A generation of academic leaders and extra-university elites, influenced by a vision of American modernity, articulated and enacted a new understanding of the American research university and its relationship to society during the two decades following World War II. This new model, which understood the university as an instrument for social engineering toward the vision of American modernity, is best described as the “instrumental university.” Research and land-grant institutions converged toward a single model of the instrumental university during this period. The rising prominence of four modern ideals—industrial relations, city planning, administration, and economic development—and the proliferation of organized research units played a particularly important role in this transformation. Clark Kerr, president of the University of California (1958-1967) and the most influential proponent of the instrumental university, argued that the university's chief goal had become to “administer the present.” This dissertation provides the most thorough exposition to date of Kerr's thought. The instrumental university model is an important addition to our understanding of the postwar university, which is too often framed in terms of “the Cold War university,” a model which should really be seen as a prominent offshoot of the broader instrumental university. The four modern ideals, all part of the quest to administer the present, arose prior to and independently of the Cold War. The university activities inspired by these ideals primarily fell under the heading of applied social science. The political culture and institutions of the New Deal greatly influenced the rise to prominence of these activities. This dissertation shows how university applied social science expanded in prestige and scope through the mid-1960s, in contrast to accounts which argue that domestic opportunities for applied social science to implement a New Deal vision became more limited beginning around 1950. The dissertation proceeds by examining specific universities, academic fields, and organized research units and projects in each chapter. It focuses special attention on the University of California, especially the Berkeley and Irvine campuses, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Michigan, the Inter-University Study of Labor Problems in Economic Development, and the Ford Foundation.