John R. Thelin

Philanthropy and American higher education

1. Connecting Past and Present: Historical Background on American Philanthropy and Higher Education 2. Giving and Receiving: Major Philosophical Concepts and Theoretical Issues in Philanthropy 3. Philanthropists and Their Foundations 4. Endowments: Colleges and the Stewardship of Good Fortune 5. Government Relations and the Nonprofit Sector: Legislation and Policies in Philanthropy and Higher Education 6. Professionalization of Philanthropy: Fund Raising and Development 7. Colleges and Their Constituencies: New Directions in Philanthropy

Games Colleges Play

An essay review of: THE BIG GAME: COLLEGE SPORTS AND AMERICAN LIFE by Edwin H. Cady; REVENUES AND EXPENSES OF INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETIC PROGRAMS: ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL TRENDS OF RELATIONSHIPS 1970–1977 by Mitchell H. Raiborn. THE MONEY GAME: FINANCING COLLEGIATE ATHLETICS by Robert H. Atwell, and THE RECRUITING GAME: TOWARD A NEW SYSTEM OF INTERCOLLEGIATE SPORTS by John F. Rooney, Jr.

Archives and the Cure for Institutional Amnesia: College and University Saga as Part of the Campus Memory

College and university archivists face changes in their responsibilities that place at risk their ability to document the history of their institutions. Educational institutions that preserve, make known, and promote their history create a strong and lively institutional identity. This identity can be shaped and boosted through documenting history, traditions, campus buildings, and campus personalities as well as through the variety of materials collected by archivists. It is key for archivists in light of changing media and the burden of increased record keeping to keep a keen insight in finding materials that preserve institution identity and culture.

Campus Life Revealed: Tracking Down the Rich Resources of American Collegiate Fiction

Anyone who has ever attended a PowerPoint presentation about campus finances at a Board of Trustees meeting will be tempted to conclude that university budget reports are the paramount works of fiction in higher education because they often stretch credibility. This cynical yet limited impression needs to be tempered with the reminder that, in fact, we also are heirs to a rich tradition of thoughtful, perceptive writing about higher education. John E. Kramer’s The American College Novel (2004) itself may not be “great literature”—but it certainly is a great guide to the great and not-so-great fiction about American colleges and universities. For scholars who wish to understand the portrayal of American higher education in popular culture it is a prodigious, indispensable resource. This second edition, an update to his 1981 book, reviews 648 academic novels published through 2002, adding 223 novels to the 425 he annotated in the first edition. The book’s annotations are divided almost evenly by studentand staff-centered novels (319 of the former, 329 of the latter). Kramer’s purpose in compiling this annotated collection is twofold: for those who enjoy reading college novels for pleasure and for scholars who use college novels as a tool for understanding how higher education is perceived in American

Campus and Community: A World Turned Inside Out?

One of my favorite books about higher education is Burton Clark’s The Academic Life: Small Worlds, Different Worlds (1987). Its insights about the subtle contrasts among institutions and disciplines fascinate me. They also haunt me, even when I try to find sanctuary while watching television after having taught a late-night seminar. For example, a few years ago one episode of “Law and Order” featured a senior professor of physics who was charged with homicide. His plea to the jury was that, after all, his life had reached rock bottom. Although at one time he was considered a rising star, a contender for the Nobel Prize, in mid-career he had been driven to a life of crime. Why? Because he had suffered the ultimate insult: at physics conferences he was relegated to presenting his research papers at six o’clock on Friday evening. Who could really blame him for having committed murder?

The Search for Good Research: Looking for "Science" in All the Wrong Places.

Abstract: Higher-education research can benefit from the variety of forms, styles, and presentations which the scientific method allows. Traits of scientific research include: a crisp, graphic style of writing; reliance on a variety of information resources; the ability to triangulate statistical, visual, and literary data; the ability to connect past and present; and a dedication to useful research based on specific data which can be connected to wider trends.

Is the Ed School the Dead School?: Premature Obituaries for an Institution

Clifford and Guthrie’s “horizontal” history of schools of education provides a novel contribution to the history and sociology of the American university. Following detailed case studies at such institutions as Columbia, Stanford, Chicago, Berkeley, UCLA, and Michigan, these authors conclude that no school of education has been able to maintain a central, prominent place within a distinguished American university. This essay review critically examines their argument. It takes issue with their recommendation that education faculty ought to de-emphasize the social science research model.

Southern Exposure: House Histories with Room for a View

Abstract: This essay reviews five recent books about Southern universities that shed light both on the problem of writing official histories and on the evolution of higher education in this region. The author draws from the wealth of good new institutional histories to sketch a collective profile of the “Southern university,” its saga triumph over general apathy and hostility, and the “unfinished business” that remains in writing such histories.

Access and Excess: Selective College Admissions in Historical Perspective

Jerome Karabel’s The Chosen presents a fascinating story central to the American ritual of applying to college as a way to get ahead—or, to provide a hedge against downward mobility. To appreciate the full sweep of this saga about selective college admissions you should read all 711 pages of his book. And, if you wish to know how the current president of the United States, George W. Bush, managed to gain admission to Yale in 1964, turn to pages 344 and 345. Karabel’s main line of argument for almost a century of admissions at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton is that established elites have had the liberty to define—and redefine—“merit” to fit their self-interests. Hence, they have been able to control who is admitted to prestigious undergraduate colleges. Abusing this power to create quotas was neither illusory nor accidental. It was a deliberate policy set by Abbott Lawrence Lowell, president of Harvard from 1909 to 1934. In the 1920s the mechanism that enabled this abuse was the new consideration of “character” in evaluating students’ applications. Reference letters and personal data ostensibly about an applicant’s “character” were used to exclude students on the basis of ethnicity, class, and religious affiliation. Crucial to the intriguing story is that Lowell had good company among his counterpart presidents at Princeton and Yale in these practices.

Professionalization of Philanthropy: Fund-Raising and Development

The practice of philanthropy includes both the raising and the giving of money. Indeed, one could argue that it always has. While money is sometimes given without having been asked for, such giving tends to be episodic and small scale. Moreover, it tends to resemble almsgiving or charity more closely than the organized giving and receiving of money that is the practice of philanthropy. While charity performs an important function in relieving human misery, philanthropy requires giving on a larger, more sustained scale as it addresses the root causes of social ills and seeks to reform society in order to enhance the quality of life for all of its members.