This article considers the pace of innovation and technology adoption in higher education and suggests that the rate of change on 21st century campuses is remarkably similar to earlier centuries when it may have taken over 30 years to introduce "modern" inventions like the telescope, microscope, and barometer to students. The literature shows that centralization is frequently negatively associated with innovativeness and that contemporary governance does not appear fundamentally different in regulating the pace of change than in America's first colleges. Some researchers have concluded that colleges and universities are insulated from many of the competitive pressures that stimulate innovations in industry to be adopted almost twice as fast as those in higher education.