"This volume chronicles the history of Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, beginning with its creation as a Female Seminary in 1834 and concluding with the 1955 decision to increase substantially in size, a process that commenced in 1957. This latter event brought to a close 123 years during which Wheaton Seminary and College had remained tied to the precepts and fiscal resources of the founding family, the Wheatons."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Challenged by Coeducation details the responses of women's colleges to the most recent wave of Women's colleges originated in the mid-nineteenth century as a response to women's exclusion from higher education. Women's academic successes and their persistent struggles to enter men's colleges resulted in coeducation rapidly becoming the norm, however. Still, many prestigious institutions remained single-sex, notably most of the Ivy League and all of the Seven Sisters colleges. In the mid-twentieth century colleges' concerns about finances and enrollments, as well as ideological pressures to integrate formerly separate social groups, led men's colleges, and some women's colleges, to become coeducational. The admission of women to practically all men's colleges created a serious challenge for women's colleges. Most people no longer believed women's colleges were necessary since women had virtually unlimited access to higher education. Even though research spawned by the women's movement indicated the benefits to women of a "room of their own," few young women remained interested in applying to women's colleges. Challenged by Coeducation details the responses of women's colleges to this latest wave of coeducation. Case studies written expressly for this volume include many types of women's colleges-Catholic and secular; Seven Sisters and less prestigious; private and state; liberal arts and more applied; northern, southern, and western; urban and rural; independent and coordinated with a coeducational institution. They demonstrate the principal ways women's colleges have adapted to the new coeducational era: some have been taken over or closed, but most have changed by admitting men and thereby becoming coeducational, or by offering new programs to different populations. Some women's colleges, mostly those that are in cities, connected to other colleges, and prestigious with a high endowment, still enjoy success. Despite their dramatic drop in numbers, from 250 to fewer than 60 today, women's colleges are still important, editors Miller-Bernal and Poulson argue. With their commitment to enhancing women's lives, women's colleges and formerly women's colleges can serve as models of egalitarian coeducation.
This book exposes the complexity of single-sex schooling, and sheds new light on how gender operates in policy and practice in education. The essays collected in this volume cover a wide range of institutions, including K-12 and higher education, public and private schools, and schools in the US and beyond. Detailing the educational experiences of both young men and women, this collection examines how schooling shapes-and is shaped by- the social construction of gender in history and in contemporary society.
A mix of thematic essays, reference entries, and primary source documents covering the role of religion in American history and life from the colonial era to the present. Often controversial, religion has been an important force in shaping American culture. Religious convictions strongly influenced colonial and state governments as well as the United States as a new republic. Religious teachings, values, and practices deeply affected political structures and policies, economic ideology and practice, educational institutions and instruction, social norms and customs, marriage, and family life. By analyzing religion's interaction with American culture and prominent religious leaders and ideologies, this reference helps readers to better understand many fascinating, often controversial, religious leaders, ideas, events, and topics. The work is organized in three volumes devoted to particular periods. Volume one includes a chronology highlighting key events related to religion in American history and an introduction that overviews religion in America during the period covered by the volume, and roughly 10 essays that explore significant themes. These essays are followed by approximately 120 alphabetically arranged reference entries providing objective, fundamental information about topics related to religion in America. Each volume presents nearly 50 primary source documents, each introduced by a contextualizing headnote. A selected, general bibliography closes volume three.
This study provides extensive readings of overlooked American reconstructions of Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales from the colonial to postmodern periods, demonstrating how these repackagings convey uniquely American ideas.
"This book examines how American colleges and universities since the mid-nineteenth century have used students' race, religion, and ethnicity in deciding whom to admit and how to shape enrolled students' campus social life"--
A comprehensive history of evaluation in American higher education. In Grading the College, Scott M. Gelber offers a comprehensive history of evaluating teaching and learning in higher education. He complicates the conventional narrative that portrays evaluation as a newfangled assault on the integrity of higher education while acknowledging that there are many compelling reasons to oppose those practices. The evaluation of teaching and learning, Gelber argues, presented genuine dilemmas that have attracted the attention of faculty members and academic leaders since the 1920s. Especially during the peak era of faculty authority that followed the end of the Second World War, significant numbers of professors and administrators believed that evaluation might improve institutional performance, reduce the bias inherent in traditional methods of supervision, strengthen communication with laypersons, and encourage a more deliberate focus on the distinctive goals of college. Gelber reveals the extent to which professors and academic interest groups participated in the development of our most common evaluation instruments, including student course questionnaires, achievement tests, surveys, rubrics, rankings, and accreditation self-studies. Although these efforts may seem distant from the present era of shortsighted scrutiny and ill-conceived comparisons, Gelber demonstrates that the evaluation of college teaching and learning has long consisted of a set of intellectually sophisticated questions that have engaged, and could continue to engage, faculty members and their advocates. By providing a deeper understanding of how evaluation operated before the dawn of high-stakes accountability, Grading the College seeks to promote productive conversations about current attempts to define and measure the purposes of American higher education.
This is one of the volumes in a series of books covering the history of universities. It contains a mix of learned chapters and book reviews which covers topics related to higher education. The volume provides original research and invaluable reference material.
Seeking to understand how literary texts both shaped and reflected the century's debates over adolescent female education, this book examines fictional works and historical documents featuring descriptions of girls' formal educational experiences between the 1810s and the 1890s. Alves argues that the emergence of schoolgirl culture in nineteenth-century America presented significant challenges to subsequent constructions of normative femininity. The trope of the adolescent schoolgirl was a carrier of shifting cultural anxieties about how formal education would disrupt the customary maid-wife-mother cycle and turn young females off to prevailing gender roles. By tracing the figure of the schoolgirl at crossroads between educational and other institutions - in texts written by and about girls from a variety of racial, ethnic, and class backgrounds - this book transcends the limitations of "separate spheres" inquiry and enriches our understanding of how girls negotiated complex gender roles in the nineteenth century.
At the conclusion of this study, several areas of future research are presented, as not all aspects of the transition to coeducation could be included in this study. Additionally, implications for administrators, faculty, Boards of Trustees and alumnae/i are presented.
