Oral History at SUNY College at Old Westbury

Experiments is a fascinating web site that provides a digital history focusing on the early years of SUNY College at Old Westbury.  The institution was founded in 1968 to offer a flexible learning environment and attract students with a concern for social justice.  Resources on the site include oral history videos and transcripts, photographs and a number of primary source documents.

For Resources relating to the History of Women in Higher Education...checkout The Greenfield Digital Center

I would encourage everyone to check out the website of the The Albert M. Greenfield Digital Center for the History of Women's Education.  The Center's mission statement indicates that it serves as an online locus of scholarship on the history of women’s higher education.  The site includes access to teaching modules, digital exhibits, and a primary source collection of posters, news articles, and other items.

Among the digital exhibits, two of interest were A Purposeful Vision: Margaret Bailey Speer and Yenching University and At School, At Work, At Play: Gender Complexities at the First Southern Coeducational Institution.

The first of these exhibits explores the life of Speer primarily through her letters starting with her youth, then moves through her years at Bryn Maur, her 18 years of service in China, and concludes with her return to the United States.  She first traveled to Yenching University in 1925 at the age of 25 and her insights built through her travel and many contacts are fascinating to read.

The experiences of women in various aspects of life at Berea College provide the core of the second exhibit, developed as a collaborative project of an English class at the institution in 2012.

 

Need to Explore the Contributions of Women Religious in Catholic Higher Education

I enjoyed Katherine Greiner's article posted October 22, 2014 at Daily Theology, "A College of One’s Own: The Need to Explore the Contributions of Women Religious in Catholic Higher Education."  Greiner offers a strong argument that women deserve more historical and theological consideration.  The article also includes a link to an interesting interview by Mary Ann Walsh with  President Patricia McGuire, of Trinity Washington University.

Mundelein College and the Legacy of Catholic Women's Higher Education

Monica L. Mercado authored an excellent post, Crossings and Dwellings: Mundelein College and the Legacy of Catholic Women's Higher Education in Chicago on the Religion in American History blog that focuses on the question of why we might want to care about Mundelein College or other similar institutions?

Mercado includes a number of links to other interesting resources, including one to the Albert M. Greenfield Digital Center for the History of Women's Education at Bryn Mawr College where she serves as director.

San Jose City College (CA)

Dianna Escalante of The City College Times authored a historical sketch of San Jose City College posted October 28, 2014 that outlines the various moves and changes since the institution was founded in 1921. The name was changed to San Jose City College in 1958.

Calvin College in Cleveland, OH

The ad above for Calvin College in Cleveland, OH can be found in the American College and Private School Directory, 1890.  The institution was affiliated with the Reformed Church in the United States and operated from 1863 until 1899.  Initially the language of instruction was German.  Robert P. Swierenga offers a historical sketch on his web site that first appeared in the Association for Advancement of Dutch American Studies Newsletter 2 (Spring 2002). 

The Common Fund and College Endowments...several documents of interst

Within the history of higher education there are relatively few books or essays devoted to college endowments.  I've stumbled across a couple, Stanley King's History of the Endowment of Amherst College and Philanthropy in the History of American Higher Education by Jesse Brundage Sears.  I find this interesting given the focus on money in so many conversations involving higher education that Roger L. Geiger summed up in his essay, "The Era of Multipurpose Colleges in American Higher Education" when he noted that "Colleges apparently had only vague notions about their likely income and expenditures.   Given good intentions and congenital optimism, college overspent virtually every year..."  

Three interesting resources are available on the Common Fund web site that help fill part of the void.

You can find A Common Vision: Working in Partnership for the Benefit of All 1971-1996.  A 1993 Commonfund publication, The Growth of College Endowments 1960-1990 is available and there is a study of a single institution in the Case History: The Spelman College Endowment.

United Methodist Institutions, 1784-1976

To Give the Key of Knowledge: United Methodists and Education, 1784-1976 includes a wealth of information and it is available as a .pdf file through ERIC.  The volume was published in 1976 by the National Commission on United Methodist Higher Education in Nashville, TN.  T. Michael Elliott, Diane Dillard, Renee Loeffler, and Kent M. Weeks were the authors.

The authors initially offered a historical sketch of Methodist involvement in higher education.  This is followed by chronological histories of institutions affiliated with the United Methodist Church.  There are also histories of institutions currently and formerly related to the Church and histories of institutions once related to the Methodist Church that were no longer operating at the time the book was written.

The appendix includes a timeline and several summary tables.  The merged data for colleges and universities follows:

Summary for the United Methodist Church (UMC)

	1784 - 1828	1829 - 1860	1861 - 1899	1900 - 1976	Totals
# Foundings:
Current UMC Colleges and Universities	7	57	87	16	167
Former UMC Colleges and Universities Currently Operating	4	18	20	3	45
Former UMC Colleges and Universities Now Closed	8	169	143	18	338
# Closings
Current UMC Colleges and Universities	- -	- -	- -	- -	- -
Former UMC Colleges and Universities Currently Operating	- -	- -	- -	- -	- -
Former UMC Colleges and Universities Now Closed	3	43	202	88	336
# Disaffiliations
Current UMC Colleges and Universities	- -	- -	- -	- -	- -
Former UMC Colleges and Universities Currently Operating	0	0	7	30	37
Former UMC Colleges and Universities Now Closed	0	5	15	20	40
# Mergers
Current UMC Colleges and Universities	0	6	15	40	61
Former UMC Colleges and Universities Currently Operating	0	1	3	2	6
Former UMC Colleges and Universities Now Closed	0	0	1	1	2
# Remaining with UMC at End of Period
Current UMC Colleges and Universities	7	59	130	170	366
Former UMC Colleges and Universities Currently Operating	4	21	31	0	56
Former UMC Colleges and Universities Now Closed	5	131	71	0	207

History of Chapel Hill College (MO)

Robert A. "Tony" O'Bryan-Lawson's masters thesis, "Chapel Hill, Missouri: Lost Visions of American's Vanguard on the Western Frontier 1820-1865," is available as a .pdf through the University of Missouri's MOspace.

O'Bryan-Lawson is an exceptional writer and weaves together material from a variety of sources to explore the life of slave holding society in a small Missouri town on the western frontier and the factors leading A. W. Ridings to found an institution at Chapel Hill that operated for four decades.

The author also notes that in addition to a number of notable alumni, the impact of Chapel Hill College can be traced through other institutions.  A.W. Ridings later moved to Warrensburg, MO and was instrumental in the founding of a normal school that evolved to become the University of Central Missouri.  Some of the Chapel Hill faculty went on to teach at McGee College.

Mater Ecclesiae College in RI Closing

The Providence Journal published an article on October 9, 2014 indicating that Mater Ecclesiae College in Greenville, Rhode Island will be closing.

Hostos Community College [Bronx, NY]

An article by David Gonzalez of The New York Times on September 28, 2014 covered a birthday reception honoring Ramon J. Jimenez for his efforts in the mid-1970's in support of Hostos Community College.  Jimenez and others organized successful opposition to a proposed merger of the institution.  Their efforts helped pave the way for Hostos to continue as a bilingual institution.

Eugenio María de Hostos Community College was founded in 1968 and is now part of The City University of New York (CUNY) system.  Hostos currently serves over 7,000 students.