<p> This dissertation investigated the demise of Illinois State University (ISU), a small antebellum Lutheran denominational college that existed from 1852 to 1867 in Springfield, Illinois. The professional higher education historiography has described the phenomenon of antebellum college demise, but a traditionalist theory of causality by unrestrained competition among religious denominations to found colleges, proposed in the early 20th century, was by the end of the century largely debunked by revisionist higher education historians as based on ahistorical concepts and inaccurate data. The study utilized the historical narrative method consisting of document review and content analysis. Using Clark&rsquo;s (1972) concept of &ldquo;organizational saga,&rdquo; the study found that while ISU was in many ways indistinguishable from other denominational colleges in the United States of the era, ISU accumulated unsustainable debt on its edifice and failed despite determined founders. Durnford&rsquo;s (2002) model of institutional sponsorship revealed that despite growth during the antebellum era, the Lutheran Church was riven by doctrinal, linguistic, national and personal rivalries that undermined its ability to sustain ISU. Five of the seven factors in Latta&rsquo;s (2008) unique model of antebellum denominational college survival helped identify ISU&rsquo;s strengths and weaknesses, and revealed that an unresolved crisis in leadership contributed to the school&rsquo;s demise. This study provided data useful in furthering the development of a comprehensive revisionist narrative to explain antebellum college founding, demise and survival.</p>

This study researches the history of black involvement in engineering and technological education from Emancipation to the year 1950. The educational opportunities that existed for black Americans during this period, and the lack of such opportunities, are examined. The progress of the former slave population into the technologically advanced twentieth century is followed. Tactics employed by individual states in reaction to black insistence for advanced learning are examined providing an understanding of black protests on the lack of access and the outright refusal of some states to field the question of black higher education. Voices from both sides of the racial bar address the question of educational parity. Teachers, politicians, and statesmen are prominent in this discussion, displaying a range of views that both astounded and empowered the forces that worked on either side of the controversy. Racism, institutional and individual, is a focal point. Tolerance is shown as a continuing thread throughout, often where one might least expect it, and alliances that forged a new era of cooperation between the races and among institutions are researched and reported. Institutions and individuals responsible for the racial and educational climate are examined: prominent spokespersons, both black and white, are included to give an overall feel for the struggle for parity in this area of the educational arena; institutions, their policies and practices, their willingness to look beyond the color of an applicant's skin, and their efforts to include a diverse student body are examined. There is also a discussion of the emergence of a national policy's broad guidelines that aided in the denial of access to black technological aspirants during this time period. The black struggle for opportunity and acceptance in the technological arena has been a struggle worthy of note. This struggle and the reporting of it is important because, despite the significance of the topic, it is one that has been minimally explored. This is a beginning.

<p> This historical study explored and chronicled the history of institutional responses to underprepared students at the University of Georgia including its two primary historical branches, the State Normal School and the State College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts, from 1801 to 2001. This study examined the evolution of responses to underprepared students at the University of Georgia with a view to how these responses reflected the larger social, economic, and political context of Georgia history. Archival research was conducted at University of Georgia Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library in Athens, Georgia, the State of Georgia Archives in Atlanta, Georgia, the Georgia Historical Society Library and Archives in Savannah, Georgia, and other archives or document repositories identified during the research phase of the study. The study revealed significant efforts throughout the history of the University of Georgia in support of underprepared students.</p>

<p> &ldquo;Unescorted Guests&rdquo; provides a richly detailed portrait of a fundamental change at one US institution: Yale University&rsquo;s 1969 transition from an all-men&rsquo;s to a coed college. This study disputes several dominant narratives about the 1970s youth and women&rsquo;s movements, and deepens our understanding of three core issues in higher education research: access, the experiences of previously excluded students, and change towards greater equity. I contest the myth of alumni as foes to coeducation, and show that the greatest opposition to equity for women came instead from Yale&rsquo;s president and trustees. I document how women students, absent as powerful figures in youth movement history, played a key role in pushing change at Yale. I show how women administrators, missing from standard social movement depictions of change, created power to advance equity despite efforts to undermine them. I chronicle the key role played by the federal government and the broader women&rsquo;s movement in advancing change for women at Yale, and conversely the ways that Yale used its power to slow progress for women. I challenge, through multiple sources of evidence, the idea that access alone brought equity for women. </p><p> &ldquo;Unescorted Guests&rdquo; also provides for the first time a comparison of the experiences and activism of black and white women students in a predominantly white college, a description of the sexual harassment and assault experienced by women at an elite college in the early 1970s, a joint portrait of women administrators and students at a newly coeducational institution, and 1970s student outcome data broken out by race, class, and gender. Lastly, this study contributes to the literature through using archival evidence, interviews, and contemporary press absent in earlier studies, most notably those providing the voices of women; showing how theory can strengthen the trustworthiness of historical narrative; and probing the practical implications of this historical study.</p><p>

<p> Historically Black Colleges and Universities have historically been given less funding than White institutions, a known discrepancy partially rectified by the Civil Rights era desegregation lawsuits. The court-ordered funding, however, came with race-based restrictions for public HBCUs, and many lost academic programs to traditionally White institutions. In numerous situations, Black colleges were closed outright or merged with White institutions. The following study explores the unique case of an HBCU coerced into merging an academic unit with a neighboring historically White university. Using archival data and interviews from the HBCU administrators, the case study presents a narrative of how the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University &ndash; Florida State University partnership was formed, explores the partnership&rsquo;s development over time, and examines differences between the mission and practices of the joint venture from FAMU&rsquo;s perspective.</p><p>

<p> Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) were established with the main objective of identifying and empowering people of African descent. Over the years, these institutions have grown, enrolling 16% of Black high school graduates and during graduation, almost 20% of African-American graduates. Using a qualitative study design, the main goal of this study was to identify the effectiveness of HBCUs&rsquo; ability to serve the interests and needs of African-American students who chose to attend and graduate from HBCUs as undergraduate students then attend and graduate from graduate schools at predominantly White institutions (PWIs.) This study inquired about focusing on the factors influencing how undergraduate students make decisions on which college to attend, what factors influence their career selection, and the impact the university experience has on future careers and overall college experience. Data was gathered from African-American HBCU graduates who then attended and graduated from PWIs in California. Interviews and online surveys were conducted with participants to collect in-depth responses regarding their experiences, views, beliefs, and motivations. The sample comprised 100 respondents out of an original 200 who were selected. The study showed that many participants attended their chosen colleges because they preferred to associate with people who shared origins like their own. Family and friends were found to be influential in college selection and educational background influenced the types of careers study participants pursued after graduation from college. Implications for future research are discussed.</p><p>

In the 1980s, changing teacher certification was associated with the educational reform movement and the attendant drive to professionalize teaching. In Massachusetts, and nationally, political forces outside traditional education organizations and structures initiated and sustained certification changes. The purpose of this study was to reconstruct the motivations and strategies resulting in a new Massachusetts teacher certification framework in 1987, and to explore connections between national trends and this state development. The Joint Task Force on Teacher Preparation (JTTP) issued a report entitled Making Teaching a Major Profession in October 1987. JTTP recommendations included provisions for two stages of certification: provisional and full. Recommendations for provisional certification included a major in the liberal arts or sciences, or an interdisciplinary major, that would replace the undergraduate education degree. Recommendations for permanent certification included a clinical masters degree that incorporated supervision by both education and liberal arts college advisors, as well as mentor teachers in the schools. Thirty-three participants were identified through membership on the JTTP, member recommendations, and suggestions drawn from a literature review. Interviews used a guided conversation structure, were about one hour in length, and were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim by the researcher. A significant portion of the data in this oral history was presented through the participants' own words. Participant accounts describe the personal relationships, political contexts, and professional issues that affected both the process and the product of the JTTP. Where possible, supporting testimony and documentation were used to provide corroboration or additional detail. Systematic and organizational analyses informed the study's findings. Participant decisions were not instructed by research on teacher education. Shifting power relations among educational stakeholders affected both the framework's adoption--and its contents.

Upon entering the male domain of higher education in the late nineteenth-century, college women challenged not only conservative beliefs about women's minds but also restrictive notions about the female body. By the 1920s, attending college had "become the thing to do." Using extensive primary research in college archives, this work examines female students' attitudes toward their bodies in the midst of this cultural transformation This social history makes clear that young women's attitudes toward their bodies developed in relation to a set of cultural discourses that were contested, historically specific, and continually mediated. To explore the impact of ideas about race, class, educational mission, and coeducation on women's attitudes toward their bodies, I analyzed Smith College, Spelman College, and Cornell University. Students' specific experiences were then compared to popular ideals of health, femininity, and female beauty. Prior to the early 1900s, local campus cultures shaped students' ideas about their bodies. At Smith and Cornell, in response to the feared effects of "mental work" on women's femininity and reproductive organs, efforts to prove female health included vigorous exercise, weight gain, and hearty eating. At Cornell, its controversial coeducational design compelled "coeds" to also demonstrate female propriety. For African American students at Spelman Seminary, post-Civil War efforts to counter racist stereotypes dominated bodily concerns. Spelman students resided outside the "protective," race-specific concerns that dominated discussions about white, middle-class women's reproductive health. Beginning in the 1910s, an emergent national student culture rooted in mass consumerism and the idealization of modern youth recast female students' body images. On all three campuses, students donned flapper fashions, bobbed their hair, conducted active mixed-sex social lives, and memorized new nutrition and home economics standards. Yet, even as campus cultures converged, students continued to mediate popular discourses, particularly in regard to dieting practices. While white women joined the "dieting craze," African American women at Spelman College did not.

The study was undertaken to analyze the historical relationship between the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and its state colleges. In 1838, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts established the first normal school in the nation, with a specific mission to train individuals to become teachers in the common schools of the state. Over the past 150 years, much has happened to shape the present design of the Massachusetts State Colleges as they are known today. These institutions have evolved from single purpose institutions into liberal arts oriented state colleges. During the development of the state colleges, the Commonwealth has consistently neglected to support the colleges. As a result, the state colleges have, in many ways, become the weakest segment of the Massachusetts system of public higher education. This study attempts to show that where a history of ambivalence and neglect meets a period of uncertainty, in a time of declining resources, the dependent organizations are in serious trouble. Given the lack of support shown towards the state colleges as a result of political issues, changes in demographics, and the predominant role of private higher education in the state, the state colleges' mission, funding, and future are clouded in uncertainty. Research on this subject specifically centered on state archives, reports, and texts on the Massachusetts State Colleges and the history of higher education in the Commonwealth. Personal interviews with prominent Massachusetts political and educational leaders were also used to gain present perceptions of the Massachusetts higher education system and the role of the state colleges within that system. Conclusions were drawn from the data collected and recommendations were made on possible ways to enhance the role of the state colleges within the Massachusetts system of public higher education.

In 1900, Umeko Tsuda founded the Joshi Eigaku Juku (Women's Institute of Language Studies, which later became Tsuda College), the first private institution of tertiary learning for women in Japan. Tsuda was one of the first females in Japan's history to study in the United States, spending eleven years of her childhood (1871–1882) on a Japanese government-sponsored study program in the United States, and returning in 1889 for three years of study at Bryn Mawr College, another pioneering institution of higher learning for women. Tsuda's establishment of the Joshi Eigaku Juku marked her as a true educational innovator; her success in founding it secured her place in history as a pioneer in the higher education of women in Japan. This dissertation sets out to understand the catalysts found in the social, economic, political, and educational milieus that shaped Tsuda both in Japan and in the United States, and to understand what place Tsuda's experience at Bryn Mawr under M. Carey Thomas held in her development as an educational innovator. Through a comprehensive examination of the social structures, political and economic trends, and educational polices in place during the latter third of the nineteenth century in both nations, this dissertation examines what forces compelled Tsuda to take the revolutionary step of founding her school and establishing higher education as an option for women in Japan, when such an institution was thoroughly unwelcome by the Japanese populace at large.