Throughout early June into July, 25 faculty from universities nationwide participated in a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Institute for Higher Education, Unpacking the History of Higher Education in the United States, hosted by George Mason University. Made possible by an NEH grant, this four-week institute brought together faculty, advanced doctoral students, librarians, and archivists who teach or support courses on the history of higher education. Through interactive workshops and off-site visits to various universities in the area, participants explored many kinds of primary sources that historians use to study the past to learn effective strategies for engaging students with these sources.
Kelly Schrum, professor in the Higher Education Program, Nate Sleeter, research assistant professor in the Department of History and Art History and director of educational projects at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, and Chase Catalano, associate professor at Virgnia Tech’s School of Education led the participants along this journey, emphasizing that history of higher education courses will remain essential and valuable for students pursuing careers in higher education settings.
“This is easily the first institute of this kind, not only at Mason but nationwide,” Schrum said. “While these courses should be taught by historians, the majority of instructors lack a background in history. We had a strong desire for people who are not trained historians to dive into this content,” says Schrum.
During their time in the institute, participants visited four universities: Howard University, Georgetown University, Gallaudet University, and Northern Virginia Community College. They observed and explored primary sources from the archives of each university, including George Mason, learning about its history and bettering their understanding of the historical research process.
“What’s heartening about it is that they became advocates of history, ready to infuse it into new and familiar spaces,” Sleeter said. “The participants embraced the history and primary resources, which is evident in each of their projects.”
The site visits easily created the biggest impact as they encouraged participants to view each institution’s history through different lenses and foster the growth of their perspectives on the history of higher education in their own universities and nationwide. Their individual research projects reflected this newfound understanding of history and its capabilities in the classroom.
Brooke Hildebrand Clubbs, assistant professor and coordinator of the higher education administration MA program at Southeast Missouri, walked out of the institute with a new toolkit of techniques to teach with. “We tend to focus on one chronological timeline when teaching the history of higher education. This institute encouraged me to expand that timeline, tell more stories, and intentionally incorporate history throughout all the classes in our Higher Education Administration MA program,” she said.
The impact of this institute presents itself in the participants’ research projects and future endeavors. Clubbs’ research project centered around the history of Southeast Missouri University. She is collaborating with two other institute participants on further research in cultivation theory as it applies to depictions of various populations in films that have college settings. Numerous projects from other participants will be added to an Open Educational resource (OER) on the History of Higher Education while others will be presented at upcoming conferences, including the History of Education Society and the American Historical Association.
“We wanted to get faculty members excited about and comfortable with exploring the archives at their own universities. We believed we could help them with that first step of breaking down the barrier between themselves and their school’s librarians and archivists by equipping them with the right skills through this institute,” Sleeter said.
This program also provided participants with an opportunity to expand their networks across the country. “This is a small field with room to grow. The connections institute participants made with each other offer exciting possibilities for future collaboration and ongoing conversations about teaching and learning the history of higher education,” Schrum says.
The institute's planning committee would like to especially thank the College of Humanities and Social Sciences for their support in making the program a success.
July 24, 2024