Precipice or Crossroads?: Where America's Great Public Universities Stand and Where They Are Going Midway through Their Second Century

Commitments: Enhancing the Public Purposes and Outcomes of Public Higher Education by

Commitments Enhancing the Public Purposes and Outcomes of Public Higher Education Mark g. yuDoF anD Caitlin Callaghan The hot, humid summer of 1862 marked a perilous season for President abraham Lincoln. Twenty-four thousand Union and confederate casualties had littered the battlefields at shiloh mere months before. Within a matter of weeks, the even bloodier antietam would provide a macabre summer bookend. General Mcclellan, stripped of his supreme command and sulking in Virginia, was mired with his troops in the humiliating Peninsula campaign. european diplomats were whispering that the south might prevail, and their sovereigns inclined their heads toward richmond. in the midst of this crucible, on July 2, the president signed a piece of legislation that, though it had little to do with the war effort, over the long arc of history would arguably alter the country’s future as powerfully as any great civil War battle: the Morrill act. The Morrill act would provide the fulcrum on which the United states would pivot from a divided, underdeveloped society into a vigorously diverse, competitive, and advanced one in which mass education— the bedrock of both national and individual progress—is now the norm, not the exception. The great public research universities that arose from the act became engines of opportunity and innovation that accelerated the nation’s drive to industrial preeminence and, in large measure, still drive our nation’s economy. Most significantly, these universities created 63 64 MarK G. YUdoF aNd caiTLiN caLLaGHaN generations of educated citizens—many of whom, because of socioeconomic background, gender, or race would not otherwise have been eligible for the college education that is our country’s truest and greatest equalizer. Understanding the magnitude of the Morrill act’s significance can be difficult—even for seasoned veterans of public universities—so it might help to pause for a moment and briefly consider a few of the other milestones in the history of american higher education. This country has always had wonderful private colleges and universities . The establishment of Harvard college in 1636 marked the New World’s first foray into higher education, while the 1876 opening of The Johns Hopkins University introduced a new university model—one that nurtured and promoted graduate education and research as well as undergraduate education—that would be replicated by both private and public universities worldwide. This country has also long held a commitment to public education. When John adams drafted the 1780 constitution of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, he charged the state legislature with the stewardship of public schools. a few years later, the nascent congress of the confederation of the United states passed the Northwest ordinance of 1787, which set aside land for public schools in prospective townships west of the alleghenies. The commitment to public grammar schools soon included universities . Thomas Jefferson founded a publicly supported University of Virginia in 1819, and identified public service as one of its missions. The Morrill act was later followed by the 1887 Hatch act, which instituted federal funding for agricultural research stations affiliated with universities. and in the twentieth century, california’s 1960 Master Plan for Higher education —a three-tiered system that guarantees a place in a state university or community college to every qualified californian—stands as one of this country’s greatest achievements for higher education. still, even when contextualized with these milestones, the Morrill act stands out—for its genesis as well as for its legacy. Together with the Homestead act and Transcontinental railroad act, which were signed in the same bleak summer, the Morrill act ultimately formed a critical component of Lincoln’s broader strategic vision for a free postwar United states. Given the magnitude of the fratricidal conflict that the president faced in the summer of 1862, it may not be immediately obvious why he felt compelled to include “land-grant” universities and colleges in this vision . Lincoln himself had never attended college; neither had many of his Commitments 65 fellow politicians. Nor did the infrastructure necessary to produce collegeready students exist at the time—even accounting for the many students who entered college in their early teenage years, as of 1860 “the United states possessed only 243 high schools outside Massachusetts, or about sixteen for each million people” (Nevins, The State Universities and Democracy 39). Yet in mid-nineteenth-century america a growing and pervasive hunger seemed to exist for institutions of higher learning. as Jonathan cole notes, in...