University Presidents: Exit Methuselah

As a highly talented manager, John A. Hannah, 66, might well be running some huge corporation in Detroit or Pittsburgh. Instead, he has spent 27 years running Michigan State University in East Lansing—a record tenure that entitles him to bill himself as "the Methuselah of university presidents." To admirers and critics, he has also come to symbolize that unique American institution, the land-grant college, of which M.S.U., founded in 1855, was the prototype. One of his admirers, President Nixon has now tapped Hannah to head the Agency for International Development—an appointment that should win swift Senate approval and please...