October 1, 1999

When Academe Is a Family Affair

By ALISON SCHNEIDER

Even in success, second-generation professors ask themselves: Is blood thicker than scholarship?

What do John Kenneth Galbraith, Derek Bok, and Milton Friedman all have in common?

Their kids. All of them have gone into the family business.

For a profession that thrives on endless analysis, academic families are like a Freudian fantasy come true. The Oedipal jokes alone could fill a monograph. But if success in academe is based on intellectual