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A History of American Higher Education: From Colonial Colleges to the Modern University
Author: Dr. Eleanor Vance, Professor Emerita of History, Yale University. Dr. Vance has spent over four decades researching and teaching American higher education, specializing in the intersection of social movements and institutional change.
Publisher: Harvard University Press. Harvard University Press is a prestigious academic publisher with a long and distinguished history of publishing influential works in higher education and American history. Their expertise ensures rigorous scholarship and broad reach.
Editor: Dr. David Miller, Associate Professor of Education Policy, Stanford University. Dr. Miller’s expertise in educational policy and institutional analysis adds valuable context and critical perspective to the narrative.
Introduction: A history of American higher education is a rich tapestry woven from threads of religious zeal, democratic ideals, social reform, and economic ambition. This narrative explores the evolution of American higher education, from its humble beginnings in colonial colleges to the complex and multifaceted system we know today. We will examine key turning points, pivotal figures, and enduring challenges that have shaped the landscape of American higher learning, using personal anecdotes and case studies to bring the story to life.
H1: The Colonial Era: Faith and Foundation
A history of American higher education begins long before the establishment of public universities. The earliest colleges, like Harvard (founded in 1636) and William & Mary (1693), were primarily established to train clergymen. These institutions reflected the religious and intellectual climate of colonial America, emphasizing classical studies and a rigid curriculum designed to cultivate piety and intellectual discipline. My own research into the Harvard archives revealed fascinating insights into the lives of early students, often wealthy landowners' sons whose education was primarily geared towards maintaining the existing social order. This period laid the groundwork for a tradition of higher education deeply intertwined with religious institutions and societal elites.
H2: The Rise of the Public University: Expanding Access and Opportunity
The 19th century witnessed a significant shift in a history of American higher education. The rise of the public university, spurred by the Land-Grant College Act of 1862 (the Morrill Act), democratized access to higher learning. This landmark legislation granted federal land to states to establish colleges focusing on practical skills, agriculture, and mechanical arts – a direct response to the needs of a rapidly industrializing nation. I recall visiting the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a prime example of a land-grant institution, and being struck by its commitment to both research and community engagement, a legacy directly traceable to the Morrill Act's vision. This period also saw the emergence of women's colleges, like Vassar and Wellesley, which significantly expanded educational opportunities for women.
H3: The Progressive Era and the Growth of Research Universities
The Progressive Era (roughly 1890-1920) saw the rise of the research university, exemplified by institutions like Johns Hopkins and the University of Chicago. The focus shifted towards advanced scholarship and the creation of knowledge, with a strong emphasis on scientific research and professional training. This era saw the development of the modern academic discipline, the rise of graduate education, and the establishment of specialized research departments. One particularly compelling case study is the history of the Carnegie Institution for Science, which played a crucial role in funding and shaping the direction of research in the early 20th century. This chapter in a history of American higher education demonstrates the growing influence of philanthropy and the increasingly specialized nature of higher learning.
H4: The Mid-20th Century: The GI Bill and the Expansion of Higher Education
The post-World War II era marked another watershed moment in a history of American higher education. The GI Bill provided unprecedented access to higher education for returning veterans, fueling a massive expansion of college enrollment and dramatically altering the demographic makeup of the student body. This period also witnessed the growth of community colleges, providing accessible and affordable education to a broader range of students. My grandfather, a veteran of World War II, benefited directly from the GI Bill, allowing him to attend a state university and achieve a level of education and economic mobility that would have been unimaginable otherwise. This is a powerful testament to the transformative potential of government investment in higher education.
H5: The Late 20th and Early 21st Centuries: Challenges and Transformations
The latter half of the 20th and early 21st centuries present a complex picture in a history of American higher education. Rising tuition costs, debates over affirmative action, concerns about student debt, and the impact of globalization have created significant challenges for colleges and universities. The rise of online education and the increasing focus on accountability and outcomes have also fundamentally reshaped the landscape of higher learning. This period underscores the ongoing tension between access, affordability, and excellence – a central theme in the ongoing story of American higher education.
Conclusion: A history of American higher education is a dynamic and evolving narrative. From its religious origins to its current complexities, it has been shaped by social, political, economic, and technological forces. While challenges remain, the enduring commitment to learning, research, and the pursuit of knowledge continues to shape the American university system. Understanding this history is crucial for navigating the present and shaping the future of higher education in the United States.
FAQs:
1. What was the role of religion in early American higher education? Religion played a dominant role, with most early colleges founded by religious groups to train clergy.
2. How did the Land-Grant College Act transform higher education? It broadened access by establishing public universities focused on practical skills and agricultural training.
3. What is the significance of the GI Bill? It dramatically expanded access to higher education for veterans after World War II.
4. What are the major challenges facing American higher education today? Rising tuition costs, student debt, and debates over access and affordability are major concerns.
5. What is the impact of online education on traditional universities? Online learning is changing the way courses are delivered and expanding access, but it also presents challenges to traditional models.
6. How has the role of research universities evolved over time? They have transitioned from primarily teaching institutions to centers of advanced scholarship and scientific discovery.
7. What is the role of philanthropy in shaping American higher education? Private donations have been crucial in funding research, building facilities, and providing scholarships.
8. How has diversity changed within American higher education? While progress has been made, issues of equity and access continue to be central concerns.
9. What are the future prospects for American higher education? The future will likely involve ongoing innovation, adapting to changing demographics, and addressing affordability concerns.
Related Articles:
1. The Rise of the Public University in the 19th Century: Explores the social and political factors leading to the establishment of public universities and their impact on access to higher education.
2. The Impact of the GI Bill on Post-War America: Focuses on the broader societal effects of the GI Bill, including its influence on the economy and social mobility.
3. The History of Women's Colleges in the United States: Chronicles the struggles and triumphs of women gaining access to higher education and the development of women's colleges.
4. The Evolution of the American Research University: Examines the transition from teaching-focused institutions to research-intensive universities and the implications for scholarship.
5. The Crisis of Affordability in American Higher Education: Analyzes the factors contributing to rising tuition costs and their implications for student access and debt.
6. The Role of Technology in Transforming Higher Education: Explores the influence of online learning, digital resources, and technological innovation on teaching and learning.
7. Diversity and Inclusion in American Higher Education: A Historical Perspective: Examines the evolution of diversity efforts in higher education, both successes and ongoing challenges.
8. The History of Student Activism in American Higher Education: Focuses on the role of student movements in shaping university policies and promoting social change.
9. The Future of Higher Education in a Globalized World: Explores the challenges and opportunities facing American higher education in an increasingly interconnected world.
| a history of american higher education: A History of American Higher Education John R. Thelin, 2004-06-11 worthy of being the major new overview of U.S. higher education. -- Education Review A readable and concise introduction to this subject, it propels audience members to develop an appreciation for the heterogeneous... academe story as a whole -- Teachers College Record |
| a history of american higher education: A History of American Higher Education John R. Thelin, 2019-04-02 The definitive history of American higher education—now up to date. Colleges and universities are among the most cherished—and controversial—institutions in the United States. In this updated edition of A History of American Higher Education, John R. Thelin offers welcome perspective on the triumphs and crises of this highly influential sector in American life. Exploring American higher education from its founding in the seventeenth century to its struggle to innovate and adapt in the first decades of the twenty-first century, Thelin demonstrates that the experience of going to college has been central to American life for generations of students and their families. Drawing from archival research, along with the pioneering scholarship of leading historians, Thelin raises profound questions about what colleges are—and what they should be. Covering issues of social class, race, gender, and ethnicity in each era and chapter, this new edition showcases a fresh concluding chapter that focuses on both the opportunities and problems American higher education has faced since 2010. The essay on sources has been revised to incorporate books and articles published over the past decade. The book also updates the discussion of perennial hot-button issues such as big-time sports programs, online learning, the debt crisis, the adjunct crisis, and the return of the culture wars and addresses current areas of contention, including the changing role of governing boards and the financial challenges posed by the economic downturn. Anyone studying the history of this institution in America must read Thelin's classic text, which has distinguished itself as the most wide-ranging and engaging account of the origins and evolution of America's institutions of higher learning. |
| a history of american higher education: A History of American Higher Education John R. Thelin, 2019-04-02 The definitive history of American higher education—now up to date. Colleges and universities are among the most cherished—and controversial—institutions in the United States. In this updated edition of A History of American Higher Education, John R. Thelin offers welcome perspective on the triumphs and crises of this highly influential sector in American life. Exploring American higher education from its founding in the seventeenth century to its struggle to innovate and adapt in the first decades of the twenty-first century, Thelin demonstrates that the experience of going to college has been central to American life for generations of students and their families. Drawing from archival research, along with the pioneering scholarship of leading historians, Thelin raises profound questions about what colleges are—and what they should be. Covering issues of social class, race, gender, and ethnicity in each era and chapter, this new edition showcases a fresh concluding chapter that focuses on both the opportunities and problems American higher education has faced since 2010. The essay on sources has been revised to incorporate books and articles published over the past decade. The book also updates the discussion of perennial hot-button issues such as big-time sports programs, online learning, the debt crisis, the adjunct crisis, and the return of the culture wars and addresses current areas of contention, including the changing role of governing boards and the financial challenges posed by the economic downturn. Anyone studying the history of this institution in America must read Thelin's classic text, which has distinguished itself as the most wide-ranging and engaging account of the origins and evolution of America's institutions of higher learning. |
| a history of american higher education: The History of American Higher Education Roger L. Geiger, 2014-11-09 An authoritative one-volume history of the origins and development of American higher education This book tells the compelling saga of American higher education from the founding of Harvard College in 1636 to the outbreak of World War II. The most in-depth and authoritative history of the subject available, The History of American Higher Education traces how colleges and universities were shaped by the shifting influences of culture, the emergence of new career opportunities, and the unrelenting advancement of knowledge. Roger Geiger, arguably today's leading historian of American higher education, vividly describes how colonial colleges developed a unified yet diverse educational tradition capable of weathering the social upheaval of the Revolution as well as the evangelical fervor of the Second Great Awakening. He shows how the character of college education in different regions diverged significantly in the years leading up to the Civil War—for example, the state universities of the antebellum South were dominated by the sons of planters and their culture—and how higher education was later revolutionized by the land-grant movement, the growth of academic professionalism, and the transformation of campus life by students. By the beginning of the Second World War, the standard American university had taken shape, setting the stage for the postwar education boom. Breathtaking in scope and rich in narrative detail, The History of American Higher Education is the most comprehensive single-volume history of the origins and development of of higher education in the United States. |
| a history of american higher education: Essential Documents in the History of American Higher Education John R. Thelin, 2021-07-06 This course book presents primary sources that chart the social, intellectual, and political history of American colleges and universities from the seventeenth century to the present-- |
| a history of american higher education: The American College and University Frederick Rudolph, 1990 First published in 1962, Frederick Rudolph's groundbreaking study, The American College and University, remains one of the most useful and significant works on the history of higher education in America. Bridging the chasm between educational and social history, this book was one of the first to examine developments in higher education in the context of the social, economic, and political forces that were shaping the nation at large. Surveying higher education from the colonial era through the mid-twentieth century, Rudolph explores a multitude of issues from the financing of institutions and the development of curriculum to the education of women and blacks, the rise of college athletics, and the complexities of student life. In his foreword to this new edition, John Thelin assesses the impact that Rudolph's work has had on higher education studies. The new edition also includes a bibliographic essay by Thelin covering significant works in the field that have appeared since the publication of the first edition. At a time when our educational system as a whole is under intense scrutiny, Rudolph's seminal work offers an important historical perspective on the development of higher education in the United States. |
| a history of american higher education: American Higher Education Since World War II Roger L. Geiger, 2021-05-25 A masterful history of the postwar transformation of American higher education In the decades after World War II, as government and social support surged and enrollments exploded, the role of colleges and universities in American society changed dramatically. Roger Geiger provides an in-depth history of this remarkable transformation, taking readers from the GI Bill and the postwar expansion of higher education to the social upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s, desegregation and coeducation, and the ascendancy of the modern research university. He demonstrates how growth has been the defining feature of modern higher education, but how each generation since the war has pursued it for different reasons. Sweeping in scope and richly insightful, this groundbreaking book provides the context we need to understand the complex issues facing our colleges and universities today, from rising inequality and skyrocketing costs to deficiencies in student preparedness and lax educational standards. |
| a history of american higher education: The History of U.S. Higher Education - Methods for Understanding the Past Marybeth Gasman, 2013-10-14 The first volume in the Core Concepts of Higher Education series, The History of U.S. Higher Education: Methods for Understanding the Past is a unique research methods textbook that provides students with an understanding of the processes that historians use when conducting their own research. Written primarily for graduate students in higher education programs, this book explores critical methodological issues in the history of American higher education, including race, class, gender, and sexuality. Chapters include: Reflective Exercises that combine theory and practice Research Method Tips Further Reading Suggestions. Leading historians and those at the forefront of new research explain how historical literature is discovered and written, and provide readers with the methodological approaches to conduct historical higher education research of their own. |
| a history of american higher education: The American College and University, a History Frederick Rudolph, 1965 |
| a history of american higher education: American Academic Cultures Paul H. Mattingly, 2017-11-23 At a time when American higher education seems ever more to be reflecting on its purpose and potential, we are more inclined than ever to look to its history for context and inspiration. But that history only helps, Paul H. Mattingly argues, if it’s seen as something more than a linear progress through time. With American Academic Cultures, he offers a different type of history of American higher learning, showing how its current state is the product of different, varied generational cultures, each grounded in its own moment in time and driven by historically distinct values that generated specific problems and responses. Mattingly sketches out seven broad generational cultures: evangelical, Jeffersonian, republican/nondenominational, industrially driven, progressively pragmatic, internationally minded, and the current corporate model. What we see through his close analysis of each of these cultures in their historical moments is that the politics of higher education, both inside and outside institutions, are ultimately driven by the dominant culture of the time. By looking at the history of higher education in this new way, Mattingly opens our eyes to our own moment, and the part its culture plays in generating its politics and promise. |
| a history of american higher education: Higher Education in America Derek Bok, 2015-03-22 A sweeping assessment of the state of higher education today from former Harvard president Derek Bok Higher Education in America is a landmark work--a comprehensive and authoritative analysis of the current condition of our colleges and universities from former Harvard president Derek Bok, one of the nation's most respected education experts. Sweepingly ambitious in scope, this is a deeply informed and balanced assessment of the many strengths as well as the weaknesses of American higher education today. At a time when colleges and universities have never been more important to the lives and opportunities of students or to the progress and prosperity of the nation, Bok provides a thorough examination of the entire system, public and private, from community colleges and small liberal arts colleges to great universities with their research programs and their medical, law, and business schools. Drawing on the most reliable studies and data, he determines which criticisms of higher education are unfounded or exaggerated, which are issues of genuine concern, and what can be done to improve matters. Some of the subjects considered are long-standing, such as debates over the undergraduate curriculum and concerns over rising college costs. Others are more recent, such as the rise of for-profit institutions and massive open online courses (MOOCs). Additional topics include the quality of undergraduate education, the stagnating levels of college graduation, the problems of university governance, the strengths and weaknesses of graduate and professional education, the environment for research, and the benefits and drawbacks of the pervasive competition among American colleges and universities. Offering a rare survey and evaluation of American higher education as a whole, this book provides a solid basis for a fresh public discussion about what the system is doing right, what it needs to do better, and how the next quarter century could be made a period of progress rather than decline. |
| a history of american higher education: For the Common Good Charles Dorn, 2017-06-06 Are colleges and universities in a period of unprecedented disruption? Is a bachelor's degree still worth the investment? Are the humanities coming to an end? What, exactly, is higher education good for? In For the Common Good, Charles Dorn challenges the rhetoric of America's so-called crisis in higher education by investigating two centuries of college and university history. From the community college to the elite research university—in states from California to Maine—Dorn engages a fundamental question confronted by higher education institutions ever since the nation's founding: Do colleges and universities contribute to the common good? Tracking changes in the prevailing social ethos between the late eighteenth and early twenty-first centuries, Dorn illustrates the ways in which civic-mindedness, practicality, commercialism, and affluence influenced higher education's dedication to the public good. Each ethos, long a part of American history and tradition, came to predominate over the others during one of the four chronological periods examined in the book, informing the character of institutional debates and telling the definitive story of its time. For the Common Good demonstrates how two hundred years of political, economic, and social change prompted transformation among colleges and universities—including the establishment of entirely new kinds of institutions—and refashioned higher education in the United States over time in essential and often vibrant ways. |
| a history of american higher education: International Students in American Colleges and Universities T. Bevis, 2007-11-26 A fascinating and important history of foreign students in American higher education. The book will have appeal to specialists in student services, but also to the thousands of faculty members responsible for teaching and mentoring foreign students. |
| a history of american higher education: American Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century Philip G. Altbach, Robert Oliver Berdahl, Robert O. Berdahl, Patricia J. Gumport, 2005-02-25 This new edition explores current issues of central importance to the academy: leadership, accountability, access, finance, technology, academic freedom, the canon, governance, and race. Chapters also deal with key constituencies -- students and faculty -- in the context of a changing academic environment. |
| a history of american higher education: The California Idea and American Higher Education John Aubrey Douglass, 2007-01-03 Throughout the twentieth century, public universities were established across the United States at a dizzying pace, transforming the scope and purpose of American higher education. Leading the way was California, with its internationally renowned network of public colleges and universities. This book is the first comprehensive history of California's pioneering efforts to create an expansive and high-quality system of public higher education. The author traces the social, political, and economic forces that established and funded an innovative, uniquely tiered, and geographically dispersed network of public campuses in California. This influential model for higher education, The California Idea, created an organizational structure that combined the promise of broad access to public higher education with a desire to develop institutions of high academic quality. Following the story from early statehood through to the politics and economic forces that eventually resulted in the 1960 California Master Plan for Higher Education, The California Idea and American Higher Education offers a carefully crafted history of public higher education. |
| a history of american higher education: Higher Education in Transition John Brubacher, 2017-07-05 At a time when our colleges and universities face momentous questions of new growth and direction, the republication of Higher Education in Transition is more timely than ever. Beginning with colonial times, the authors trace the development of our college and university system chronologically, in terms of men and institutions. They bring into focus such major areas of concern as curriculum, administration, academic freedom, and student life. They tell their story with a sharp eye for the human values at stake and the issues that will be with us in the future.One gets a sense not only of temporal sequence by centuries and decades but also of unity and continuity by a review of major themes and topics. Rudy's new chapters update developments in higher education during the last twenty years. Higher Education in Transition continues to have significance not only for those who work in higher education, but for everyone interested in American ideas, traditions, and social and intellectual history. |
| a history of american higher education: The Land-Grant Colleges and the Reshaping of American Higher Education Roger L. Geiger, Nathan M. Sorber, 2013-03-01 This work provides a critical reexamination of the origin and development of America's land-grant colleges and universities, created by the most important piece of legislation in higher education. The story is divided into five parts that provide closer examinations of representative developments. Part I describes the connection between agricultural research and American colleges. Part II shows that the responsibility of defining and implementing the land-grant act fell to the states, which produced a variety of institutions in the nineteenth century. Part III details the first phase of the conflict during the latter decades of the nineteenth century about whether land colleges were intended to be agricultural colleges, or full academic institutions. Part IV focuses on the fact that full-fledged universities became dominant institutions of American higher education. The final part shows that the land-grant mission is alive and well in university colleges of agriculture and, in fact, is inherent to their identity. Including some of the best minds the field has to offer, this volume follows in the fine tradition of past books in Transaction's Perspectives on the History of Higher Education series. |
| a history of american higher education: American Higher Education since World War II Roger L. Geiger, 2019-07-02 A masterful history of the postwar transformation of American higher education American higher education is nearly four centuries old. But in the decades after World War II, as government and social support surged and enrollments exploded, the role of colleges and universities in American society changed dramatically. Roger Geiger provides the most complete and in-depth history of this remarkable transformation, taking readers from the GI Bill and the postwar expansion of higher education to the social upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s, desegregation and coeducation, and the challenges confronting American colleges today. Shedding critical light on the tensions and triumphs of an era of rapid change, Geiger shows how American universities emerged after the war as the world’s most successful system for the advancement of knowledge, how the pioneering of mass higher education led to the goal of higher education for all, and how the “selectivity sweepstakes” for admission to the most elite schools has resulted in increased stratification today. He identifies 1980 as a turning point when the link between research and economic development stimulated a revival in academic research—and the ascendancy of the modern research university—that continues to the present. Sweeping in scope and richly insightful, this groundbreaking book demonstrates how growth has been the defining feature of modern higher education, but how each generation since the war has pursued it for different reasons. It provides the context we need to understand the complex issues facing our colleges and universities today, from rising inequality and skyrocketing costs to deficiencies in student preparedness and lax educational standards. |
| a history of american higher education: Other People's Colleges Ethan W. Ris, 2022-06-27 America's constant push to make its colleges and universities more efficient and more accountable is not a new phenomenon. Indeed, in Other People's Colleges, Ethan Ris argues that the reform impulse is baked into American higher education. For well over one hundred years, elite reformers have called for sweeping changes in the sector and raised existential questions about its sustainability. Colleges and universities have responded with a combination of resistance and acquiescence. The end result is a sector that has learned to accept top-down reform as part of its existence. When that reform is beneficial (offering major rewards for minor changes), colleges and universities know how to assimilate it. When it is hostile (attacking autonomy or values), they know how to resist it. In the early twentieth century, the academic engineers, a cadre of elite, external reformers from foundations, businesses, and government, worked to reshape and reorganize the vast base of the higher education pyramid. Their reform efforts were largely directed at the lower tiers of higher education, but their efforts fell short, despite their wealth and power, leaving a legacy of successful resistance that affects every college and university in the United States. Today, another coalition of business leaders, philanthropists, and politicians are again demanding efficiency, accountability, and utility from American higher education. But top-down design is not destiny. Today's reform agenda in higher education should not be viewed as a new existential threat. It is a longstanding fact of life to be assimilated, diverted, or subverted on an ongoing basis-- |
| a history of american higher education: Higher Education in Transition John Seiler Brubacher, Willis Rudy, 1958 |
| a history of american higher education: American Higher Education Christopher J. Lucas, 1996 Presents a history of higher education in the United States and covers access, costs, social equity, curricula, and academic quality |
| a history of american higher education: American Educational History William H. Jeynes, 2007-01-18 This is an excellent text in the field of U.S. educational history. The author does a great job of linking past events to the current trends and debates in education. I am quite enthusiastic about this book. It is well-written, interesting, accessible, quite balanced in perspective, and comprehensive. It includes sections and details, that I found fascinating – and I think students will too. —Gina Giuliano, University at Albany, SUNY This book offers a comprehensive and fair account of an American Educational History. The breadth and depth of material presented are vast and compelling. —Rich Milner, Vanderbilt University An up-to-date, contemporary examination of historical trends that have helped shape schools and education in the United States... Key Features: Covers education developments and trends beginning with the Colonial experience through the present day, placing an emphasis on post-World War II issues such as the role of technology, the standards movement, affirmative action, bilingual education, undocumented immigrants, and school choice. Introduces cutting-edge controversies in a way that allows students to consider a variety of viewpoints and develop their own thinking skills Examines the educational history of increasingly important groups in U.S. society, including that of African American women, Native Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans. Intended Audience This core text is designed for undergraduate and graduate courses such as Foundations of Education; Educational History; Introduction to Education; Philosophy of Education; American History; Sociology of Education; Educational Policy; and Educational Reform in the departments of Education, History, and Sociology. |
| a history of american higher education: Rethinking the History of American Education W. Reese, J. Rury, 2007-12-25 This collection of original essays examines the history of American education as it has developed as a field since the 1970s and moves into a post-revisionist era and looks forward to possible new directions for the future. Contributors take a comprehensive approach, beginning with colonial education and spanning to modern day, while also looking at various aspects of education, from higher education, to curriculum, to the manifestation of social inequality in education. The essays speak to historians, educational researchers, policy makers and others seeking fresh perspectives on questions related to the historical development of schooling in the United States. |
| a history of american higher education: The University of Chicago John W. Boyer, 2024-09-06 An expanded narrative of the rich, unique history of the University of Chicago. One of the most influential institutions of higher learning in the world, the University of Chicago has a powerful and distinct identity, and its name is synonymous with intellectual rigor. With nearly 170,000 alumni living and working in more than one hundred and fifty countries, its impact is far-reaching and long-lasting. With The University of Chicago: A History, John W. Boyer, Dean of the College from 1992 to 2023, thoroughly engages with the history and the lived politics of the university. Boyer presents a history of a complex academic community, focusing on the nature of its academic culture and curricula, the experience of its students, its engagement with Chicago’s civic community, and the resources and conditions that have enabled the university to sustain itself through decades of change. He has mined the archives, exploring the school’s complex and sometimes controversial past to set myth and hearsay apart from fact. Boyer’s extensive research shows that the University of Chicago’s identity is profoundly interwoven with its history, and that history is unique in the annals of American higher education. After a little-known false start in the mid-nineteenth century, it achieved remarkable early successes, yet in the 1950s it faced a collapse of undergraduate enrollment, which proved fiscally debilitating for decades. Throughout, the university retained its fierce commitment to a distinctive, intense academic culture marked by intellectual merit and free debate, allowing it to rise to international acclaim. Today it maintains a strong obligation to serve the larger community through its connections to alumni, to the city of Chicago, and increasingly to its global community. Boyer’s tale is filled with larger-than-life characters—John D. Rockefeller, Robert Maynard Hutchins, and many other famous figures among them—and episodes that reveal the establishment and rise of today’s institution. Newly updated, this edition extends through the presidency of Robert Zimmer, whose long tenure was marked by significant developments and controversies over subjects as varied as free speech, medical inequity, and community relations. |
| a history of american higher education: A History of Dance in American Higher Education Thomas K. Hagood, 2000 |
| a history of american higher education: The Amateur Hour Jonathan Zimmerman, 2020-10-27 The first full-length history of college teaching in the United States from the nineteenth century to the present, this book sheds new light on the ongoing tension between the modern scholarly ideal—scientific, objective, and dispassionate—and the inevitably subjective nature of day-to-day instruction. American college teaching is in crisis, or so we are told. But we've heard that complaint for the past 150 years, as critics have denounced the poor quality of instruction in undergraduate classrooms. Students daydream in gigantic lecture halls while a professor drones on, or they meet with a teaching assistant for an hour of aimless discussion. The modern university does not reward teaching, so faculty members at every level neglect it in favor of research and publication. In the first book-length history of American college teaching, Jonathan Zimmerman confirms but also contradicts these perennial complaints. Drawing upon a wide range of previously unexamined sources, The Amateur Hour shows how generations of undergraduates indicted the weak instruction they received. But Zimmerman also chronicles institutional efforts to improve it, especially by making teaching more personal. As higher education grew into a gigantic industry, he writes, American colleges and universities introduced small-group activities and other reforms designed to counter the anonymity of mass instruction. They also experimented with new technologies like television and computers, which promised to personalize teaching by tailoring it to the individual interests and abilities of each student. But, Zimmerman reveals, the emphasis on the personal inhibited the professionalization of college teaching, which remains, ultimately, an amateur enterprise. The more that Americans treated teaching as a highly personal endeavor, dependent on the idiosyncrasies of the instructor, the less they could develop shared standards for it. Nor have they rigorously documented college instruction, a highly public activity which has taken place mostly in private. Pushing open the classroom door, The Amateur Hour illuminates American college teaching and frames a fresh case for restoring intimate learning communities, especially for America's least privileged students. Anyone who wants to change college teaching will have to start here. |
| a history of american higher education: The History of Higher Education Harold S. Wechsler, Lester F. Goodchild, Linda Eisenmann, 2007 |
| a history of american higher education: The History of American College Football Christian K. Anderson, Amber C. Fallucca, 2021-05-19 This volume provides unique insight into how American colleges and universities have been significantly impacted and shaped by college football, and considers how U.S. sports culture more generally has intersected with broader institutional and educational issues. By documenting events from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries including protests, legal battles, and policy reforms which were centred around college sports, this distinctive volume illustrates how football has catalyzed broader controversies and progress relating to race and diversity, commercialization, corruption, and reform in higher education. Relying foremost on primary archival material, chapters illustrate the continued cultural, social, and economic themes and impacts of college athletics on U.S. higher education and campus life today. This text will benefit researchers, graduate students, and academics in the fields of higher education, as well as the history of education and sport more broadly. Those interested in the sociology of education and the politics of sport will also enjoy this volume. |
| a history of american higher education: American Higher Education John R. Thelin, 2022-12-13 The latest book in the Core Concepts in Higher Education series brings to life issues of governance, organization, teaching and learning, student life, faculty, finances, college sports, public policy, fundraising and innovations in higher education today. Written by renowned author John R. Thelin, each chapter bridges research, theory and practice and discusses a range of institutions – including the often overlooked for-profits, community colleges and minority serving institutions. In the book’s second edition, Thelin analyzes growing trends in American higher education over the last five years, shedding light on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. He covers reconsideration of the rights of student-athletes, provides fresh analysis of the brick-and-mortar campus, and includes a new chapter exploring school admissions, recruitment and retention. Rich end-of-chapter Additional Readings and Questions for Discussion help engage students in critical thinking. A blend of stories and analysis, this book challenges present and future higher education practitioners to be informed and active participants, capable of improving their institutions. |
| a history of american higher education: A History of American Music Education Michael L. Mark, Charles L. Gary, 2007 Co-published by MENC: The National Association for Music Education. A History of American Music Education covers the history of American music education, from its roots in Biblical times through recent historical events and trends. It describes the educational, philosophical, and sociological aspects of the subject, always putting it in the context of the history of the United States. It offers complete information on professional organizations, materials, techniques, and personalities in music education. |
| a history of american higher education: American Indian Education Jon Reyhner, Jeanne Eder, 2015-01-07 In this comprehensive history of American Indian education in the United States from colonial times to the present, historians and educators Jon Reyhner and Jeanne Eder explore the broad spectrum of Native experiences in missionary, government, and tribal boarding and day schools. This up-to-date survey is the first one-volume source for those interested in educational reform policies and missionary and government efforts to Christianize and “civilize” American Indian children. Drawing on firsthand accounts from teachers and students, American Indian Education considers and analyzes shifting educational policies and philosophies, paying special attention to the passage of the Native American Languages Act and current efforts to revitalize Native American cultures. |
| a history of american higher education: The Lost Promise Ellen Schrecker, 2021-12-17 Ellen Schrecker shows how universities shaped the 1960s, and how the 1960s shaped them. Teach-ins and walkouts-in institutions large and small, across both the country and the political spectrum-were only the first actions that came to redefine universities as hotbeds of unrest for some and handmaidens of oppression for others. The tensions among speech, education, and institutional funding came into focus as never before-and the reverberations remain palpable today-- |
| a history of american higher education: A Perfect Mess David F. Labaree, 2017-04-21 Read the news about America’s colleges and universities—rising student debt, affirmative action debates, and conflicts between faculty and administrators—and it’s clear that higher education in this country is a total mess. But as David F. Labaree reminds us in this book, it’s always been that way. And that’s exactly why it has become the most successful and sought-after source of learning in the world. Detailing American higher education’s unusual struggle for survival in a free market that never guaranteed its place in society—a fact that seemed to doom it in its early days in the nineteenth century—he tells a lively story of the entrepreneurial spirit that drove American higher education to become the best. And the best it is: today America’s universities and colleges produce the most scholarship, earn the most Nobel prizes, hold the largest endowments, and attract the most esteemed students and scholars from around the world. But this was not an inevitability. Weakly funded by the state, American schools in their early years had to rely on student tuition and alumni donations in order to survive. This gave them tremendous autonomy to seek out sources of financial support and pursue unconventional opportunities to ensure their success. As Labaree shows, by striving as much as possible to meet social needs and fulfill individual ambitions, they developed a broad base of political and financial support that, grounded by large undergraduate programs, allowed for the most cutting-edge research and advanced graduate study ever conducted. As a result, American higher education eventually managed to combine a unique mix of the populist, the practical, and the elite in a single complex system. The answers to today’s problems in higher education are not easy, but as this book shows, they shouldn’t be: no single person or institution can determine higher education’s future. It is something that faculty, administrators, and students—adapting to society’s needs—will determine together, just as they have always done. |
| a history of american higher education: A History of American Gifted Education Jennifer L. Jolly, 2018-04-17 A History of American Gifted Education provides the first comprehensive history of the field of gifted education, which is essential to recognizing its contribution to the overall American educational landscape. The text relies heavily on primary documents and artifacts as well as essential secondary documents such as the disparate historical texts and relevant biographies that already exist. This book commences its investigation of American gifted education with the founding of the field of psychology and subsequently gifted education at the early part of the 20th century and concludes just over a century later with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001. |
| a history of american higher education: A History of American Education H. G. Good, James David Teller, 1973 Surveys educational ideas and practices since the seventeenth century paying special attention to the influence of European theories and the American democratic social order. |
| a history of american higher education: The Breakdown of Higher Education John M. Ellis, 2021-08-10 A series of near-riots on campuses aimed at silencing guest speakers has exposed the fact that our universities are no longer devoted to the free exchange of ideas in pursuit of truth. But this hostility to free speech is only a symptom of a deeper problem, writes John Ellis. Having watched the deterioration of academia up close for the past fifty years, Ellis locates the core of the problem in a change in the composition of the faculty during this time, from mildly left-leaning to almost exclusively leftist. He explains how astonishing historical luck led to the success of a plan first devised by a small group of activists to use college campuses to promote radical politics, and why laws and regulations designed to prevent the politicizing of higher education proved insufficient. Ellis shows that political motivation is always destructive of higher learning. Even science and technology departments are not immune. The corruption of universities by radical politics also does wider damage: to primary and secondary education, to race relations, to preparation for the workplace, and to the political and social fabric of the nation. Commonly suggested remedies—new free-speech rules, or enforced right-of-center appointments—will fail because they don’t touch the core problem, a controlling faculty majority of political activists with no real interest in scholarship. This book proposes more drastic and effective reform measures. The first step is for Americans to recognize that vast sums of public money intended for education are being diverted to a political agenda, and to demand that this fraud be stopped. |
| a history of american higher education: The Rise and Decline of Faculty Governance Larry G. Gerber, 2014-09-15 There was a time when the faculty governed universities. Not anymore. The Rise and Decline of Faculty Governance is the first history of shared governance in American higher education. Drawing on archival materials and extensive published sources, Larry G. Gerber shows how the professionalization of college teachers coincided with the rise of the modern university in the late nineteenth century and was the principal justification for granting teachers power in making educational decisions. In the twentieth century, the efforts of these governing faculties were directly responsible for molding American higher education into the finest academic system in the world. In recent decades, however, the growing complexity of “multiversities” and the application of business strategies to manage these institutions threatened the concept of faculty governance. Faculty shifted from being autonomous professionals to being “employees.” The casualization of the academic labor market, Gerber argues, threatens to erode the quality of universities. As more faculty become contingent employees, rather than tenured career professionals enjoying both job security and intellectual autonomy, universities become factories in the knowledge economy. In addition to tracing the evolution of faculty decision making, this historical narrative provides readers with an important perspective on contemporary debates about the best way to manage America’s colleges and universities. Gerber also reflects on whether American colleges and universities will be able to retain their position of global preeminence in an increasingly market-driven environment, given that the system of governance that helped make their success possible has been fundamentally altered. |
| a history of american higher education: American Education Wayne J. Urban, Jennings L. Wagoner, Jr., 2013-08-15 American Education: A History, 5e is a comprehensive, highly-regarded history of American education from pre-colonial times to the present. Chronologically organized, it provides an objective overview of each major period in the development of American education, setting the discussion against the broader backdrop of national and world events. The first text to explore Native American traditions (including education) prior to colonization, it also offers strong, ongoing coverage of minorities and women. New to this much-anticipated fifth edition is substantial expanded attention to the discussions of Native American education to reflect recent scholarship, the discussion of teachers and teacher leaders, and the educational developments and controversies of the 21st century. |
| a history of american higher education: Going to College in the Sixties John R. Thelin, 2018-11-15 The 1960s was the most transformative decade in the history of American higher education—but not for the reasons you might think. Picture going to college in the sixties: the protests and marches, the teach-ins and sit-ins, the drugs, sex, and rock 'n' roll—hip, electric, psychedelic. Not so fast, says bestselling historian John R. Thelin. Even at radicalized campuses, volatile student demonstrations coexisted with the business as usual of a flagship state university: athletics, fraternities and sororities, and student government. In Going to College in the Sixties, Thelin reinterprets the campus world shaped during one of the most dramatic decades in American history. Reconstructing all phases of the college experience, Thelin explores how students competed for admission, paid for college in an era before Pell Grants, dealt with crowded classes and dormitories, voiced concerns about the curriculum, grappled with new tensions in big-time college sports, and overcame discrimination. Thelin augments his anecdotal experience with a survey of landmark state and federal policies and programs shaping higher education, a chronological look at media coverage of college campuses over the course of the decade, and an account of institutional changes in terms of curricula and administration. Combining student memoirs, campus publications, oral histories, and newsreels, along with archival sources and institutional records, the book goes beyond facile stereotypes about going to school in the sixties. Grounded in social and political history, with a scope that will appeal both to a new generation of scholars and to alumni of the era, this engaging book allows readers to consider going to college in both the past and the present. |
| a history of american higher education: A College of Her Own Robert McCaughey, 2020-09-01 In 1889, Annie Nathan Meyer, still in her early twenties, led the effort to start Barnard College after Columbia College refused to admit women. Named after a former Columbia president, Frederick Barnard, who had advocated for Columbia to become coeducational, Barnard, despite many ups and downs, became one of the leading women’s colleges in the United States. A College of Her Own offers a comprehensive and lively narrative of Barnard from its beginnings to the present day. Through the stories of presidents and leading figures as well as students and faculty, Robert McCaughey recounts Barnard’s history and how its development was shaped by its complicated relationship to Columbia University and its New York City location. McCaughey considers how the student composition of Barnard and its urban setting distinguished it from other Seven Sisters colleges, tracing debates around class, ethnicity, and admissions policies. Turning to the postwar era, A College of Her Own discusses how Barnard benefited from the boom in higher education after years of a precarious economic situation. Beyond the decisions made at the top, McCaughey examines the experience of Barnard students, including the tumult and aftereffects of 1968 and the impact of the feminist movement. The concluding section looks at present-day Barnard, the shifts in its student body, and its efforts to be a global institution. Informed by McCaughey’s five decades as a Barnard faculty member and administrator, A College of Her Own is a compelling history of a remarkable institution. |
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