Higher Education in the American West Regional History and State Contexts

by Goodchild, Lester F.; Jonsen, Richard W.; Limerick, Patty; Longanecker, David A.

• ISBN13: 9781137381941
• ISBN10: 1137381949
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-03-20
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Higher Education in the American West offers the first comprehensive regional history of American higher education, examining the role of each state within four subregions, and demonstrates the importance of understanding the American West's role in higher education nationally. It concentrates on the fifteen-state western region served by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education compact. Spanning the years 1818 to 2013, campus and state leaders advanced the West's one thousand two hundred public and private institutions of higher learning through the rough founding pioneer days and later nineteenth-century land-grant expansion era to their communities and citizens, reaching contemporary acclaim as world-class research universities during the contemporary service era. The companion volume, Public Policy Challenges Facing Higher Education in the American West, further explores seven current-day regional policy issues in the fifteen western states.

Author Biography

Lester F. Goodchild is Distinguished Professor of International and Comparative Education and Advisor to the Provost at the University of Massachusetts Boston, USA, and Professor of Education, Emeritus, at Santa Clara University, USA.

Richard W. Jonsen is former Executive Director of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, USA. He currently teaches English as a Second Language at Front Range Community College, USA.

Patty Limerick is Faculty Director and Chair of the Board of the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado, USA, where she is also Professor of History.

David A. Longanecker is President of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, USA.

Table of Contents

Editors' Preface
Introduction; Lester F. Goodchild, Richard W. Jonsen, Patty Limerick, and David A. Longanecker
PART I: REGIONAL HISTORICAL AND COMPARATIVE VIEWS
1. Western College Expansion: Churches and Evangelization, States and Boosterism, 1818-1945; Lester F. Goodchild and David M. Wrobel
2. The Evolution of Institutions in the Westward Expansion; Arthur M. Cohen
3. Forty-Five Years in the Academic Saddle: The American West, Higher Education, and the Invitation to Innovation; Patty Limerick
PART II: STATE DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVES AND FEDERAL INFLUENCES, 1945-2013
4. Middle Border Region: Higher Education in Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming; Jason E. Lane and Francis J. Kerins, Sr.
5. History of Higher Education in the Southwest since World War II: Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah; William E. 'Bud' Davis
6. Higher Education in the Pacific West: Developments in Washington, Oregon, Hawaii, and Alaska; William E. 'Bud' Davis, Lester F. Goodchild, and David A. Tandberg
7. Higher Education in California: Rise and Fall; Patrick M. Callan
8. The Federal Government and Western Higher Education; David A. Longanecker
PART III: A CONCLUDING COMMENTARY
9. Afterword - Understanding the First Regional History of American Higher Education: The Spirit of Innovation; Lester F. Goodchild