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…

Literature exploring postsecondary undergraduate student experiences at the nexus of queerness, trans*ness, and Indigeneity remains relatively scant, as does scholarship taking a geospatial lens to understand the experiences of trans* collegians. Given the settler colonial history of higher education as a field and the colonial nature of the…

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…

The history of higher education in the United States is deeply rooted in colonialism. The communication discipline and the field of communication, teaching, and learning find themselves unable to completely sever their ties to settler/colonialism, white supremacy, and other dehumanizing ideologies. As the authors navigate the complexities of…

This paper documents how segregation between Black students and White students across U.S. colleges has evolved since the 1960s, explores potential channels through which changes occur, and studies segregation across majors within colleges. The main findings are: (1) Black-White dissimilarity fell sharply in the late 1960s and early 1970s and has…

This project report describes the process of a team of undergraduate researchers (Chemistry and Nursing majors), who analyzed 20th-century medical kits housed at The Columbus Museum (Columbus, GA, USA). Curators and museum personnel were unfamiliar with the contents and needed assistance in identifying the various chemical contents. Items were…

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.…

Asian American Rhetoric and Representation was a graduate-level course taught at Virginia Tech in 2019. The course overviewed disciplinary conversations and concerns in and around Asian American rhetorical studies over time, with a focus on the affordances of Asian American rhetorical theory for the study of rhetoric and writing more broadly.…

This article explores how primary sources can be used to teach students about race and racism. Researchers co-taught a general education class on Critical Race Theory and utilized a combination of primary and secondary sources. This article includes a review of relevant literature that informed the development of this class and one major…

Educational research, policy, advocacy organizations, and higher education policy scholars, have noted the significance of race-conscious admissions in the dismantling of the structural and material racial and class barriers that reflect the historical role of colleges and universities. In this essay, the author enacts a different reading of the…

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…

In this critical historical analysis, "Higher Education for American Democracy" is considered a historical artifact, and its veneration as a landmark quest for equal opportunity in higher education is challenged. I argue that this report and the institutional expansion that resulted positioned the federal government to have a direct role…

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…