ABSTRACT BARR, KRISPIN WAGONER. the Historical Legacy of a Secret Society at Duke University
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ABSTRACT BARR, KRISPIN WAGONER. The Historical Legacy of a Secret Society at Duke University (1913-1971): Cultural Hegemony and the Tenacious Ideals of the “Big Man on Campus.” (Under the direction of Dr. Audrey Jaeger). Collegiate secret societies, as distinguished from Greek-letter fraternal organizations, enjoyed prominence within many American campus communities from the early nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century (Baird, 1879; Hitchcock, 1863; Slosson, 1910; Veysey, 1965). The establishment of these elite groups preceded the maturation of university administrative structures responsible for managing students’ extracurricular life, as well as the mass democratization of American higher education which occurred after World War II (Rudolph, 1990; Cohen, 2010). The presence of prestigious secret societies is documented and celebrated in college yearbooks and newspapers, reflecting a period in higher education’s past when the hegemony of the white, male prevailed in student culture and fostered the composite ideal of the “Big Man on Campus” (“B.M.O.C.”) – the handsome varsity athlete, fraternity man, and club president destined for success in American public life. Although collegiate secret societies “disappeared” on many campuses in the Civil Rights Era amidst accusations of elitism and reactions against established white, Anglo- Saxon Protestant norms, their legacy lingers into the twenty-first century, along with many unanswered questions about their historical role as a source of student power on campus. Their roots can be traced to the prestigious all-male boarding schools of the Northeastern United States in the late nineteenth century where patterns of upper-class masculine socialization developed. Due to a dearth of historical research on this topic, however, institutional leaders are challenged to understand the origins, purpose, and legacy of this type of student association that still holds meaning for students and other stakeholders in some campus communities. This study utilized critical social theory from Bourdieu and Gramsci and the emerging scholarship of whiteness studies to provide an historical analysis of the rise and fall of the Order of Red Friars senior class secret society that was active at Duke University (Trinity College prior to 1924) between 1913 and 1971. Student leaders who manifested the “B.M.O.C.” ideal were tapped for membership in this group and collaborated with presidents, trustees, administrators, and select faculty on an agenda for student life (Durden, 1993). Utilizing archival research methods and oral history interviews, I was able to explore the involvement of the Order of Red Friars in the administration of student affairs at Duke University for sixty years during the twentieth century. This study provided basic knowledge about the phenomenon of the collegiate secret society and a deeper understanding of the cultural hegemony from which they emerged that continues to influence campus cultures today. The history of American higher education literature documents how faculty discarded their in loco parentis responsibilities for managing student behavior as their field professionalized in the late nineteenth century (Rudolph, 1990; Thelin, 2011; Veysey, 1965) and how specialization of the student affairs profession coalesced four decades later in the 1930s (ACE, 1937; Biddix & Schwartz, 2012; Lloyd-Jones, 1934; Schwartz, 2003). Yet, the historical role of students in the campus power structure of the early twentieth century, and particularly their role in sustaining their extracurricular affairs during this period, has been largely unexamined. This study addresses the gap that exists in the history of higher education literature about collegiate culture in the early twentieth century in the South, as well as the phenomenon of the collegiate secret society as a source of power on campus. (Thelin, 1982; Veysey, 1965). © Copyright 2013 by Krispin Wagoner Barr All Rights Reserved The Historical Legacy of a Secret Society at Duke University (1913-1971): Cultural Hegemony and the Tenacious Ideals of the “Big Man on Campus” by Krispin Wagoner Barr A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty of North Carolina State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Educational Research and Policy Analysis Raleigh, North Carolina 2013 APPROVED BY: ___________________________ Dr. Audrey Jaeger Committee Chair _______________________________ ______________________________ Dr. Alyssa Rockenbach Dr. Karrie Dixon ________________________________ ________________________________ Dr. Paul Umbach Dr. Daniel Prosterman ii DEDICATION To Michael Barr, Bridget & Patrick, the loves of my life iii BIOGRAPHY As a scholar of American higher education and a student affairs practitioner whose career began in the 1980s, I have experienced firsthand the diversification and globalization of higher education in this country over the past quarter century. Due to my role as a dean of students at a small, liberal arts college for women in the Southeastern United States, in the midst of this growing student diversity, I have been educated by the strengthened voice of students from historically underrepresented backgrounds regarding the power of social class and privilege in the college setting and the impact it has had on their college experience. I have become increasingly aware of my obligation as a student affairs practitioner in a position of power to work on behalf of students from underrepresented backgrounds to build a more inclusive campus community true to the democratic purpose historically espoused in American higher education. I am fully aware that my perspective in studying collegiate secret societies is rooted in my personal experience as a college student at Appalachian State University in the mountains of North Carolina in the 1980s. As an undergraduate, I was actively involved in what historian Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz (1987) refers to as “college life” – the organized aspects of campus life. I participated in Greek life and found membership in a sorority to be a transformational experience. Having grown up in a culturally homogeneous small town in western North Carolina, my sorority experience introduced me to people from different parts of the country with different religious backgrounds. I developed many social skills and expanded my worldview through interaction with my sorority sisters. Because of my iv sorority’s emphasis on leadership, scholarship, and service (as well as social life), I did well academically and enjoyed my time in college. I majored in history, thus returning to this approach for my doctoral dissertation is like coming home. I also wrote for the student newspaper and served on the editorial board for three years which, ironically, are activities Horowitz associates with iconoclastic students who are “rebels” opposed to “college life” and more interested in rectifying social injustices. My insider perspective is further informed by my work as a student affairs practitioner with more than 25 years of experience in diverse campus settings. I have worked at both private and public institutions of varying sizes in three different regions of the country – the South, Midwest, and Northeast. I have worked in student activities and as a dean at colleges for women (Queens College – Charlotte, North Carolina; Cedar Crest College – Allentown, PA, and Salem College – Winston-Salem, NC) which of course has heightened my awareness of gender in the higher education setting. I also worked in Greek Affairs at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania – a predominantly male institution known for its engineering programs and for having one of the largest Greek systems in the country, which served to temper my perspective on gender issues. My graduate assistantships in student life at The Ohio State University and my work in new student orientation at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro round out my extensive exposure to diverse student cultures and subcultures which shapes my approach to this topic. Finally, as a scholar-practitioner, I approach the world as a “transformative intellectual” (Foster, 1989). I recognize that all of my experience as a student and an v administrator is from predominantly white institutions where the norms of the majority have dominated student culture and traditions. The thrust of my research is about the social phenomenon of collegiate secret societies which presumably perpetuated the norms of dominant social groups on many American campuses through much of the twentieth century. Because these groups are still functioning on some campuses today, I think critically about my obligation as an administrator to better understand aspects of student culture that are socially reproduced and rooted in the values of students from a historical period characterized by students’ white, male, middle to upper class, Protestant homogeneity. I believe that by studying the early twentieth-century origins of a collegiate secret society whose members exemplified the “BMOC” ideal, I might illuminate other aspects of the uniquely American extracurriculum, such as varsity athletics, fraternity membership, and student government, which were established amidst the cultural hegemony of that same period. For college administrators around the country who may be unaware of secret societies on their campuses or believe that their presence is inconsequential, I would argue that the known existence of these groups on