The American College And The Culture Of Aspiration 1915 1940

Is higher education a right or a privilege? Who should go to college? What should they study there? These questions were hotly debated between the world wars, when an unprecedented boom in college enrollments forced Americans to struggle between their belief in the importance of educational opportunity and their desire to preserve the existing social structure. In The American College and the Culture of Aspiration, 1915–1940, David O. Levine offers the first in-depth history of higher education during this era, a period when colleges and universities became arbiters of social and economic mobility and a hierarchy of schools evolved to meet growing demands for occupational training and socialization.

The first in-depth history of higher education during the era in which colleges and universities became arbiters of social and economic mobility.

How did a college education become so vital to American notions of professional and personal advancement? Reared on the ideal of the self-made man, American men had long rejected the need for college. But in the early twentieth century this ideal began to change as white men born in the U.S. faced a barrage of new challenges, among them a stultifying bureaucracy and growing competition in the workplace from an influx of immigrants and women. At this point a college education appealed to young men as an attractive avenue to success in a dawning corporate age. Accessible at first almost exclusively to middle-class white males, college funneled these aspiring elites toward a more comfortable and certain future in a revamped construction of the American dream. In Creating the College Man Daniel A. Clark argues that the dominant mass media of the era—popular magazines such as Cosmopolitan and the Saturday Evening Post—played an integral role in shaping the immediate and long-term goals of this select group of men. In editorials, articles, fiction, and advertising, magazines depicted the college man as simultaneously cultured and scientific, genteel and athletic, polished and tough. Such depictions underscored the college experience in powerful and attractive ways that neatly united the incongruous strains of American manhood and linked a college education to corporate success.

Featuring a new introduction by the author, the paperback edition of Games Colleges Play chronicles the history of intercollegiate athletics from 1910 to 1990. Featuring a new introduction by the author, the paperback edition of Games Colleges Play chronicles the history of intercollegiate athletics from 1910 to 1990—from the early, glory days of Knute Rockne and the Gipper to the modern era of big budgets, powerful coaches, and pampered players. John Thelin describes how sports programs—although seldom accorded official mention with teaching and research in the university mission statement—have become central to university life. As administrators search for a proper balance between athletics and academics, Thelin observes, this peculiar institution grows increasingly powerful and controversial. Thelin examines the 1929 Carnegie Foundation Report, the formation of major athletic conferences, the national college basketball scandals after World War II, the dissolution of the Pacific Coast Conference in the 1950s, and the Knight Foundation Report of 1991. He finds disturbing patterns of abuse and limited reform and explores the implications of these patterns for today's college presidents, faculty, and students. Games Colleges Play provides historical background that will inform current policy discussions about the proper place of intercollegiate athletics within the American university.

In 1917 it was still possible for the University of Oklahoma’s annual Catalogue to include a roster of every student’s name and hometown. A compact and close-knit community, those 2,500 students and their 130 professors studied and taught at a respectable (though small, relatively uncomplicated, and rather insular) regional university. During the following third of a century, the school underwent changes so profound that their cumulative effect amounted to a transformation. This second volume in David Levy’s projected three-part history chronicles these changes, charting the University’s course through one of the most dramatic periods in American history. Following Oklahoma’s flagship school through decades that saw six U.S. presidents, eleven state governors, and five university presidents, Volume 2 of The University of Oklahoma: A History documents the institution’s evolution into a complex, diverse, and multifaceted seat of learning. By 1950 enrollment had increased fivefold, and by every measure—the number of colleges and campus buildings, degrees awarded and programs offered, volumes in the library, faculty publications, out-of-state and foreign students in attendance—the University was on its way to becoming a world-class educational institution. Levy weaves together human and institutional history as he describes the school’s remarkable—sometimes remarkably difficult—development in response to unprecedented factors: two world wars, the cultural shifts of the 1920s, the Great Depression, the rise of the petroleum industry, the farm crisis and Dust Bowl, the emergence of new technologies, and new political and social forces such as those promoting and resisting racial justice. National and world events, state politics, campus leadership, the ever-changing student body: in triumph and defeat, in small successes and grand accomplishments, all come to varied and vibrant life in this second installment of the definitive history of Oklahoma’s storied center of learning.

When Colleges Sang is an illustrated history of the rich culture of college singing from the earliest days of the American republic to the present. Before fraternity songs, alma maters, and the rahs of college fight songs became commonplace, students sang. Students in the earliest American colleges created their own literary melodies that they shared with their classmates. As J. Lloyd Winstead documents in When Colleges Sang, college singing expanded in conjunction with the growth of the nation and the American higher education system. While it was often simply an entertaining pastime, singing had other subtle and not-so-subtle effects. Singing indoctrinated students into the life of formal and informal student organizations as well as encouraged them to conform to college rituals and celebrations. University faculty used songs to reinforce the religious practices and ceremonial observances that their universities supported. Students used singing for more social purposes: students sang to praise their peer’s achievements (and underachievements), mock the faculty, and provide humor. In extreme circumstances, they sang to intimidate classmates and faculty, and to defy college authorities. Singing was, and is, an intrinsic part of campus culture. When Colleges Sang explores the dynamics that inspired collegiate singing and the development of singing traditions from the earliest days of the American college. Winstead explores this tradition’s tenuous beginnings in the Puritan era and follows its progress into the present. Using historical documents provided by various universities, When Colleges Sang follows the unique applications and influences of song that persisted in various forms. This original and significant contribution to the literature of higher education sheds light on how college singing traditions have evolved through the generations and have continued to remain culturally relevant even today.

Leveling the Playing Field examines the admissions policies of contemporary American colleges and universities in light of the assumption that enhancing the educational opportunities of lower-income and minority students would make American society more just. It asks how current admissions policies affect the prospects of such students, and it evaluates alternative approaches. The book treats a variety of topics relevant to answering these questions. What does it mean to reward people according to merit? Is the American system of higher education a meritocracy, and should it be? How do the missions of contemporary institutions of higher education bear on admissions? What are the implications of the Supreme Court's landmark affirmative action decisions of 2003? What is the proper role and significance of standardized tests like the SAT? How does 'lower' education prepare students, or fail to, for higher education? In answering these questions, the book examines legacy preference, early admissions policies, financial aid, the test-prep industry, college counseling, and athletics, evaluating their effects on the distribution of higher education in the United States, not only for lower-income and minority students but for college-bound students in general.

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. Thelin’s work has distinguished itself as the most wide-ranging and engaging account of the origins and evolution of America's institutions of higher learning. This edition brings the discussion of perennial hot-button issues such as big-time sports programs up to date and addresses such current areas of contention as the changing role of governing boards and the financial challenges posed by the economic downturn.