This dissertation surveys the development of the Hawaiian higher educational system in the 19th century Hawaiian Kingdom as a strategy of Hawaiian leadership in promoting and protecting Hawaiian independence. This analysis revisits a Hawaiian educational history canon that overwhelmingly credits missionaries and foreigners as imposing an…

This dissertation delves into the profound impact of the Second Great Awakening on American higher education and its enduring social consequences. Examining the period from the late eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century, the research uncovers the core belief that drove the Awakening--that America and its citizens were chosen for a…

The value of business school pedagogy has received increased attention in recent years (Delgado and Stefancic, 1992; Giacalone and Wargo, 2009; Podolny, 2009; Grier & Poole, 2020; Prieto & Phipps, 2021). This qualitative study examined the ability of higher education business faculty to include chattel slavery in the history of American…

The Morrill Act of 1862 provided the funding mechanism for the modern land-grant college system. In the over 160 years since its passage, the tripartite land-grant mission of teaching, research, and service has become the most recognizable legacy of the legislation. Recent scholars of land-grant education caution against viewing the history of…

To understand why Native American members are hesitant to enroll in higher education, it is necessary to understand this population's barriers to achieving this goal. Degree attainment by American Indians has remained consistently low while other minority groups have consistently risen. The focus of this qualitative single-case study was on…

This study examines the history of international academic exchanges in the United States, with a particular focus on study abroad programs, as well as the hiring of international faculty. The research focuses on international academic exchanges' activities based at a cluster of four institutions and considers these international academic…

When discussing college student voice, the historical narrative has generally focused on large-scale student activism as the definitive medium through which students expressed their beliefs. However, this inevitably leaves more subtle forms of student expression left uninterrogated, specifically in the South, and other areas of the country where…

It is widely recognized that religious groups played a key role in founding institutions of higher education before the early 20th century. However, until now, scholars have lacked the detailed data required to articulate how those denominations' early commitments to higher education shaped the system of colleges and universities we know today.…

LGBTQ history within the US South is rich and diverse though it has remained mostly absent from mainstream and academic narratives around LGBTQ history generally. In recent years, there has been a growing effort to location, preserve, research and make accessible to the community the history of the Queer and Trans South. Despite stereotypes of the…

Historically Black Colleges and Universities are institutions that contribute to the higher education of people of African descent. The archives of enslaved and freed people describe their systematic approach to education, highlighting the ways that Black communities in America engaged in teaching and learning. Despite enslavement and forced…

Disabled individuals in Western history have encountered barriers, both physical and attitudinal, that limit their potential in society. These barriers are both constructed intentionally and unintentionally, according to disability studies. They have been unintentionally built as the disabled have been specifically excluded, making the need for…

During the 2016 elections and the Trump administration, the fight against interlocking systems of oppression--from white supremacy, to transphobia, misogyny, and xenophobia--occupied dominant and minoritized cultural imaginaries, on the news, in fictional representations, on social media. As some outlets even denied the existence of these…

Highlighting the relationship between the racial slavery in the formation of U.S. colleges and universities and the archive of Black student revolt, this dissertation examines one of the longest and most violent Black student strikes in the history of postsecondary education--the San Francisco State College strike in 1968-1969. Rather than…

Purpose: This article explores the expressed thoughts and feelings of 24 research participants who processed and articulated their lived experiences. They each attended the same private, religious, historically, and predominantly White institution and participated in a three-credit course that covered the history of the Civil Rights Movement of…

This dissertation contains three chapters, each investigating a question in American economic history. The first chapter is co-authored with Ran Abramitzky, Santiago Perez, and Joseph Price. In this work, we conduct a large-scale digitization of historical college registers, encompassing 2.7 million students at 65 elite US universities. We use…