The University of Wisconsin V. 4; Renewal to Revolution, 1945-71

The University of Wisconsin V. 4; Renewal to Revolution, 1945-71
Author: E. David Cronon
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
Total Pages: 684
Release: 1999-08-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780299162900

A great university in turbulent times From the deluge of World War II vets on the GI bill through the 1960s radicalism that made national headlines, the University of Wisconsin's history has been a part of American history. Historians, as well as the University's hundreds of thousands of alumni, faculty, staff, and students, will welcome this fourth volume covering the University's recent past. E. David Cronon and John W. Jenkins record in lively, readable prose a period that began with the influx of returning war veterans, more than doubling the University's enrollment in a single year. They explore the dark McCarthy era of loyalty oaths and blacklists during the 1950s and detail the actions of University president E. B. Fred, who stood out among American academic leaders for his commitment to principle and fair play. The turbulent 1960s, which opened with students reporting on their summertime Freedom Ride experiences throughout the American South and ended with the Vietnam War-related bombing of Sterling Hall in 1970, are a record of how an era of idealism gave way to one characterized by angry dissent and disorder, the rise of women's liberation, flower power, black power, and student power. The history concludes with the passage of legislation creating the University of Wisconsin System of campuses in 1971--an action that followed nearly three decades of experiments, compromises, and political struggles involving several governors.

The History of Wisconsin, Volume IV

The History of Wisconsin, Volume IV
Author: John D. Buenker
Publisher: Wisconsin Historical Society
Total Pages: 781
Release: 2013-03-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 0870206311

Published in Wisconsin's Sesquicentennial year, this fourth volume in The History of Wisconsin series covers the twenty tumultuous years between the World's Columbian Exposition and the First World War when Wisconsin essentially reinvented itself, becoming the nation's "laboratory of democracy." The period known as the Progressive Era began to emerge in the mid-1890s. A sense of crisis and a widespread clamor for reform arose in reaction to rapid changes in population, technology, work, and society. Wisconsinites responded with action: their advocacy of women's suffrage, labor rights and protections, educational reform, increased social services, and more responsive government led to a veritable flood of reform legislation that established Wisconsin as the most progressive state in the union. As governor and U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, Robert M. La Follette, Sr., was the most celebrated of the Progressives, but he was surrounded by a host of pragmatic idealists from politics, government, and the state university. Although the Progressives frequently disagreed over priorities and tactics, their values and core beliefs coalesced around broad-based participatory democracy, the application of scientific expertise to governance, and an active concern for the welfare of all members of society-what came to be known as "the Wisconsin Idea."

The Land-Grant Colleges and the Reshaping of American Higher Education

The Land-Grant Colleges and the Reshaping of American Higher Education
Author: Roger L. Geiger
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
Total Pages: 371
Release: 2013-03-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1412851475

This work provides a critical reexamination of the origin and development of America's land-grant colleges and universities, created by the most important piece of legislation in higher education. The story is divided into five parts that provide closer examinations of representative developments. Part I describes the connection between agricultural research and American colleges. Part II shows that the responsibility of defining and implementing the land-grant act fell to the states, which produced a variety of institutions in the nineteenth century. Part III details the first phase of the conflict during the latter decades of the nineteenth century about whether land colleges were intended to be agricultural colleges, or full academic institutions. Part IV focuses on the fact that full-fledged universities became dominant institutions of American higher education. The final part shows that the land-grant mission is alive and well in university colleges of agriculture and, in fact, is inherent to their identity. Including some of the best minds the field has to offer, this volume follows in the fine tradition of past books in Transaction's Perspectives on the History of Higher Education series.