President Lincoln signed the Morrill Land-grant Act in 1862, launching a nationwide project in public higher education that would build democracy, prosperity, and competitiveness to levels undreamed of 150 years ago. As student costs skyrocket, driven by steep drops in public funding, the viability of that project, like the nation itself, is under…

Based on the idea that an individual cannot understand literature, philosophy, or rhetoric without knowing the field's historical content, this book traces the evolution of the growing and ever-changing field of composition/rhetoric through numerous schools of thought, including Platonism, Aristoteleanism, New Criticism, and the current…

This presentation of informal responses to a series of questions relating to teaching and writing of history is based upon and extends from two tape-recorded "Conversations" with Professors Jere R. Daniell and Charles T. Wood of the Dartmouth College Department of History. The book covers such questions as what a historian is, why one should study…

Based on the idea that the study of postmodernism is a useful and valuable pursuit because it engages students in discussions of fundamental questions about the individual's situation in the world, this book takes an interdisciplinary approach to address postmodernism effectively. The book conceives postmodernism as a widespread cultural…

This biography reviews the life of Robert Maynard Hutchins, a leader in higher education in the 20th century, by a long-time friend and colleague. The biography first follows Hutchins' story from his origins as a preacher's son in rural Ohio to Oberlin College, through early success at the Yale Law school where he reformed legal education and…

Following an introduction by James Britton, this book discusses the attitudes and values giving rise to effective writing instruction. The seven chapters examine the following topics: (1) achieving a philosophical perspective on composing through awareness of how writers actually work; (2) assumptions underlying classical rhetoric; (3) writing as…

The black power movement helped redefine African Americans' identity and establish a new racial consciousness in the 1960s. As an influential political force, this movement in turn spawned the academic discipline known as Black Studies. Today there are more than a hundred Black Studies degree programs in the United States, many of them located in…

This book reviews the history of American Catholic higher education since 1900, with special attention to institutional and intellectual dimensions. Throughout, an "internalist" perspective is taken which attempts to tell the history of Catholic higher education as it appeared to those who were actors in the story, thus emphasizing the…

This book is a comparative interpretation of the works of Vine Deloria, Jr., (Standing Rock Sioux) and John Joseph Mathews (Osage), two American Indian intellectuals of this century. In bringing these two thinkers together, the book lays the groundwork for a discussion of several crucial issues in contemporary American Indian critical studies: (1)…

This memoir describes August Fruge's 32 years as head of the University of California Press. Early chapters describe Berkeley, where the press is located, in the 1940s, conflicts with the Printing Department, the role of the faculty-run editorial committee, and setting new directions for the press. Three chapters describe looking for titles to…

Prepared for the 75th anniversary of the external studies program at the University of Queensland, this essay includes a brief introduction and an introductory account of the first four directors of the program. Background information provided in the introduction includes the establishment, educational philosophy, funding sources, and…

Eight essays discuss the relation of urban patterns of intellectual life and academic forms of higher learning. Themes that run through the essays include: the increasing incorporation of academic culture into the center of American life, socially and intellectually, is accompanied and causally related to a progressive impoverishment of the public…

Based on a conference, this volume examines the past, present, and future of Native American studies. Native American studies seeks to understand Native Americans, America, and the world from a Native American indigenous perspective, and thereby broaden the education of both Native and non-Native Americans. Part 1 asks who Native Americans are…

This book aims to set forth the convergence of institutional and sociological circumstances with intellectual and personal aspirations at the University of Chicago in the 1930s and 1940s under the direction of its fifth president, Robert Maynard Hutchins. Based in part on the author's personal experiences as a student and young faculty member…

Intellectual mastery of nature was the stated goal of the German physicists of the nineteenth century. In this first of two volumes, an attempt is made to bridge social, institutional, and intellectual history. Separate sections of the book deal with: (1) establishing physics at the universities; (2) German physicists before 1830; (3) promoting…