Ivory towers and nationalist minds: The university in American political development, 1862--1920.

In this project, I employ a series of comparative historical case studies of higher education institutions to consider the role of universities and research based expertise in the reform and expansion of the American government at the turn of the twentieth century. This era of building a new American state is significant for contemporary institutions, credentials, requirements, and expectations of expertise and higher education evolved from this era and their founding premises still define the parameters and the procedures that influence politics and policy today. Focusing upon coordination between academic leaders and government officials, I examine the importance of higher education institutions in the development, formation, and implementation of public policy. Concentrating on universities specifically, I consider the general question of how governmental authority is vested in ideas and institutions. Working from the assumption that the state itself is not fully equipped to substantiate and perpetuate the intellectual and institutional basis of its own authority, I explore the role national non-governmental institutions play in the establishment and furtherance of governmental authority. University based experts are regularly called upon to advise lawmakers and shape policy. Current reliance upon and standards of expertise can be traced to the development of universities. Yet we often take for granted the authority of university-based credentials and their influence upon setting these national standards. However, while this relationship between universities, governments, and expertise may seem obvious today, there was nothing inevitable about it. Universities needed to demonstrate their usefulness and relevance in a rapidly changing society. Understanding how universities worked closely with one another as partners and agents of government sheds light on the development of public policy, and highlights the importance of coordination and entrepreneurship in the implementation of reform.PhDAmerican historyEducationEducation historyHigher educationPolitical scienceSocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/132850/2/9990950.pd