Colleges and Universities Books

Anyone who has ever attended a Notre Dame home football game will LOVE this book! The pictures and commentary reflect the excitement and awe-inspiring weekends you've ever spent on campus! We are ND!

With this easy to carry book, you can take a tour of the Texas A&M Campus and learn about the history and traditions of the Aggies. Great for carrying on a walking tour, but even if you aren't in College Station, you can still follow the tour at home. For parents of Aggies, you can see the buildings where your son or daughter goes to class everyday.

I have in my hand the guide to my future. If you are interested in Fordham, and are wondering if it's really for you, then check out this guide. $10 or however much it costs is nothing compared to the information you will recieve, and the peace of mind you will feel when you decide on what school you want to go to.

The title for my review is the subtitle of this work, sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The focus of this book is to explore what it takes to form scholars from the raw material of graduate students in doctoral programs.

Tasks to be carried out to create effective scholars include the development of professional identities among students, to encourage scholarly integration (developing linkages among teaching, service, and research), development of intellectual community, a sense of stewardship (preserving the best of the past of one's discipline and looking to the future to move ahead in productive directions).

Among specific issues addressed are: What are the real purposes of the dreaded comprehensive exams (and subsidiary questions, such as can we get the result we want in a different way?); What is the purpose of the dissertation (And are there ways to make this process work better?).

One argument raised by the authors is the need to move from experience to expertise, recognizing the importance of "practice." Among means of achieving this might be: Working with multiple faculty, rather than the standard approach of one central advisor working with his/her doctoral students; Expect students to try out new ideas at professional meetings; Have students get involved in "professional service," such as serving on departmental committees, getting involved in service with the discipline; Collaborative learning (Would dissertation writing groups make sense?).

From time to time, it makes a lot of sense to revisit how we develop our next generation of doctoral students. This book identifies one approach (or set of approaches) to accomplishing that. This is not the final word, of course, but this book does provide the possibility of opening up discussion and looking at doctoral education with a fresh perspective. For that, this book is to be commended.

The American college was a frontier institution. It was designed to meet the needs of the pioneer community. Frederick Jackson Turner speaks of the aspect of perennial rebirth on the frontier. The colleges were just such a manifestation.

American colleges and universities were shaped by forces in American life. Colleges served as agents of cultural and religious advance. The unusually large number of small colleges constitute the most distinctive feature. No other country reveals such a multiciplicity of institutions. It has been held that it is the glory of the colleges that they are not concentrated in one vast university system. A principle cause of the number of colleges is the diversity of religious institutions.

American colleges bear a resemblance to English colleges. They differ, though, in that they are people's colleges. Colleges in the west were dependent on eastern support and in same instances, leadership. Illinois College relied upon a "Yale Band," Grinnell College an "Iowa Band" from Andover. Yale and Princeton stand out as the mother of colleges. Yale was in the Congregational sphere, Princeton in the Presbyterian sphere. There were other streams of Methodists and Baptists.

Legal foundations of 182 permanent colleges existed prior to the Civil War. The peak of the movement was in the 1850's. The American college was founded to meet the spiritual necessities of a new continent.

Prior to the revolution, there was a standing order in nine of the thirteen colonies and religion and state were treated as one. With the rise of the separation of church and state the way was opened to the founding of other colleges. Disestablishment took place in Massachusetts in 1833, in Connecticut in 1818, and in New Hampshire in 1819.

The right of private colleges to be free of legislative interference was developed in the Dartmough College case. Much of the impetus in founding colleges was the need for an educated ministry. The University of Virginia was founded in 1819 as a state university of a "revolutionary" type. State universities arose in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Maryland. In Maryland St. John's and Washington College remained as independent church colleges.

In Connecticut a church institution, Yale, served in lieu of a state university as a university of a "revolutionary" type. In Massachusetts Harvard was able to maintain its privileged position. Twenty-one state universities were founded before the Civil War. Ohio University became the first state university of a "revolutionary" type in the new states admitted to the union. One of the most successful state universities in the west before the Civil War was established in Michigan. The book contains maps, tables, an appendix listing the colleges by state, and a bibliography.

Harvard University was founded in 1636 and it is the oldest university in what is now the United States. Its traditions and organizational structure have had a profound influence on the development of higher education in America, and many of its graduates have been prominent figures in the history of the nation and the world. Samuel Eliot Morison, a member of Harvard's class of 1908 and one of the great American historians of the mid-twentieth century, wrote this book as a tribute to his alma mater on the occasion of its 300th anniversary. It was first published in 1935 and has been kept in print ever since.

Most universities have some sort of brochure or booklet that "tells their story," but this is no simple volume of that kind. In Morison's hands what might have been a narrow institutional account becomes a work of remarkably comprehensive scholarship. The founding of Harvard itself doesn't even appear until page 161, not until after Morison has treated the founding of universities in the Middle Ages, the story of Oxford and Cambridge in England, the intellectual development of early modern Europe, the rise of Puritanism, the social and economic climate of the early American colonies, and daily life in seventeenth-century New England.

The text is beautifully supplemented with many early woodcuts and engravings, as well as with modern maps and overlays showing the history of Harvard's buildings and grounds. And even beyond the main text, several lengthy appendices describe early New England immigrants who had university training, seventeenth-century publications on the history of the college, and the Spanish universities of Latin America that were modeled on the University of Salamanca. (Harvard is the oldest university in North America, but not in the Americas; that distinction today goes to the University of San Marcos in Lima, founded in 1551.)

If you enjoy the intellectual history of Europe, the history of education, the history of colonial America, stories of daily life in the seventeenth century, or if you are a Harvard graduate, you will derive much pleasure from Morison's rich and graceful volume.

Peterson's usually excellent college guide has become better than ever after I obtained a little known but trailblazing book on the significance to America of higher education called "West Point" by Norman Thomas Remick. EVERY college seeker and parent should read it before attempting to decide on a college. It's critical to enabling you avoid making a mistake that could change your life. It adds much more value to the great college guides such as "Peterson's 4 Year Colleges 2002". You'll feel much more informed, comfortable, and confident of your decisions.

Very comprehensive guide to colleges, with lots of information. I highly recommend it.

2005: I have 2 daughters in high school and we've all ready begun our college/university search. Seems like anytime we have a question about ANY school, this book is the first thing we pick up and open. "Peterson's" guide is proven invaluable in our quest for finding the 'right' school. 6 pounds make this book an armful to carry. 3091 pages of super fine paper (careful - they tear easily). A computer CD also accompanies the book with more in-depth college info. I like this book for several reasons. #1 - lots of colleges (2000+), with all/most major univerisities in every state included; #2 - arranged several different ways, alphabetical, by state, by major - thus making it easier to narrow down the choices; #3 - when looking up a specific school you'll find right under the school name a short paragraph with all pertinent info (tuition & fees, average test scores required, difficulty level to get in, campus setting, majors & minors, etc). What follows usually includes info on campus life, extra-curricular activities, the Greek system, and history of the school... and so much more. This book also contains phone #'s and e-mail addresses of the necessary contacts (admissions dept) at each school. Truly a great find if you're just starting your search on colleges.

Excellent. Robert O'Neil is the nation's foremost expert on the First Amendment. This is a brilliant look at free speech and the role of higher education. The role of free speech in higher education is in continual jeopardy and under constant scrutiny, a text like this could revolutionize the way you view free speech, the college community, and possibly the world. Of special note: O'Neil's discussion of the role of technology is particularly resonant.