The University of Illinois from Progressivism to Globalism
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Copyright 2014 Garett Gietzen THE UNIVERSITY AND ITS PUBLICS: THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS FROM PROGRESSIVISM TO GLOBALISM BY GARETT GIETZEN DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Educational Policy Studies in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2014 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Chris Higgins, Chair Associate Professor Timothy Reese Cain, Director of Research Professor Michael A. Peters Associate Professor Yoon Pak ABSTRACT The modern university is a public institution. Its teaching, research and service mission all intersect with the public, and the public often serves as the source of its legitimacy, governance and support. The precise nature of the relationship between the university and the public is variable, something that changes over time and differs between institutions. However, regardless of historical and institutional contingencies, questions about the university and the public are of essential importance because they are about the university’s very place in society. This dissertation explicates some of the ways in which the question of the university and the public has been answered. It does so through an analysis of how the relationship between the university and the public was formulated and articulated by three University of Illinois presidents: David Kinley (1920-1930), George D. Stoddard (1946-1953) and B. Joseph White (2005-2009). It places their formulations of the university, its public credentials, and its contribution to the public in their respective historical contexts—the Progressive Era and interwar years, the immediate post-World War II period, and the first decade of the twenty-first century—as well as within the context of the University of Illinois, its immediate environment, and higher education in the United States in a broad sense. By doing so, this dissertation demonstrates how ideas about the relationship between the university and the public corresponded to their historical circumstances, discerning the conditions that influenced changes in how the university’s public nature was described. It shows how some formulations of the university-public relationship remained viable, whereas others changed over time. It reveals that the most resilient aspects of the university’s public credentials were those that related to its economic character, while those associated with its political qualities declined significantly over time. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation is the result of an academic journey that began many years ago. Its completion owes a great deal to numerous people I have met along the way, and others who have always been there. Many thanks to Bruce Hall, Marjorie Hilton, Mike Sherfy, Robert Owens, Al Weiss, Michele O’Brien, John Franch and Ergin Bulut. Their friendship, sense of humor, and conversation energized my work and enriched my extended graduate school experience. I am also grateful to the professors who shared their knowledge and guidance over the years. The topic of this dissertation grew from a conversation I had with Fazal Rizvi and his influence continued as it moved forward. Michael A. Peters guided the project over much of its development and was especially important to the formation of the theoretical questions I ask about the university. My advisor, Timothy Reese Cain, was not only generous with his deep historical knowledge and critical eye, he was also tremendously patient while encouraging my progress. Michael, Tim and Yoon Pak and Chris Higgins, all members of my committee, provided valuable advice on my manuscript and thus contributed to its improvement. I also appreciate the staff of the University of Illinois Archives and Newspaper Library who helped me access many of the sources employed in this dissertation. I am especially thankful to May Kao Xiong for her loving encouragement and remarkable willingness to discuss this project. I expect that she now knows more about University of Illinois history than she ever could have anticipated. Lastly, deepest thanks to my parents, Terrance and Mary Ann. Without their love and support my academic journey would have been far shorter, and far less rewarding. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.……………………………………………………………..….1 CHAPTER 2: A STATE UNIVERSITY IN THE SERVICE OF DEMOCRACY: THE KINLEY PRESIDENCY, 1920-1930.…………………….…………………………...…..34 CHAPTER 3: DE-LOCALIZING THE PUBLIC IN A POST-WAR UNIVERSITY: THE STODDARD PRESIDENCY, 1946-1953.………..……………………..……………..….94 CHAPTER 4: A UNIVERSITY IN AN ERA OF ACADEMIC CAPITALISM AND GLOBALIZATION: THE WHITE PRESIDENCY, 2005-2009.…………………………..….148 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION: LOOKING FORWARD.…….…………………………...…..205 REFERENCES.….……………………………………………………………………………..224 iv CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION It ought always to be remembered, that literary institutions are founded and endowed for the common good, and not for the private advantage of those who resort to them for education. It is not that they may be able to pass through life in an easy or reputable manner, but that their mental powers may be cultivated and improved for the benefit of society. If it be true no man should live for himself alone, we may safely assert that every man who has been aided by a public institution to acquire an education and to qualify himself for usefulness, is under peculiar obligations to exert his talents for the public good. - Joseph McKeen, 18021 American higher education institutions have long been considered public. Even during the nineteenth century, university leaders, including Bowdoin’s President McKeen, claimed that colleges were social institutions with the primarily role of serving the public. The very nature of their founding and endowment, McKeen explained, corresponded to this public function. From McKeen’s time to the present, higher education leaders have made similar claims about the public nature of the college and university. The breadth of these claims increased with the development of the American research university and its mission of teaching, research and service. While fulfilling this expansive mission provides more than public benefits, the university’s societal role and expectations of return on public support promote the idea that the university is a public institution. However the university’s relationship to the public evades simple characterization and generalization. Instead it is a highly contingent phenomenon, shaped and limited by institutional particularities and historical and contemporary contexts. The diverse and evolving nature of the university’s relationship to the public ensures that it is never possible to speak definitively of the 1 Quoted in Frederick Rudolph, The American College and University: A History, 2nd ed. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1990), 58-59. 1 university and its public; it is more accurate to speak of universities and their publics. Doing so acknowledges the multiplicity of institutions and the diverse ways in which they relate to different, often changing, publics. But an attempt to comprehend such multiplicity may devolve into a cacophony of exceptions and nuances, and the question of the university and its public— often an inquiry into the raison d’être of the university itself—becomes obscured. This difficulty can be remedied by focusing on the case of one university over time. An approach of this sort reveals in concrete terms the ways in which institutional and contextual factors can influence the relationship between a university and the public. Its focus not only has value as a means to understand this relationship in the case of the institution that is the object of the study, specific examples also historicize and thus de-naturalize assumptions about the relationship of the university and the public writ large. Recognizing the utility of such an approach, this dissertation explicates the relationship between the university and the public through an examination of the University of Illinois. It considers how this relationship was articulated by presidents of the university during three different times in U.S. history: the late Progressive Era/interwar period, the immediate post- World War II era, and the early years of the twenty-first century. The institutionally focused approach of this study is not intended to suggest that the University of Illinois should be seen as typical of the university, or even of U.S. public doctorate-granting universities with very high levels of research.2 An analysis of another public university of this type, a private peer, or an institution of another kind, such as a master’s degree granting university or a community college, would likely lead to conclusions that differ significantly. 2 In the current Carnegie Classifications, Illinois is placed in the “RU/VH: Research Universities (very high research activity)” class. “RU/VH,” Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, accessed September 15, 2014, http://classifications.carnegiefoundation.org/lookup_listings/srp.php?clq={%22basic2005_ids%22%3A%2215%22}&start_page =index.php. Although the scope and scale of research and graduate education expanded tremendously over the course of the 20th century, Illinois was a leading institution in both of these areas throughout the period under consideration. 2 Instead, the choice of the University of Illinois is based on its appropriateness to the question of the university and its public. It proceeds from Illinois’ status as a public research university. Founded