For the Common Good: A New History of Higher Education in America

by Charles Dorn

Overview

Are colleges and universities in a period of unprecedented disruption? Is a bachelor's degree still worth the investment? Are the humanities coming to an end? What, exactly, is higher education good for?

In For the Common Good, Charles Dorn challenges the rhetoric of America's so-called crisis in higher education by investigating two centuries of college and university history. From the community college to the elite research university—in states from California to Maine—Dorn engages a fundamental question confronted by higher education institutions ever since the nation's founding: Do colleges and universities contribute to the common good?

Tracking changes in the prevailing social ethos between the late eighteenth and early twenty-first centuries, Dorn illustrates the ways in which civic-mindedness, practicality, commercialism, and affluence influenced higher education's dedication to the public good. Each ethos, long a part of American history and tradition, came to predominate over the others during one of the four chronological periods examined in the book, informing the character of institutional debates and telling the definitive story of its time. For the Common Good demonstrates how two hundred years of political, economic, and social change prompted transformation among colleges and universities—including the establishment of entirely new kinds of institutions—and refashioned higher education in the United States over time in essential and often vibrant ways.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501712609
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	06/06/2017
Series:	American Institutions and Society
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	324
Sales rank:	715,934
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Charles Dorn is Professor of Education and Chair of the Education Department at Bowdoin College. He is the author of American Education, Democracy, and the Second World War.

Table of Contents

The Early National Period

1. "Literary Institutions Are Founded and Endowed for the Common Good" The Liberal Professions in New England

2. “The Good Order and the Harmony of the Whole Community” Public Higher Learning in the South

3. “To Promote More Effectually the Grand Interests of Society” Catholic Higher Education in the Mid-Atlantic The Antebellum and Civil War Eras

4. “To Spread Throughout the Land, an Army of Practical Men” Agriculture and Mechanics in the Midwest

5. “The Instruction Necessary to the Practical Duties of the Profession” Teacher Education in the West Reconstruction through the Second World War

6. “To Qualify Its Students for Personal Success” The Rise of the University in the West

7. “This Is to Be Our Profession—To Serve the World” Women's Higher Education in New England

8. “The Burden of His Ambition Is to Achieve a Distinguished Career” African American Higher Education in the Mid-Atlantic The Cold War through the Twenty-First Century

9. “A Wedding Ceremony between Industry and the University” The Urban University in the Southeast

10. “To Meet the Training and Retraining Needs of Established Business” Community Colleges in the Northeast and Southwest

Epilogue

What People are Saying About This

Linda Eisenmann

In For the Common Good, Charles Dorn demonstrates a rare recognition of how students' own choices impacted—and sometimes shifted—the declared missions of colleges and universities over time.

John R. Thelin

Charles Dorn's refreshing analysis is persuasive in showing that higher education for the common good is both central and complex for American colleges and universities in the past, present, and future. Best of all, his book shows how historical research can be readable and pertinent to our policy discussions today.

Joseph F. Kett

Charles Dorn knows a great deal about higher education, and For the Common Good covers excellent topics.

Christine A. Ogren

In this engaging look at a remarkable breadth of institutions, Charles Dorn offers compelling new insights into more than two centuries of higher education as well as reassurance that the common-good ethos will survive the current wave of corporatization and consumerism.

Laura W. Perna

Charles Dorn offers productive insights into the ways that higher education institutions in the United States have maintained their commitment to advancing the common good over time, even with profound social, political, and economic societal changes.

Editorial Reviews

In teasing out the emergence of different social ethoses within higher education over time, Dorn has produced a book that offers insightful analysis on the past and important perspective to the present.

History of Education Quarterly

Charles Dorn has written an excellent historical overview of American higher education that diverges from other histories of the institution in several advantageous ways. Dorn's book is a gift to us. It is a model for combining analytical breadth and complexity and of using the particular to illuminate the general. It is now the best single-volume history of American higher education available.

Journal of American History

For the Common Good makes a strong contribution to the scholarship on American higher education through its close analysis of how the concept of civic-mindedness has continued to play out at so many different types of institutions in many different times and places. For the Common Good will make you think about both the historic and present role of higher education in the United States, and that is high praise.

New England Quarterly

For the Common Good makes a strong contribution to the scholarship on American higher education through its close analysis of how the concept of civic-mindedness has continued to play out at so many different types of institutions in many different times and places. For the Common Good will make you think about both the historic and present role of higher education in the United States, and that is high praise.

-- "New England Quarterly"

Charles Dorn has written an excellent historical overview of American higher education that diverges from other histories of the institution in several advantageous ways. Dorn's book is a gift to us. It is a model for combining analytical breadth and complexity and of using the particular to illuminate the general. It is now the best single-volume history of American higher education available.

-- "Journal of American History"

In teasing out the emergence of different social ethoses within higher education over time, Dorn has produced a book that offers insightful analysis on the past and important perspective to the present.

-- "History of Education Quarterly"

From the Publisher

"In teasing out the emergence of different social ethoses within higher education over time, Dorn has produced a book that offers insightful analysis on the past and important perspective to the present."

History of Education Quarterly - Michael S. Hevel and Heidi Jaeckle

"Charles Dorn knows a great deal about higher educationand For the Common Good covers excellent topics."

Joseph F. Kett

"Charles Dorn offers productive insights into the ways that higher education institutions in the United States have maintained their commitment to advancing the common good over time, even with profound social, political, and economic societal changes."

Laura W. Perna

"In this engaging look at a remarkable breadth of institutions, Charles Dorn offers compelling new insights into more than two centuries of higher education as well as reassurance that the common-good ethos will survive the current wave of corporatization and consumerism."

Christine A. Ogren

"Charles Dorn's refreshing analysis is persuasive in showing that higher education for the common good is both central and complex for American colleges and universities in the past, present, and future. Best of all, his book shows how historical research can be readable and pertinent to our policy discussions today."

John R. Thelin

"In For the Common Good, Charles Dorn demonstrates a rare recognition of how students' own choices impacted—and sometimes shifted—the declared missions of colleges and universities over time."

Linda Eisenmann