Scholars have been writing about the history of student life at colleges and universities in the United States for two centuries. As in the wider field of history of higher education, much of this scholarship before the 1960s focused narrowly on individual institutions and was overly celebratory of collegiate leaders. Frederick Rudolphâs 1962 The American College and University: A History began the reversal of this trend. Not only did Rudolph synthesize developments at multiple colleges and universities as well as critique nineteenth-century colleges, he also included three chapters devoted entirely to the extracurriculum, whichâalong with his publication in 1966 of an article emphasizing studentsâ role in shaping college culturesâplanted the seeds for more serious scholarly consideration of students within the larger history of higher education.1 In the years that followed, historians further enriched our understanding of campus life with studies of particular groups of students, including women, African Americans, and the poor ; specific organizations and activities, including fraternities and sororities, athletics, and political movements; and students at marginalized institutions of higher education, such as academies.2 In short, the field became more vibrant, with a stronger emphasis on understanding student life and behavior.
Two and a half decades after Rudolphâs pioneering work, Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz synthesized and extended research on the history of college students in one volume that covered multiple dimensions of campus life. Published in 1987, Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End of the Eighteenth Century to the Present quickly became and has remained a pivotal text.3 Although Horowitzâs approach was broad, her history did not incorporate all of the diversity of students, activities, and institutions that comprise higher education in the United States. In the 30 years since the publication of Campus Life, historians have continued to enrich and extend the field through in-depth considerations of groups of students and elements of their lives on campus.4 Thus, we think it is time for a new volume that captures the breadth of campus lifeâs history, and we offer this collection to update historical understandings of being a college student.
In the chapter that follows this Introduction, âTrends in the Historiography of American College Student Life: Populations, Organizations, and Behaviorsâ (Chapter 2), Michael Hevel and Heidi Jaeckle use Horowitzâs Campus Life as the launching point for their analysis of the field. They explain that Horowitzâs framework of âdistinct ways of being an undergraduateââcollege men and women , outsiders, and rebelsâallowed her to present an overview history of student populations, organizations, and behaviors over a long span of time. In the three decades since Campus Life, Hevel and Jaeckle further explain, historians have provided more insights into Horowitzâs student groups while also adding nuance to this categorization. Hevel and Jaeckle outline how historians have broadened their focus on student populations to include not only African American and female but also Asian American, Latino, and LGBTQ students, as well as students who attended non-prestigious types of institutions not prominent in Horowitzâs work, such as female seminaries and state normal schools. Regarding college student organizations, Hevel and Jaeckle describe how works published in recent decades have delved into the history of student societies, fraternities and sororities, religious organizations, and the student affairs administrators who oversaw them. They also discuss how historians have recently investigated student behaviors, including dating and sexual expression as well as singing, to trace changes in US society.
Hevel and Jaeckle end their chapter with the observation that the ensemble of recent scholarship moves far beyond Horowitzâs work to provide a more complete account of the history of student life. Nevertheless, they add, Campus Life has remained the only book that offers a cohesive synthesis of this topic for 30 years. Our intention in this volume is to provide a new comprehensive look at historical understanding of campus life, not through one sustained narrative, but through a collection of chapters covering a range of topics, many of which move beyond even Hevel and Jaeckleâs well-informed discussion of recent historiography. Taken as a whole, this collection captures at least some of the complexity of the history of campus life that is continually emerging through new scholarship in the field.
The ten chapters that follow Hevel and Jaeckleâs comprehensive overview present new interpretations of traditional topics in the field, original analyses of institutions that historians of college students have tended to overlook, deeper work on marginalized student groups, and innovative research on new areas of the history of student life. While Greek-letter organizations are well-trod territory in scholarship, Nicholas Syrett and Margaret Freeman both use sophisticated gender analysis, with some attention to race, to offer new perspectives on the roles of fraternities and sororities, respectively, on campus. Along with Christine Ogrenâs look at campus life at state normal schools, Marc VanOverbekeâs analysis of the active student cultures at the state colleges that succeeded them and Nicholas Strohlâs discussion of research on student life at community colleges expand the range of institutional types in the historiography. Joy Williamson-Lottâs focus on historically black and predominantly white institutions in the South deepens understanding of African American studentsâ experiences, while Christopher Tudicoâs account of an organization for Mexican American students in California casts much-needed scholarly attention on students who have not been the focus of sustained historical scholarship. And Margaret Nash, Danielle Mireles, and Amanda Scott-Williamsâs exploration of the role of drag performances on campuses, Timothy Cainâs discussion of the history of student activism in relation to labor unions, and Adam Laatsâs look at student experiences and protests at evangelical colleges take historical research on college students in compelling new directions.
We considered organizing this volume by grouping the ten chapters into four sections corresponding to the categories of new work on established topics, scholarship on overlooked institutions, research on often-ignored student groups, and work in compelling new areas. However, we quickly realized that most of the chapters straddle boundaries between these categories. For example, the chapters that bring new types of institutions into the historiography also discuss underrepresented student groups as well as more traditional topics. While focusing on state colleges, which have been largely absent in the historiography, VanOverbeke addresses athletics and student protests, two traditional topics in the field. Student protests also are the focus of Williamson-Lottâs chapter on black students. Cain and Laats similarly discuss protests in areas not previously covered in the historiography, in relation to the larger US labor movement and among students at evangelical colleges. In short, these ten chapters defy rigid categorization because they make important contributions along multiple dimensions. So that we do not emphasize particular dimensions over others, we have ordered the ten chapters according to the chronological period they cover. Readers may find it helpful to keep in mind the four categories we outline above, as well as Hevel and Jaeckleâs categories of populations, organizations, and behaviors. Our discussion of common themes in the Conclusion may also be an appealing categorization for some readers, but Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 proceed chronologically, beginning with one that covers most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Chapter 3 covers the longest time span in the book. In ââWe Are Not So Easily To Be Overcomeâ: Fraternities on the American College Campus,â Syrett traces the history of traditionally white college fraternitiesâtheir ideals, commitments, and behaviorsâthrough the antebellum era, the late nineteenth century, the 1920s, and the postâWorld War II era. The chapter examines nearly 200 years of these fraternities from their founding in 1825 to the early twenty-first century, when they have found themselves in the news for violations of college and state laws surrounding hazing, drinking, and sexual assault. Syrett argues that fraternities have created a brotherhood that emphasizes exclusivit...