Service Learning: The Peace Corps, American Higher Education, and the Limits of Modernist Ideas of Development and Citizenship

2018 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 475-505
Author(s):  
David S. Busch
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Citizenship Education ◽  
Peace Corps ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
American Higher Education ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Work Abroad ◽  
The University

In the early 1960s, Peace Corps staff turned to American colleges and universities to prepare young Americans for volunteer service abroad. In doing so, the agency applied the university's modernist conceptions of citizenship education to volunteer training. The training staff and volunteers quickly discovered, however, that prevailing methods of education in the university were ineffective for community-development work abroad. As a result, the agency evolved its own pedagogical practices and helped shape early ideas of service learning in American higher education. The Peace Corps staff and supporters nonetheless maintained the assumptions of development and modernist citizenship, setting limits on the broader visions of education emerging out of international volunteerism in the 1960s. The history of the Peace Corps training in the 1960s and the agency's efforts to rethink training approaches offer a window onto the underlying tensions of citizenship education in the modern university.

scholarly journals A history of 'in loco parentis' in American high education

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Craig Robert Forrest
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
School Administrators ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
College Administrators ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
American Higher Education ◽  
In Loco Parentis ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Society ◽  
The 1960S

From the establishment of institutions of higher education in Colonial America until the 1970s, college administrators have acted in loco parentis, or as legal guardians of students "in the place of parents." Under the legal regime of in loco parentis, society and the legal system required school administrators to look after the educational, moral, and behavioral growth of students. In order to fulfill their obligations to students in loco parentis, administrators put in place curricular requirements and campus rules, and they were granted the disciplinary leeway of students' natural parents or guardians to enforce those requirements and rules. Through a series of court cases in the 1960s an 1970s, the legal requirements imposed upon administrators was removed and students enrolled in colleges and universities were granted legal adulthood. Through research of primary and secondary sources, this dissertation examines the history of in loco parentis in American higher education. It discusses the evolution of the role college administrators played in loco parentis over three centuries, and how higher education itself evolved as American society changed. As schools grew in size and expanded in scope, administrators retreated from, or were stripped of, their in loco parentis responsibilities. By the mid-1970s, American college students were seen by the courts and society as legal adults with constitutional rights, and in loco parentis in American higher education was dead.

Western Governors University and Competency-Based Education

2011 ◽  
pp. 2346-2352
Author(s):  
Douglas B. Johnstone
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Regional Accreditation ◽  
American Higher Education ◽  
History Of ◽  
Western Governors University ◽  
Competency Based ◽  
Educational Paradigm ◽  
The University ◽  
Short Time

Western Governors University (WGU) was formally established in 1996 by the governors of 19 western states. From its inception it was committed to delivering all of its programs through distance technologies and to graduating its students only on the basis of their demonstrated competency. It is today the only regionally accredited university in the United States to award its degrees exclusively on this basis. Developing the university and proving its viability, however, have not been easy. The enthusiasm surrounding its launching in 1996 rapidly gave way to the hard realities of establishing a new educational paradigm. Within five years, after accreditation seemed slow in coming and enrollments in the new university even slower, many in the higher education establishment wrote WGU off as a failed experiment. Some even breathed a sigh of relief that the claims of competencybased education could be written off. But eight years after its formal incorporation, WGU is very much alive. It has received national accreditation from the Distance Education and Training Council (2001) and unprecedented regional accreditation by four of the nation’s regional accrediting associations.1 No other institution in the history of American higher education has received multi-regional accreditation, and given the complexities of such reviews, WGU achieved that milestone in a remarkably short time. By January 2005 the university had an enrollment just over 3,200 students and was growing by more than 200 students a month.

Constructing Hidden Narratives

2018 ◽  
pp. 173-197
Author(s):  
Charlotte Lauder
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
History Of Education ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Postgraduate Study ◽  
History Of ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
Post War ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The University ◽  
The Impact

This chapter reviews the history of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) at the University of Edinburgh. The IASH, formally established in 1970, is the oldest Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), Britain’s first, and Scotland’s only IAS. However, in its nearly fifty-year history, no effort has been made to tell IASH’s story. This can be partly attributed to a lack of understanding of IASs within the history of education, as well as a gap in the literature concerning IASs more generally. Investigating the history of IASH and its role in the development of postgraduate study not only adds to the scholarship on post-war Scottish higher education but also highlights the impact of academic research in Scotland since the 1960s.

The Early Years of the Jewish Presence at the University of Illinois

1992 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-245
Author(s):  
Winton U. Solberg
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Characteristic Form ◽  
University Of Illinois ◽  
American Higher Education ◽  
Jewish Students ◽  
The University ◽  
The Church

For over two centuries, the College was the characteristic form of higher education in the United States, and the College was closely allied to the church in a predominantly Protestant land. The university became the characteristic form of American higher education starting in the late nineteenth Century, and universities long continued to reflect the nation's Protestant culture. By about 1900, however, Catholics and Jews began to enter universities in increasing numbers. What was the experience of Jewish students in these institutions, and how did authorities respond to their appearance? These questions will be addressed in this article by focusing on the Jewish presence at the University of Illinois in the early twentieth Century. Religion, like a red thread, is interwoven throughout the entire fabric of this story.

Book Review: The Shaping of American Higher Education

NASPA Journal ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary H. Knock
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early History ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
American Higher Education ◽  
History Of ◽  
Broad Understanding

In the introduction of this book, Arthur Cohen states that The Shaping of American Higher Education is less a history than a synthesis. While accurate, this depiction in no way detracts from the value of the book. This work synthesizes the first three centuries of development of high-er education in the United States. A number of books detail the early history of the American collegiate system; however, this book also pro-vides an up-to-date account of developments and context for under-standing the transformation of American higher education in the last quarter century. A broad understanding of the book’s subtitle, Emergence and Growth of the Contemporary System, is truly realized by the reader.

Thyrsa Wealtheow Amos: The Dean of Deans

NASPA Journal ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard J. Herdlein
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Student Affairs ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
University Of Pittsburgh ◽  
Student Personnel ◽  
Dean Of Women ◽  
History Of ◽  
Personnel Administration ◽  
The University

The scholarship of student affairs has neglected to carefully review its contextual past and, in the process, failed to fully integrate historical research into practice. The story of Thyrsa Wealtheow Amos and the history of the Dean of Women’s Program at the University of Pittsburgh,1919–41, helps us to reflect on the true reality of our work in higher education. Although seemingly a time in the distant past, Thyrsa Amos embodied the spirit of student personnel administration that shines ever so bright to thisd ay. The purpose of this research is to provide some of thatcontext and remind us of the values that serve as foundations of the profession.

John W. Boyer, The University of Chicago: A History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015), 676pp. ISBN: 9780226242514

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger L. Geiger
Keyword(s):  
Higher Learning ◽  
University Of Chicago ◽  
Democratic Institution ◽  
American Universities ◽  
American Higher Education ◽  
Institutions Of Higher Learning ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of The University ◽  
The University ◽  
University Of Chicago Press

This chapter reviews the book The University of Chicago: A History (2015), by John W. Boyer. Founded in 1892, the University of Chicago is one of the world’s great institutions of higher learning. However, its past is also littered with myths, especially locally. Furthermore, the university has in significant ways been out of sync with the trends that have shaped other American universities. These issues and much else are examined by Boyer in the first modern history of the University of Chicago. Aside from rectifying myth, Boyer places the university in the broader history of American universities. He suggests that the early University of Chicago, in its combination of openness and quality, may have been the most democratic institution in American higher education. He also examines the reforms that overcame the chronic weaknesses that had plagued the university.

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