American Higher Education Transformed, 1940-2005: Documenting the National Discourse (review)

In their well-known documentary history, Richard Hofstadter and Wilson Smith provided a valuable collection of key sources on American higher education from its beginnings through 1948. In this new anthology, Wilson Smith and his new distinguished collaborator, Thomas Bender, present a worthy successor that admirably addresses the recent dynamic period in post-secondary institutional education. Smith and Bender observe acutely that change in post-World War II American Higher Education was "so extensive that it resulted in a wholly new institution, qualitatively different from that of the first half of the [twentieth] century" (p. 1). The editors cogently argue that the university moved away from teaching in favor of research and became less regional, increasingly heterogeneous, and consequently more inclusive and democratic. They observe that access improved from the time of the G. I. Bill (1944) which nevertheless "masculinized" and increased white attendance at universities. Smith and Bender also maintain that American universities came to "borrow little from abroad" (p. 3), while attracting foreign scientists and scholars to staff American faculties and university projects.

The anthology is divided into 12 thematic "parts," each beginning with an insightful introduction written by the editors. The parts are further divided into topical sub-parts within which the readings are arranged chronologically. This arrangement raises the interesting conceptual and typological question of how one should identify, categorize, and organize fundamental issues in the recent history of higher education.

Of course, historians will adopt different frameworks, and none will be satisfying to all. Yet, there appear to be a few conceptual problems in this volume's organization, which detract from its coherence. Some thematic categories are vague, such as part I: "The Terrain," part II: "Expanding and Reshaping," and part VII: "Conflicts on and Beyond Campus." In addition, the categories are not conceptually parallel. Some parts present aspects of the activity or work of higher education (part III: "Liberal Arts," part IV: "Graduate Studies," and part V: "Disciplines and Interdisciplinarity)" while other parts present actors within or without higher education (part VI: "Academic Profession," part VIII: "Government, Foundations, Corporations," part XI: "Rights of Students," and part XII: "Academic Administration"). In combination, these two factors contribute to conceptual and topical overlap throughout the volume. For example, themes of equal opportunity, diversity, academic profession, and academic freedom appear in their own sections and within other sections across the anthology.

Nevertheless, Smith and Bender present an instructive overview of the period between 1940 and 2005 by drawing together 172 engaging selections, including speeches, court cases, commission findings and recommendations, lectures, legislation, articles, and monographs. The selections include such noteworthy documents as the NLRB v. Yeshiva University case (1980), the AAUP Statement of Principles (1940), and Theodore Hesburgh's "Where Are College Presidents' Voices on Important Public Issues?" (2001). Each selection is introduced by an informative introduction and suggestions for further reading, surpassing those in the Hofstadter and Smith anthology. For example, the editorial commentary addresses shortcomings of higher education, including the failure to attract and serve minority students and the inaccurate predictions that led students into saturated academic job markets (p. 203).

Choosing selections for such a volume is certainly difficult, and noteworthy materials must inevitably be omitted. In this case, the range of institutions associated with the selections—either on the basis of addressing the institution, being issued by the institution, or written by authors spending their career at the institution—is somewhat limited. Most of the selections are associated with large, elite universities located near the coasts. In particular, about one-third (or 57) of the selections are associated with 10 of the wealthiest, elite, private universities (Harvard, Yale, MIT, Columbia, NYU, Cornell, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, Chicago, and Stanford). Nearly another quarter (39) of the selections are associated with large, public research universities, including 25 from California (primarily Berkeley), 8 from New York, and 4 from the Great Lakes region. Forty-five of the...