. Swensen took over in 1985.

Mr. Levin's tenure hasn't been devoid of controversy. He drew jeers from alumni (and The Journal's editorial page) when, in a dispute over terms, Yale returned a $20 million gift from Lee Bass to endow courses on Western Civilization. Mr. Levin's courting of China's leaders prompts accusations that he is too soft-spoken on human-rights issues.

His first steps were defensive: moving to renovate decaying downtown New Haven, Conn., and spending $3.5 billion on Yale's own buildings to make up for years of deferred maintenance. "These were necessary, but they don't catapult you into the lead," Mr. Levin says.

The next two steps were forward-looking. The first was to beef up science at Yale, long known for its relative strength in humanities and one still suffering damage from the anti-Semitism that sent Jewish scientists fleeing Hitler to Princeton, Columbia and Harvard instead.

"The reputation of a university on a global scale certainly hinges most on the quality of its faculty, but increasingly science weighs heavy in that calculation," Mr. Levin says. U.S. universities have been the primary engine of scientific advancement for half a century; the quickened pace with which discoveries move from the lab to changing lives, especially in biomedicine, makes investment in university science even more crucial and valuable, he argues.

Mr. Levin increased the size of Yale's campus by 50% last year, buying a 136-acre tract west of New Haven from Bayer HealthCare. The tract came with 550,000 square feet of modern laboratory space. He didn't consult Yale's faculty on the deal. He says he defers to faculty on appointments and curriculum, with the guidance of deans he has picked. But not on everything.

The second step was to go global, injecting international issues into every facet of the university, raising its profile abroad, forging joint ventures, expanding longstanding ties to China, pushing undergraduates to study overseas, recruiting foreign students and faculty. "If we want to be a truly great university, we have to embrace the world," he says. It sounds trite, but Yale is implementing a 23-page three-year strategic plan aimed at making it "a global university of consequence."

There is no one true way to build a truly excellent university. Indeed, one strength of American higher education has long been its diversity in size, goals and objectives. But standing still is a sure route to decay, and the glacial pace at which some U.S. universities are changing isn't much better.

Write to David Wessel at