Martin Anderson, the Keith and Jan Hurlbut Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and a conservative adviser to presidents, died on January 3, 2015, at the age of 78. A critic of bad government programs (such as urban renewal) and an author of several books about Ronald Reagan, he won a place in my heart with his 1992 book Impostors in the Temple.

The subtitle of the book is “American Intellectuals Are Destroying Our Universities and Cheating Our Students of Their Future.” Hard though he was on intellectuals, he was perhaps even more critical of university trustees.

“Generally speaking, trustees are terrified of the faculties they oversee,” he wrote. “The faculties know this, delight in it, and largely ignore these wealthy, distinguished ‘overseers.’” Ironically, Anderson recommended adding more intellectuals to the boards–-people of the caliber of Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell—because they would know how universities work.

He offered a straightforward 10-point plan for correcting the ills of the universities, and most of his points would not come as a surprise. One was to stop athletic corruption, for example; another was to end tenure. But his top recommendation was to prohibit teaching by graduate students (undergraduates “once again would be taught, graded, and counseled by mature, learned adults,” he wrote).

There’s much more to the book. Sadly, few of his recommendations have been adopted.