Invented Tradition at Simon Fraser University

The scotsinbritishcolumbia blog published an interesting post on November 14, 2018 by Georgia Twiss, "A Tale of Two Simon Frasers: The Invented and Contested Scottish Tradition of SFU."  Twiss argues that "...most people assume the university’s name and Scottishness honour Simon Fraser, the nineteenth-century imperial explorer and fur trade...but in truth has little to do with Simon Fraser the Explorer at all."

Simon Fraser University was founded in 1965 and serves over 30,000 students through campuses in British Columbia's largest municipalities of Vancouver, Burnaby and Surrey.  Twiss comments that the "...naming of SFU was a fluke by way of an acronymic oversight. The original name, ‘Fraser University’, was chosen to reflect the region from where its student body would largely derive. However, upon the realization that the school would be colloquially referred to as “F.U,” the prefix “Simon” was added, with no direct statement as to whom it was meant to honour."

Twiss proceeds to describe steps followed by the university’s president, Patrick McTaggart-Cowan, as he created university traditions "...symbolizing a prestigious sense of historical continuity and heritage that was lacking..." in a new institution.

The post evolved from a poster presentation for Twiss' history honours seminar held in Spring 2018.

Readers with an interest in Canadian history should check out the Unwritten Histories blog maintained by Andrea Eidinger, Ph.D.  Eidinger's blog is "...dedicated to unraveling the mysteries of Canadian history as a field, discipline, and profession! Unwritten Histories is designed to be an accessible platform for Canadian historians and history enthusiasts, both in terms of resources, news, and access to a diverse community."  I found the post on Simon Fraser through her regularly distributed Canadian History Roundup that offers links to the "...latest in blog posts, news, and podcasts from the world of Canadian history."

Articles from Indiana Magazine of History Available Online

100 years of articles from The Indiana Magazine of History are available online an no charge.  The magazine is one of the nation's oldest historical journals and issues from 1905-2015 are now easily accessible.  Researchers can browse individual issues or search all the issues by topic.  The respective articles are then available for viewing online or they can be downloaded as .pdf files.

A sample of articles related to college history follows with links to the corresponding .pdf file:

• Volume 11, Issue 1, March 1915; "The Academies of Indiana" author: John Hardin Thomas.
• Volume 47, Issue 3, September 1951; "A College Freshman in 1858" author: Lawrence Wheeler.
• Volume 53, Issue 1, March 1957; "Smithson College Circular, 1871" editor: Donald F. Carmony.
• Volume 56, Issue 2, June 1960; "The Indiana Central Medical College,1849-1852" author: George B. Manhart.
• Volume 90, Issue 1, March 1994; "'The Diploma Pedler': Dr. John Cook Bennett and the Christian College, New Albany, Indiana" author: Andrew F. Smith.

Digital History Project is Featured

Jenny Barker-Devine, associate professor of history, and students in her digital history class are featured by Illinois College in "Students bring new app to Jacksonville community."  The post indicates that the class worked with the Clio app and website to identify key historical sites on the campus and in the community of Jacksonville, IL where the Illinois College is located.

You can enter "Jacksonville, IL" in the Clio search window to bring up four different tours:

• Downtown Jacksonville Illinios
  

  This is a short walking tour made possible by the work of students at Illinois College.
• Walldog Murals
  

  During the summer of 2006, Jacksonville Main Street hosted a group of professional sign painters called Letterheads to conceive and execute heritage-based art projects throughout Jacksonville's historic central business district. The result was...
• Looking For Lincoln: Jacksonville
  

  The companion tour for "Looking for Lincoln's" wayside exhibits in Jacksonville, IL.
• Historical Illinois College Campus Tour
  

  Because it was established in 1829, Illinois College's campus has a fascinating history. Its original campus buildings reflect IC's abolitionist heritage and its contributions to advancements in Illinois education. The more contemporary...

Snapshot of Black Higher Education in the 1920s

The U.S. Bureau of Education organized an extensive study of black colleges and universities that is available at no charge as a .pdf, "Survey of Negro Colleges and Universities, Bulletin 1928, No. 7," on the ERIC website.  

Dr. Arthur J. Klen, chief of the Division of Higher Education, served as the director for the survey with cooperation of seventy-nine higher education institutions, nineteen state departments, and several church foundations or educational boards.  Data gathering included visits to the institutions and the report presents a detailed picture of life on the campuses through text and tables.  The survey certainly serves as an authoritative source of information on black higher education in the 1920s.

1890 Commencement Program for Lansley Business College

The Heirlooms Reunited blog posted an entry February 7, 2016 that reproduces the pages from an 1890 commencement program of Lansley Business College in Elizabeth, NJ.  Lansley was founded in 1872.  The pages include a brief history of the institution and biographical information on the founder.

Pam Beveridge created the fascinating site.  There are a number of labels organizing various posts into categories that include photographs, autograph albums, church or school memorabilia, etc.  Users are then directed to Google+ collections that are used as a creative way to organize the available resources.

Bethel at War...excellent example of a digital history and institutional stories

Chris Gehrz posted a description on The Pietist Schoolman blog of web pages devoted to the history of Bethel University during this past century.  Bethel at War 1914-2014 provides stories from a historical perspective of a small Midwestern college affiliated with the Baptist General Conference.

Bethel at War features essays, timeline, map, and information on many other references and resources.  

America's Lost Colleges...Historical Sketches of 200+ Institutions

Paul Batesel, a former colleague and emeritus professor of English at Mayville State University has created an amazing site devoted to the history of institutions that have closed.   

America's Lost Colleges includes separate pages for more than 270 institutions that can be reached from a central index of Lost Colleges by State.  Batesel conducted research using yearbooks and newspapers.  He also visited a quarter of the institutions.  Each institutional page includes a historical sketch, photographs, sources of information, and highlights intended to capture the soul or spirit of the learning community.

College History on Pinterest...#2

As noted in the previous post, I have enjoyed pinning over 690 images related to the history of colleges and universities and organizing them onto various boards by state or sector.  There are several institutions with quite a few interesting historical images and I've highlighted a few below:

The Historic Marygrove board for Marygrove College (MI) currently offers 50 images.

The Vintage Simmons Photos board by Simmons College (MA) currently has 70 images.

And the CCArchives board with photos of Columbia College (MO) includes 55 pinned images.

College History on Pinterest

I've been exploring use of Pinterest as a way to organize and share images of institutions that have closed.  Tools available through Pinterest make it easy to pin images found in searches and shorten the time needed when I want to return to an image or page.  As an example, one board is devoted to advertising where I pin images of things like post cards, newspaper ads, and even a matchbook cover or roadside sign that institutions used in their marketing campaigns.

A number of higher education institutions and their libraries or archives are also exploring use of Pinterest to expand awareness of their resources. This will be the first of several posts highlighting Pinterest boards containing images for those interested in history of colleges...watch for few more posts in the near future...or, explore Pinterest yourself and post a comment below with the names of other boards focusing on history of colleges and universities. 

Bluffton University (OH) Archives and Special Collections offers 13 boards with 126 pins that stand apart from most of the other boards with their focus on merchandise like beanies, pennants and thimbles.


Mount Holyoke College (MA) Archives and Special Collections probably has the most extensive presence on Pinterest with more than 1,400 images pinned on 46 boards documenting the institution's history.

Our Presbyterian Institutions 1913-1914

Our Presbyterian Institutions 1913-1914 is available in several formats through the Internet Archive.  The document includes brief descriptions of various institutions affiliated with the Presbyterian Church in the United States.  The map below gives an indication of where the institutions are or were located.

1896-97 College Year-Book and Athletic Record

Edwin Emerson's The College Year-Book and Athletic Record for the Academic Year 1896-97 is available in a variety of formats through the Internet Archive.  Short sketches are provided for colleges along with listings of cheers and yells, the results of athletic contests, and an index of faculty and administrators.

Bishop College (TX)

The Bishop College alumni association maintains a web site at http://www.bishopcollegealumni.com/. A historically black college, the institution operated from 1881 to 1988. It was founded in Marshall, Texas and later moved to Dallas. The Bishop College article at Wikipedia offers more information.

St. John's College (Kansas)

The St. John's College operated in Winfield, Kansas from 1893 to 1986. The city of Winfield maintains the campus as Baden Square and has successfully repurposed a number of the building for other community activities. Alumni maintain a web site at http://www.stjohnsalumni.org/.

There is also an unofficial web site at www.chuvala.com/sjc/.

Searching for Records of Closed Catholic Women's Colleges

Fernanda Perrone's paper, Vanished Worlds: Searching for the Records of Closed Catholic Women's Colleges, summarizes results of a survey of the archives of 36 Roman Catholic women's colleges that closed or merged with other institutions after 1967. The author notes that many of the archives are held by the religious communities that originally sponsored the colleges. She also notes that the "...archives are rich resources on the history of women, education, religion, and culture that to some degree have been neglected by scholars who have focused on the history of colleges that are still open." The paper includes a table with information on the various archives and their location and was published in Archival Issues, Vol. 30, No. 2, 2006.

Why do colleges fail?

On the Brink of Disaster? an article in August 2009 by David J. Koon on the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy website explores issues facing private higher education. Koon cites statistics from the Department of Education’s Digest of Educational Statistics indicating that only 185 independent four-year institutions shut down between 1977 and 2007. He calculates about an 89 percent survival rate over three decades and comments that most of those that closed were small, relatively unknown colleges with enrollments of fewer than 100 students.

Koon cites an interesting paper, "Why do colleges fail? An analysis of college and university closings and mergers, 1975-2005," written by Stephen R. Porter and Trina J. Ramirez of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Iowa State University. These researchers started with the private colleges listed in the 1973 Carnegie classification of institutions and then explored why 10% of these institutions no longer existed as stand-alone institutions by 2005. The work of Porter and Ramirez challenges some commonly held perceptions used to explain why certain institutions are in difficulty.

YMCA Universities and Evening Law Schools

Dr. Dorothy Finnegan, Associate Professor of Higher Education at William & Mary, offers links to several articles that explore the influence of the YMCA and YWCA in higher education.

Carnegie Libraries on Campus

Judy Aulik maintains an interesting site with many images of library postcards. She has added a page with images of Carnegie Libraries that were built on college and university campuses.

Colleges Play the Name Game

See Kim Clark's interesting article, Colleges Play the Name Game, posted 9/17/09 at U.S. News & World Report.

The article includes a quiz where you can test you knowledge of institutional name changes and receive a score to compare with those of your friends and neighbors.

Time to Close the College?

Inside Higher Ed offers an interesting article, "Time to close the College?" by Alice Brown. The author summarizes key findings and offers advice from her research looking into the decision making processes used by four closed institutions. A more complete report will be published by the Jessie Ball duPont Fund in the near future.

College-to-University Name Changes

An interview with Dr. James Owston from June 9, 2009 is now available on the West Virginia Public Broadcasting website. Dr. Owston conducted research for his dissertation on "college to

university" name changes or rebranding and maintains a web site with links to his dissertation and a variety of other resources.