SCS 785, American Universities Under Scrutiny
Selective Timeline of Major Events in Higher Education
386 BC – Early Greek Origins: the Academy of Plato, followed the Lyceum of Aristotle (who was at Plato’s Academy for 20 years, as a student, then a faculty member). These were advanced schools of philosophy.
12c AD – Medieval European Universities: formed the earliest model for today’s universities. All teaching in Latin (which helped solve the language barrier) 12c: University of Paris (theology, philosophy); followed soon by the University of Bologna (law), Oxford, Cambridge and others. Students from the same country linked themselves into groups for mutual protection from thugs and tax collectors, and the groups was called a "collegium."
1500s - The Calvinist Reformation in Switzerland involved the University of Geneva, whose faculty and students helped to spread the doctrines of the theologian John Calvin throughout Europe and North America.
1605 – Francis Bacon in England advanced the then-controversial notion that knowledge should be useful
1636 – Harvard College founded by New England Calvinists and established in Cambridge by the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (named Harvard and opened two years later). Oldest in U.S.Also, governed by the oldest corporation in the U.S.
1693 – establishment of the College of William and Mary under a charter granted by King William III and Queen Mary II of England (2nd oldest).
1701 – Yale College founded (3rd oldest), also by Calvinists.
1746 – Princeton founded (as the College of New Jersey). 4th. Followed in short order by Kings College (Columbia), Queens College (Rutgers), Dartmouth College, and Rhode Island College (now Brown University).
1800s – Ascent of Oxford model (the "classical academy"). Emphasis was placed on "pure" knowledge, student life.
1809 – University of Berlin founded by Wilhelm von Humboldt.
1837 – Mount Holyoke, the first college for women was founded in South Hadley, Massachusetts
1850s – Ascent of Berlin model (the "modern university"), emphasizing research and departmental structure.
1850s – President Wayland at Brown introduces electives into the curriculum, borrowing the idea from Germany.
1862 – Land Grant Colleges. The Morrill Act, supported education in agriculture and engineering and helped the growth of state universities in the Middle and Far West
1876 – Johns Hopkins University founded, by president Daniel Coit Gilman Duplicated quickly by President Charles William Eliot at Harvard, along with electives.
1915 – ROTC program established
1920s – Development of House system at Harvard, under President Lowell (idea taken unimplemented from Yale, later duplicated at Rice)
1930s – Ascent of Hopkins/ Harvard model (the multiversity), replete with professional schools, externally funded research.
1944 – GI Bill of Rights (Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944) provided unemployment and education allowances and home, farm, and business loans for millions of World War II veterans.
1945 – Vannevar Bush, FDR’s Science Adviser, publishes Science, The Endless Frontier. Massive increases in federal funding, especially for research, directed toward national purposes, fueling the economy.
1950s – 80’s good times, growing enrollments, increasing government funding. Great spread of community colleges
1990’s – Mounting competition and concerns on cost, development of distance learning and for-profit institutions. Shrinking contributions from government, escalating costs for technology. Culture wars in the curriculum. Growth of for-profit enterprises.
The future – ?