3. How did the American professoriate change and in what ways did the American Association of University Professors contribute to that change?
During this time there was a new idea surrounding academic professionalism that was essential to the creation of a university professoriate. The gradations of rank and promotion which included instructor, assistant professor, associate professor, and full professor, became the standard. The ranks were tied to the institution that is conferring tenure and the privileges of academic freedom to professors who had gained promotion. Academic freedom was institutionalized beyond the individual campus with the creation of the American Association of University Professors. This group intended to provide assurance and redress for faculty members who claimed that their academic rights had be violated by irate presidents or irritable board members (Thelin, 2004, 128).
The formation of the American Association of University Professors paved the way for tremendous change. The American college and universities, in their development from simple institutions to complex organizations, replaced the old time professor with the academician. These people were trained specialists who knew the rights and privileges and responsibilities of his profession (Rudolph, 1990, 417).
The structure of the colleges and universities in that time made room for an extremely professionalized faculty and for a governing board who professional competence laid outside the main interests of the institution itself (Rudolph, 1990, 427). This governing board gave professors a body that watched out for their best interests, instead of only caring about what was good for each college and university. This allowed professors to have some protections set forth in them doing their daily jobs. It protected them from the whims of the administrators who were having bad days and wanted someone, anyone to take it out on.
4. Which were the prominent new institutions of this period and...
The men with PhD degrees were beginning to overtake their less fully trained colleagues at many colleges and universities. Between 1888 and 1895 men with doctorate degrees moved into the majority. The effort of colleges and universities to employee an increasing number of instructors who wore the badge of
scholarship was widespread. The better institutions, those with prestige and the
money necessary to pay the higher price which the doctorate demanded, were the first to hire these people, but in time the vast majority of American universities would be geared to producing all the doctors of
philosophy that were needed (Rudolph, 1990, 396).
Despite the fact that the United States made a rather late entrance into World War I, its commitment was widespread. College presidents were very supportive of the national war effort, but at the same time they worried that enlistments and the military draft would cut considerably into college enrollments and their normal operations. Student enlistments in the armed forces varied greatly from campus to campus. At Harvard and Yale, enrollments dropped by 40%, while on the west coast only about 10% of students at Stanford left school for
military service (Thelin, 2004, 199).
Despite the varying degrees of campus military participation, all college presidents expressed a mixture of public support for the war effort and private concern about its impact on the survival of their institution. Given the reliance on enrollments and tuition payments for survival, President Woodrow Wilson established the Student Army Training Corps to provide on campus training programs for cadets and officers to help ease these fears (Thelin, 2004, 200).
References
Rudloph, F. (1990). The American College and University. Athens: The…
