The university and its publics: the University of Illinois from progressivism to globalism

history of education;higher education;University of Illinois

Gietzen, Garett

关键词: history of education;    higher education;    University of Illinois;   

Others  :  https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/73005/Garett_Gietzen.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

美国|英语

来源: The Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship

【 摘 要 】

The modern university is a public institution. Its teaching, research and service mission all intersect with the public, and the public often serves as the source of its legitimacy, governance and support. The precise nature of the relationship between the university and the public is variable, something that changes over time and differs between institutions. However, regardless of historical and institutional contingencies, questions about the university and the public are of essential importance because they are about the university’s very place in society. This dissertation explicates some of the ways in which the question of the university and the public has been answered. It does so through an analysis of how the relationship between the university and the public was formulated and articulated by three University of Illinois presidents: David Kinley (1920-1930), George D. Stoddard (1946-1953) and B. Joseph White (2005-2009). It places their formulations of the university, its public credentials, and its contribution to the public in their respective historical contexts—the Progressive Era and interwar years, the immediate post-World War II period, and the first decade of the twenty-first century—as well as within the context of the University of Illinois, its immediate environment, and higher education in the United States in a broad sense. By doing so, this dissertation demonstrates how ideas about the relationship between the university and the public corresponded to their historical circumstances, discerning the conditions that influenced changes in how the university’s public nature was described. It shows how some formulations of the university-public relationship remained viable, whereas others changed over time. It reveals that the most resilient aspects of the university’s public credentials were those that related to its economic character, while those associated with its political qualities declined significantly over time.