Inspired by participation in the 2014 version of the Stewardship of Public Lands seminar, hosted by the Yellowstone Association Institute and sponsored by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities' American Democracy Project, the author's first goal was the creation of a "Sophomore Seminar" course themed on "Parks,…

This book explores tensions between "critical social justice" and what the author terms "white justice as fairness" in public commemoration of Minnesota's US-Dakota War of 1862. First, the book examines a regional "white public pedagogy" demanding "objectivity" and "balance" in…

This article takes a historical view of Dawes Era medical communication, focusing on National Archives Record Group 75 (the Bureau of Indian Affairs papers). Examinations of reports from the Pine Ridge and Nett Lake Agencies focus readers' scrutiny on prevalent formal codes and paracolonial conventions of Indian Bureau medical reports. This…

Claiming that free speech is dying on American campuses, a conservative think tank has led an effort to push states to adopt a model bill that, in the name of defending campus free speech, risks undermining it. This report seeks to understand the context and content of the "campus free-speech" movement, to track its influence within…

Most narratives of teacher activism began at the turn of the twentieth century. Though historians acknowledge the formation of earlier local associations, they tend to dismiss them as merely "social organizations." The clubs that teachers formed between the 1870s and 1890s were indeed social, but the author argues that their social…

Design for America was a "reconstructionist" course conducted at the Floodwood (Minnesota) high school in 1944. Directed by Theodore Brameld, this one-semester curriculum demonstrated how young people could democratically consider dimensions of postwar American society. Implications for current educational reforms promoting social change…

This paper explores the proposition that if American higher education has been broadly successful in serving its society, it is in large part because American colleges and universities, and the system of which they are part, were created under conditions of weakness, both academic and financial. (Contains 12 notes.)

This paper examines the history of Minnesota's policies in higher education from the end of World War II to the present with emphasis on policies concerning coordination and governance. The paper summarizes decisions and recommendations and analyzes trends to gauge their effects and effectiveness over this time period. The paper begins with a…